For a man of so many hats, one of Roger Kinney’s favorites still has a place of honor in his basement, 35 years later.
It’s still in good shape, too — a wide-brimmed, light brown Stetson, a classy number with feathers and a bow. This particular piece of headwear was given to each of the teams that visited Denver for the 1990 men’s basketball Final Four. They’d been donated by the old Miller Stockman stores, one of several corporate assists.
“We really leaned on a lot of Chamber (of Commerce) members to contribute their money and goods,” recalled Kinney, the longtime Denverite, an East High and CU alum who headed up the Metro Sports Committee in those days. “(Those hats) were very popular, all right.”
Kinney and his peers handed out dozens of hats, souvenirs and handshakes during that Final Four 35 years ago, making sure it would become an event that participants, and fans, would never forget.
“Denver did a really nice job. There were just a lot of neat things about it,” recalled University of Arkansas color analyst Matt Zimmerman, the former Razorbacks and Missouri assistant coach. Zimmerman was a student manager with the Hogs’ ’89-90 squad, which fell to runner-up Duke in one of two national semifinals that weekend.
“There was just so much excitement (in the city). It was the first time in my life I had ever seen Final Four merchandise all over downtown. There were (shops) every other corner. I remember buying Final Four stuff, and (the prices) weren’t bad. You could buy a shirt for 10 bucks.”
Yes, that was a long, long time ago. And yet for those who were there, the 1990 Final Four, which featured Arkansas, Duke, Georgia Tech and national champion UNLV, was a snapshot of a past we’ll never get back. And a signpost of where college hoops was headed.
The NCAA men’s tourney is returning to downtown Denver next weekend, with first-round games at Ball Arena on Thursday and the second round set for Saturday.
But the bar for the Mile High City hosting big-time college events was set by Kinney and his compatriots almost four decades earlier. To the average fan, the last time Denver hosted a Final Four is generally known for two things, right off the top: It’s the second-to-last Final Four to not be played in a dome or football-centric venue — it was held at old McNichols Arena, which seated roughly 17,000 patrons; Ball Arena didn’t open until 1999. And it was the year of the most lopsided final in NCAA men’s basketball history, with coach Jerry Tarkanian’s Running Rebels running circles around Duke, 103-73.
That 30-point margin remains a record for a title game, as does UNLV’s point total. Denver’s Final Four also featured 12 future first-round NBA draft picks: Arkansas’ Todd Day, Lee Mayberry and the late Oliver Miller, who died just last week; Duke’s Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Alaa Abdelnaby; Georgia Tech’s Kenny Anderson and Dennis Scott; and UNLV’s Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony.
“It was great. (Denver fans) were great. Playing in an arena, that’s how it should be played,” former Yellow Jackets coach Bobby Cremins told The Post. “Then it just got too big. Too much money.”
Nearly two generations have passed since the ’90 Final Four, a span of 35 years that simultaneously went by in a blink — yet, in cultural and basketball terms, feels more like an eternity.
“I know those Duke players are very nice kids.”
How long ago was it? Let’s put it this way: Duke’s players were cast as the good guys.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s Blue Devils rolled into town as upright, virtuous kids against those “seedy” Rebels from the Strip. Christian Laettner wasn’t Christian Laettner yet. The Dookies weren’t yet the Dookies, the team America grew to either love or hate.
It was so long ago that the NCAA had actual power and invoked a very real fear among the membership. And at the time, it had UNLV and Tark the Shark in its sights. The black hats on that weekend were worn by Tark and his roster — a motif, like the Raiders and Pistons of old, that they wholeheartedly embraced.
“I remember when we played Georgia Tech (in the semis at McNichols) and some guy was running around with fake money and throwing it on the court,” Danny Tarkanian, the former UNLV guard and son of the legendary late coach, told The Post. “(He was shouting), ‘Buy this one, UNLV!’
“(My dad) had said, ‘You know, some people are calling this ‘good versus evil.’ Listen, I don’t think that’s fair at all; I don’t buy into that narrative. I know those Duke players are very nice kids.’”
Tark would go on to have the last laugh, thanks to Anderson Hunt’s 29-point night — the Rebels guard was 4 for 7 from beyond the arc — in the title game, a rout punctuated by Johnson’s double-double (22 points, 11 boards), 16 UNLV steals and 23 Duke turnovers.
Chicago Bears and Jackson State legend Walter Payton even came into town to give the Rebels a pep talk before the championship game.
“Basically, he said, ‘You guys remind me a lot of myself: misunderstood tough guys,’” the younger Tarkanian recalled. “He told them that they were a lot like him. When a guy like (Payton) says that, that’s something special.”
“That altitude worked against us”
How long ago was it? Sports science — and sports science dollars — hadn’t yet caught up with a plan to help players who were coping with altitude for the first time.
Arkansas appeared to suffer the worst from it, fading late in a 97-83 loss to the Blue Devils.
After forging a 79-78 lead with six minutes to go, the Hogs hit a wall. Duke closed the game on a 15-2 run. At 5,280 feet, the Razorbacks, who’d smothered foes with a full-court pressure — coach Nolan Richardson’s trademark “40 Minutes Of Hell” — suddenly found that every breath hurt like holy heck.
“That altitude worked against us, man,” former Arkansas guard Arlyn Bowers told The Post. “After practice, I was gassed.
“And you felt it (during the game). We all felt it. So, it worked against us.”
Cremins watched the end of the Duke-Arkansas game from the tunnels adjacent to the court. Before Tech went out to warm up, he remembers passing a victorious Coach K, who was just running in from the floor.
“Congratulations,” Cremins told him.
“Let’s make it an All-ACC final,” Krzyzewski replied.
It wasn’t to be. While UNLV went about six deep in terms of stars, the Jackets featured just three — the “Lethal Weapon 3” trio of guards Anderson, Scott and Brian Oliver.
Tech led by seven at the break. Once UNLV switched defenses in the second half, though, the air seeped out of Tech’s upset hopes. Anderson got into foul trouble while Scott went cold from the floor (20 points in the first half, nine in the second). The Jackets managed 28 second-half points and fell to the Rebels, 90-81.
“Those (losses) are the ones you (still) think of the most,” said Scott, now an analyst with NBA TV. “You wish you would’ve set a better screen. You wish you would’ve connected on that one shot you missed. They got those 50-50 balls that you need to get, that you were normally getting throughout the season.”
Would that Tech team have beaten Duke in a rematch, in an All-ACC championship game?
“Yes,” Scott laughed. “No question. And they know it, too.”
“A lot of things happened after that”
How long ago was it? Denver still saw itself as a civic underdog, a meatpacking, shipping and flyover hub. The world’s biggest small town. Your pit stop on the road to Vail.
This was before the influx of Midwesterners in the ’90s, long before the wave of West Coast transplants during the early 21st century. Denver’s metro population in 1990 was around 1.9 million, making it the 21st-largest market, sandwiched between Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (No. 20) and greater Cincinnati (No. 22).
To land the Final Four, Kinney and his peers, a collective that included Vince Boryla, Bill Daniels, Arnie Ferrin and then-CU athletic director Eddie Crowder, pulled out all the stops. They roped in former President Gerald Ford. Crowder lobbied powerful friends such as Arizona AD Cedric Dempsey, future executive director of the NCAA. Metro Sports Committee members even made a point to hand-deliver the city’s bid, individually, to each NCAA bigwig.
It worked. Denver hosted the NCAA regionals in 1985 and 1989 and the Final Four a year later, despite the smaller venue.
That last point wasn’t insignificant. In terms of foot traffic, the Final Four each year is a little like college basketball’s Super Bowl week, only crammed into a four-day window. The host city for the games also hosts the annual NABC coaches’ convention, which runs concurrently with the Final Four and serves as a massive networking event — one that brings in roughly every major name in the sport.
“And we all got these little bags that had things from Denver in there,” noted Zimmerman, who still has his 1990 Final Four Stetson. “It was almost like a golf tournament gift bag.”
Kinney was juggling several knives back then. But as director of the Denver Baseball Commission, the one dearest to his heart was getting the Front Range on the Major League Baseball map. That became reality July 5, 1991, when owners voted unanimously to grant an expansion team that became the Colorado Rockies.
The rest is … well, you know. The Rockies, playing at old Mile High Stadium, set a new MLB attendance record (4.483 million fans) during their inaugural season. The NHL’s Quebec Nordiques relocated to Denver, rebranding as the Avalanche for the 1995-96 season. The Avs won a Stanley Cup during their debut campaign in the Mile High City, and the metro never looked back.
In hindsight, some of those good vibes got rolling off the back of that magical weekend in 1990 — a Final Four that turned a corner for the city nationally in terms of perception and potential.
“Oh, I think (it did), because a lot of things happened after that,” Kinney reflected. “It gave us national exposure. I think it brought the city together and it brought investments in other sports. And they kept looking at us.”
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