Professor Gives ‘F’ to UNLV : College basketball: He urges faculty senate to have troubled program suspended for two years.

A Nevada Las Vegas professor, saying he is “thoroughly embarrassed” by the school’s basketball program, Monday placed a resolution before the UNLV faculty senate urging administrators and the University of Nevada System Board of Regents to suspend the program for two years.

Jim Deacon, UNLV distinguished professor of biology and director of the school’s environmental studies program, submitted the resolution to the faculty senate for airing at the body’s regularly scheduled meeting today. A vote would be taken at the faculty senate’s next meeting, March 9.

In his resolution, Deacon states that a win-at-all-costs attitude has led to a “destructive situation” at UNLV. He also states that “a group outside the community of scholars” at the university is attempting to define its mission.

“I believe the situation, already out of control, has resulted in irreparable damage to all concerned,” he says. “The only way to play the game at this point is to attempt to demonstrate what a university is and what it is not.

“There can no longer be winners and losers. We are all losers.”

The resolution goes on to assert that the basketball program should be disbanded for two years “to permit enough time to elapse to begin a healing process and to attempt to place a quality, ethical basketball program in its proper context as a legitimate part of our university.”

Deacon’s resolution comes during an emotionally charged time for UNLV and its basketball program.

Engaged in his second court battle in 15 years with the NCAA, which has lodged more that 30 rules violations against UNLV, Rebel Coach Jerry Tarkanian is also openly feuding with school administrators, and on Sunday he announced that he will withdraw the resignation he submitted last June.

UNLV President Robert Maxson has said that Tarkanian’s resignation remains legally binding and is not subject to further discussion.

However, Tarkanian’s lawyers already are laying the groundwork for a legal challenge to the resignation agreement between the coach and the school.

Insisting that the resignation agreement is now “null and void,” one lawyer for Tarkanian said Monday that the university had little choice but to honor the coach’s wish to keep his job.

According to Las Vegas attorney Chuck Thompson, the resignation agreement was breached when UNLV officials allegedly violated the terms of a so-called “civility clause.” In essence, the clause was inserted to prevent Tarkanian or UNLV administrators from speaking disparagingly of each other, Thompson said.

Those terms, said Thompson, were violated last fall when UNLV legal counsel Brad Booke ordered a video camera secretly placed in a gymnasium air-conditioning duct to record an allegedly improper preseason practice by the Rebels. More recently, Thompson said, the terms of the agreement were violated when reports of a federal investigation into possible point-shaving by UNLV players last season were leaked to a Las Vegas newspaper.

Tarkanian maintains that the leak was a university source. UNLV officials and members of the Board of Regents have denied Tarkanian’s contention.

Thompson said that Maxson will receive official notification of Tarkanian’s withdrawn resignation by today “at the latest.” Maxson is then expected to deny Tarkanian’s request, thus creating yet another legal fight for Tarkanian--this one with his school.

Maxson said Monday that he would not comment on the specifics of the seven-page resignation agreement.

As for the notion of shutting down the basketball program, Maxson said: “That is not something I’m considering.”

A member of the UNLV faculty since 1960, Deacon described himself in an interview Monday as a long-time Rebel basketball season-ticket holder who at one time was an “apologist” for the program. But he said that he no longer attends UNLV games.

“I’m embarrassed about the fact that it is a program that would recruit a Lloyd Daniels,” he said, referring to the former New York high school star whose recruitment is the focus of the latest NCAA charges against UNLV. “I’m embarrassed that we’ve been on probation twice in the 32 years that I’ve been here, and I’m embarrassed that a third (probation) is inevitable.

“There was a period during the development of the program when it was truly a source of pride for the community. I think it has gotten to the point now where it is a source of embarrassment--not only for the campus, but for the community.”