Craig Meyer and Stephen J. Nesbitt, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
What happened to Mike Hamrick in Las Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. It stayed with him.
One particular memory from his six years as UNLV’s athletic director – at the nexus of sports an gambling in the United states, with a sportsbook across the street from the football team’s practice facility – resurfaced recently. It was the first men’s basketball game of Hamrick’s tenure there is 2003, and a UNLV walk-on passed up a wide-open layup in the closing seconds and instead dribbled out the clock in a double-digit win. Some fans near the court started booing.
“We just won a big basketball game by 11 points, and our fans aren’t happy that we didn’t win by more points?” Hammrick recalled asking his wife. A fan seated beside him explained, “No, that’s not why fans are upset. They’re upset because the point spread was 12, and we didn’t cover.”
Hammrick was in a brave new betting world.
Rest is here…
