A few tidbits about Tark:
His first ten years at UNLV, only two of his players earned degrees and one of them was his son Danny (who became an attorney)... his signature towel chewing started because he kept spilling so many cups of water next to his chair that he was asked not to keep water on the court. So a UNLV trainer would wet towels before each game and fold them into quarters. He would sometimes rest the towels on the top of his head when not chewing them. Billy Packer commented on this during the Duke final four game... He was offered the head coaching job with the Lakers in '79 just before they hired Jack McKinney who would be replaced by Paul Westhead after a bicycle accident. Tark's wife loved Vegas and didn't want to leave. The Lakers won the coin toss for the first overall pick soon after and drafted Magic Johnson (they already had Kareem). Both college and the NBA could have been much different in the '80s if he had taken it... All three schools he coached (Long Beach State, UNLV and Fresno St) were placed on probation for violations committed on his watch... Much of his trouble at UNLV revolved around the recruitment of Lloyd Daniels from NY who never played a game for UNLV. Daniels was arrested for buying crack from an undercover narcotics officer and a subsequent investigation revealed he was being steered to UNLV by Richard Perry who had helped to organize the shaving of points at Boston College. Perry (who was a cohort of Henry Hill of Goodfellas fame) was later shown in a photo while in a hot tub with 3 of Tark's players (Anderson Hunt, Moses Scurry and David Butler) at Perry's house in Vegas. Tark was forced to resign at the end of the 1992 season after the revelation of that picture.
