Back from obscurity, UNLV men’s soccer makes NCAA tourney

It has never been easy for the UNLV men’s soccer team, at least not over the past quarter-century or so. So when the feed from NCAA headquarters crapped out Monday just as the Rebels were to learn who they would play in the NCAA Tournament after finally earning their way back into it, it was apropos.

After being left on death’s doorstep a few years back — men’s soccer literally was hours away from the chopping block when phone calls were made and fireworks were sold on street corners to keep the program going — a technical difficulty almost was expected.

Yes, the situation was that desperate: Coach Rich Ryerson and several of his players sold fireworks on the Fourth of July to help keep soccer solvent.

“It was hot,” said senior Sal Bernal, the Western Athletic Conference’s offensive player of the year from Clark High School, about selling cherry bombs out of a roadside stand.

A fuse had been lit. From out of nowhere came an influx of cash that put the program on firmer footing; from out of nowhere the team won the WAC regular-season title, and then on Sunday, the WAC tournament title, beating Cal State Bakersfield on penalty kicks in Seattle.

And then, also from out of nowhere, the feed from NCAA headquarters returned just in time to see UNLV placed alongside UC Irvine in the bracket. It was revealed the Rebels will play the Anteaters at 7 p.m. Thursday in Irvine, Calif.

Then the feed was lost again, this time for good.

Didn’t matter. By then, the Rebels and their well-wishers were cheering and slapping palms. It really didn’t matter who Stanford drew. At last, at long last, UNLV was back in, and didn’t it feel good?

Not all of the Rebels were at the Mendenhall Center for the selection show. About a third of the team was in class, because that’s what players in the nonrevenue sports do on Monday morning — they go to class.

Most of the Rebels’ staunchest supporters were there: Barry Barto, the coach who last took UNLV to the NCAAs, way back in 1988; Brad Rothermel, his athletic director; Tim McGarry of the Engelstad Foundation, whose generous gift and another from the Hannah family sure beats selling fireworks when it’s hot outside; an older, white-haired gentleman sitting front and center from the monitor, just in back of the forwards and fullbacks whose professors said they could be a few minutes late to class.

The last time the Rebels went to the NCAA Tournament, 91-year-old Ken Johann had dark hair. “And I didn’t have this damn cane, either,” said the father of the late Peter Johann, for whom the Rebels soccer pitch is named.

Ken Johann is the guy who would call the newspaper office to demand more coverage, or to complain when somebody had left the sprinklers on at the field all night. On Sunday, he was in Seattle, watching the Rebels clinch an NCAA berth. So was Tim McGarry, who said making the UNLV team as a walk-on in the 1970s when Vince Hart was coach “changed my life.”

Rich Ryerson, who played for Barto, wanted to jump up and down when UNLV ’keeper Ryan Harding deflected the soccer ball wide of his net up in Seattle after two overtime periods had resolved nothing. But he wanted to be respectful to the Bakersfield coach. So he didn’t jump up and down.

But then, Jim Valvano-style, he hugged trainer Bernie Chavies, because it had been a while since the Rebels (14-4-3) had won anything. He just had to hug somebody.

“Awesome, surreal,” Ryerson said before UNLV’s name was placed alongside UC Irvine, a familiar side which was ranked No. 4 in the nation when the Rebels lost 4-2 at Johann Field on Sept. 26.

It was awesome and surreal for the kids, Ryerson said, and for the grown-ups in the room, too, guys such as Barto and Rothermel and McGarry and 91-year-old Ken Johann with the white hair and the walking stick and the tell-it-like-it-is, Clint Eastwood-in-“Gran Torino” attitude.

When Johann was asked if he was happy when Harding made that save, he responded by saying “Does a bear practice corner kicks in the woods?” or something to that effect.

Sal Bernal, who did not play in the WAC tournament due to a knee injury but plans to be in the starting 11 on Thursday, described the feeling in terms less salty.

“We’ve always had illusions of winning the conference tournament and it finally happened,” he said of the seniors and other Rebels, many of whom hail from right here in Las Vegas. “What a way to go out, right?”

Right-o, Sal, and so it didn’t really matter that the feed went out just before the selection show started. Still, it would not come as a huge surprise were Ken Johann to place a phone call to the NCAA’s IT department and rattle a few cages.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.