UNLV’s attempts to flog season tickets to their football and men’s basketball programs hit a bit of a snag earlier this week, as a billboard depicted previously departed hoops coach Lon Kruger —currently installed at Oklahoma — was erected on a major highway, a slight diss to current coach Dave Rice. From the Las Vegas Journal-Review’s Steve Carp :
The billboard, which was along Interstate 215 at Buffalo Drive Wednesday morning, shows Kruger, now the head basketball coach at Oklahoma, and current UNLV football coach Bobby Hauck, with the slogan “COME TO OUR HOUSE!”
Rice heard about the faux pas and he took it in stride.
“I thought it was humorous,” the third-year coach said. “It’s one of those things that happens. But I’m the last person who would take himself too seriously.
“Hey, if Coach Kruger can help us sell tickets, great.”
Tina Kunzer-Murphy, UNLV’s interim athletic director, was not amused.
“To us, it’s not a laughing matter,” she said. “We think what happened was the billboard company was doing us a favor by posting the ad but our marketing people never saw it.”