Santoro: With GSR arena, Pack abandons tradition, history and memories

Sports Fodder:

The Nevada Wolf Pack’s proposed men’s basketball arena in the parking lot of the Grand Sierra Resort is yet another example of the university trying too hard. “It will create what I think is the greatest sports venue in the country,” Nevada president Brian Sandoval said. Really? The greatest sports venue in the country? Which country? The one inside the McCarran circle? The Wolf Pack will move from Lawlor Events Center, its home of countless, unforgettable memories the last 40 years, to an antiseptic new shopping mall of an arena in a casino parking lot between two freeways. They will abandon a convenient venue on campus a few steps away from its classrooms to a casino where students will need to hop on a shuttle just to get there and back. Pack fans will now be forced to transition from simply walking across the street after games to the Little Waldorf Saloon, the place where Pack memories drip from the walls and ceiling and where their parents and grandparents also celebrated Pack glories or drowned their sorrows in beer mugs, to sitting in a casino bar with a bunch of gamblers from Sacramento or Utah. But none of this should surprise anyone. When, after all, has the University of Nevada actually cared about its own traditions or history unless, of course, it was trying to tug on your heartstrings in an effort to get you to part with some of your paycheck or retirement funds? Now they are simply and efficiently ignoring the heartstrings and going straight to your purse strings. So, yes, we are not surprised at all to see the university teaming up with an out-of-town casino owner and abandoning its traditions, history and memories. Traditions, history and memories don’t, after all, pay the bills. Or pay the new prospective point guards and power forwards.

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Jake Lawlor is turning over in his … well, nobody cares about Jake Lawlor up on North Virginia Street anymore. They probably think Jake Lawlor was some old Wild West sheriff in Reno in the 1800s. Jake Lawlor, after all, isn’t putting money in the Pack pockets to pay point guards and power forwards. Basketball coach Steve Alford said the new arena will allow his program to recruit “a whole ’nother level of athlete.” Alford’s new, highly paid mercenaries, after all, will be able to play in the so-called “greatest sports venue in the country” when, of course, there isn’t a monster truck rally, martial arts tournament or Beatles tribute band concert in the way. You want a winning men’s basketball team, Pack fans? Of course you do. Well, you won’t find it dripping from the ceiling or walls at the Little Waldorf Saloon. You have to go out and pay for it. Point guards aren’t free any more, you know. So, make sure you pay for the luxury suites at the new arena. All those new 75-inch televisions don’t come cheap.

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Lawlor Events Center, of course, has always been a bit too dark, damp and outdated. It’s about as comfortable as a rest stop on Interstate 80 with, of course, fewer parking spots. We get it. The place looks like an abandoned spaceship in a 1980s L. Ron Hubbard novel. It needs some sprucing up. But it didn’t have to be abandoned. How many parking spots, by the way, do you think will be available when the new arena and the rest of the proposed $1 billion worth of new construction is plopped into the already crowded GSR parking lot? But never mind that. You can always just abandon your car on I-80, Second Street or Mill Street and make a mad dash to the arena. But, hey, the proposed arena will be new and shiny and offer thousands of 75-inch televisions in your easy-to-afford luxury suites. Remember how all those stadium improvements helped Wolf Pack football a few years back? This will be just like that.

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The new venue is now supposedly called The Nevada Arena. That generic, lifeless name, hopefully, will change as quickly as they can find some publicity-hungry sponsor to put its name on the side of the building. We’re still waiting for a deep-pocketed sponsor for Mackay Stadium, but that problem will be solved as soon as the owner of the Silver Legacy, Nugget or Atlantis builds a new football stadium in, say, Verdi or Damonte Ranch. If the Pack can abandon Lawlor, it can certainly abandon Mackay if the price is right. What’s in a name anyway? Well, nothing if you consider the history of the GSR. This is a property, after all, that changes its name (from MGM to Bally’s to Reno Hilton to Grand Sierra Resort) as often as the Pack changes head basketball and football coaches.

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The biggest message the Wolf Pack, the mayor and the owner of the GSR wanted to get across was that “this won’t cost the university one dollar,” as GSR owner Alex Mereulo said. Of course it won’t. The university never actually pays for anything. But somebody pays. Somebody always pays. Guess who that will be? Here’s a hint. It’s not going to be the mayor, university president or casino owner.

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The Wolf Pack women’s basketball team will now have Lawlor Events Center all to itself. Why does the men’s team get to play in a new venue with new revenue streams while the women’s team is stuck in a dark, damp, outdated arena the men’s team couldn’t wait to abandon? Lawlor, for goodness’ sake, will have more seats than the proposed new arena, seats the women’s team needs about as much as former athletic director Chris Ault needed a swim or soccer team. Lawlor wasn’t good enough for the men but it’s good enough for the women? Is that the message here? Is that in the spirit of Title IX? Yes, we understand good old Jake Lawlor would have kicked anyone in the backside and out of his office who even had the nerve to bring up the concept of Title IX. But how do you think he would feel if the only team playing in the building that bears his name was a women’s team than can’t draw flies, let alone ticket buyers? Yes, I feel sorry for good old Wild West sheriff Jake Lawlor right now.

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Will the new arena increase the excitement and interest around the men’s basketball program? Of course it will. New is always interesting and exciting until, of course, it’s not new anymore. Remember when Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas was the greatest sports venue in the country, let alone the state of Nevada? That was before, of course, we learned the greatest sports venue in the country will be built in the GSR parking lot between two freeways. The new Pack arena, no doubt, will make Lawlor look like an abandoned gas station between Reno and Carson City on old Virginia Street. We have no doubt. So, go ahead, laugh at your father and grandfather who will be sitting all alone at the Little Wal drinking beers in silence on game nights once the new arena is built. We get it. Old doesn’t pay the bills anymore. It’s just something to poke fun at. You don’t need old guys clogging up the line of cars trying to get out of the new GSR parking garages, right? They should just go cry in their beers at a saloon that used to be filled with Pack fans on game night.