Kruger short on flash, long on success

She asked him immediately before entering out-patient surgery for a melanoma found on her right leg, asked him moments before doctors cut a chunk of her calf out and had it and lymph nodes tested last week to determine whether the malignancy they had discovered earlier in a mole possibly spread, asked him if he had been named coach of the year of his basketball team's conference.

She asked him because he never would offer the information.

"He quickly said, 'Yes, we got it,' and that was it," Barb Kruger remembers. "The next thing he said was, 'I'll be here when you get back. I'll be right here. I love you.'

"Here he is trying to win all these (league tournament) games and is also dealing with me, waiting those three days for the pathology tests to come back. When they did, everything was fine and clear ... He's my rope. He's the strong one."

It's a fascinating irony, this truth about the person most responsible for the rebirth of UNLV basketball. The story might be more interesting if a lampshade was involved, if Lon Kruger went home at night and threw back a few cold ones while frantically dialing those "American Idol" voting numbers, if he puffed on a stogie while blasting The Clash.

It just wouldn't be genuine.

There are taped episodes of "24" and "Brothers and Sisters" and "Boston Legal" awaiting once the final game film has been viewed. There is dozing off in a chair wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt after his fill of popcorn and Diet Coke.

"What you see," his wife of 32 years said, "is what you get. The most flamboyant thing about him might be our two dogs."

The Rebels will play in a second consecutive NCAA Tournament when they meet Kent State on Thursday in a first-round Midwest Regional game in Omaha, Neb., proof UNLV again has assumed a spot on the national map of programs that annually matter.

The Rebels have been led there by a coach whose background and personality are as dissimilar to the showiness of Las Vegas as a county fair. Kruger has done what some believed impossible upon his hiring in 2004: He built a winner in this flashy town from his mild-mannered image, one plain brick after another.

How?

Inside all that vanilla, wrapped around those Midwestern ideals, swirls a competitive drive to win that is unparalleled at its core.

Brad Rothermel knows this intensity. The former UNLV athletic director and now special adviser to the department first met Kruger at a prep baseball camp in 1970 in Missouri and was later an assistant AD at Kansas State when Kruger starred in basketball and baseball for the Wildcats.

It's like this: With no Brad Rothermel, there is no Lon Kruger at UNLV, and perhaps no resurgence, no Sweet 16 last year, no consecutive Mountain West Conference Tournament titles and NCAA berths.

"Lon is really, really friendly, but he is also tough-minded," Rothermel said. "That competitiveness was almost vicious when he played. He accepted no option but winning. He has a determined tenacity, a perseverance. He always played hard. It's the way he did everything.

"He certainly came along to UNLV at a great time for us. We were struggling badly. We needed someone to come and pull us back up."

He did so with the rope of strength Barb Kruger speaks of, with a faith in others so immense, players want nothing more than to succeed for him. This is why they win. This is how tradition was restored. Spectacular talent back then is instead a fierce resolve today. He gives kids chances others don't and dares them to rise above mediocre labels.

"A lot of guys are great coaches, but Coach Kruger is also a great person," said one such player in senior Curtis Terry. "He's our role model, the way he handles this team and his family and how he carries himself. He taught us basketball but also how to be a good human being. About life."

Example: After undergoing open-heart surgery in August, Kruger invited his players to the hospital. He showed them the scar. Talked about the procedure. Calmed their fears and in doing so relayed a message.

"He wanted them to know that this is part of life and it's important to deal with it like anything else," Barb Kruger said. "If something needs to be changed, he always works at changing it, whether it be in basketball or family or anything. He believes in each one of them so much.

"He wants to give them the best chance at doing whatever they can possibly do."

In doing so, Lon Kruger brought UNLV basketball back to life, one plain brick after another.

Who knew vanilla could play so well here.

Ed Graney's column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.