UNLV softball keeps eye on home

Pete Manarino coached for decades in the mecca of youth softball. He witnessed the skill, watched it be nurtured, lost track of the number of travel teams at, oh, tons.

"I'll be honest," he said. "Southern California is where most of my contacts are, where I have a reputation. We'll probably do most of our recruiting there.

"But that's not to say we won't embrace this state, this community and its players. The potential is here."

Manarino is the new coach at UNLV, where the Rebels are 23-9 and have won 17 of their last 19 while now awaiting their Mountain West Conference opener against visiting San Diego State on April 4.

He replaced Lonni Alameda in September after she departed for Florida State, because when a Bowl Championship Series program comes calling with all its money and support and built-in advantages, well, you book the next flight out of McCarran International and send your regards later.

But in winning 843 games at Long Beach State from 1984 to 2006, Manarino also saw the heights UNLV could reach when the Rebels made the Women's College World Series three times in the early to mid-1990s, twice on the left arm of future three-time Olympic gold medalist Lori Harrigan.

He believes that level of success is again possible, that there really is another Harrigan out there capable of making it happen. Whether she is playing on fields across Nevada is anyone's guess, but this isn't: The chances are far better today than before.

Softball is important to Americans. It is taught in youth leagues around the country, a sport in which one glamorous face almost single-handedly created a place in the bleachers for the informal fan.

Jennie Finch was that important to the game, a mainstream personality and marketing presence whose looks and talent helped enhance a sport made faster and more exciting as its rules changed over the years.

Softball's fate to be part of the Olympics again in 2016 will be decided at an International Olympics Committee meeting this year, and the one hope those fighting hardest own is that the organization backs its words about wanting to add more of two specific elements to future Games: clean athletes and women's sports.

It is a dream chased by an immeasurable number of young girls each day, a tally that has grown higher and higher locally as state-of-the-art facilities such as Majestic Park have been raised and the lure of potential scholarship money has increased the desire for private lessons.

Softball is much like baseball this way, in that parents seek out and pay for the best in pitching and hitting and fielding instruction.

"The ability here at a youth level has grown leaps and bounds the past five years," said Vern Stephens, president of Northwest Girls Softball, which has more than 800 players participating in its current Spring season. "Our kids are getting better and better. We've made up ground on Central and Northern California. We're still light years from Southern California, and that might never change with its depth of coaching and large pool of players to draw from.

"But it's important for (UNLV) to have a good program and reach out to the community. No doubt about it. Our kids need those players to look up to."

The Rebels hosted Northwest players for a game against Notre Dame this month, and it might have been the first time in history UNLV's snack bar ran out of hot dogs. The stands were that packed and lines that long, which assuredly sent a message to Manarino and his staff about how best to make an impact.

The new coach also has signed a top local player in Tayler Aleman out of Sierra Vista High School for next season. Manarino always should look toward Southern California first when recruiting but already has done enough of the little things to make you believe his desire to help improve softball in Nevada is genuine.

He didn't tire of the game as much as he did his surroundings upon retiring from Long Beach State. Twenty-three seasons in the same place can get to a person, even when your program is reaching 17 NCAA regionals and earning five trips to the College World Series.

"It is very important this community and our alumni are part of this program," said Manarino, who spent his time away from softball serving as a high school athletic director. "I want those who helped build UNLV softball who haven't been that close to the program in recent years to be so again. Good things can happen here."

They have before.

The next Lori Harrigan is out there somewhere.

Maybe this time, she will have been raised on fields much closer than those of Southern California.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.