The Bridge, Have You Seen The Bridge?

The Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Bridge is one of the most spectacular sights at the already amazing Hoover Dam.

The bridge is named after the former Nevada Governor and the former Arizona State and NFL football star who was killed in Afghanistan while serving as an Army Ranger.

The bridge is supposed to be ready for vehicles in November 2010, but there is a bike ride scheduled for October by the Regional Transportation Commission in Las Vegas.

Amazing site to see. I took this photo in July from a HeliUSA chopper while flying to the Grand Canyon Ranch.

This latest Wonder of the World will cut travel time between Nevada and Arizona. No more long delays because of log jams over the Dam.

Remembering Kenny Guinn

Former Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn died Thursday July 22 after an accident while working on the roof of his home. He was 73 years old. It's unclear if he died of a heart attack, or died because of the fall.

My thoughts of Kenny are many, but one that has rarely, if ever, been mentioned stands out to me.

Guinn loved education. After the mess at UNLV when Bob Maxson was President of the school, Guinn offered to take over and clean it up. His pay for that year....one dollar. That's it. He ran the university for a year for a buck.

While he was President of UNLV Rollie Massimino had already been hired as basketball coach, and unknown to Guinn, Rollie has a second, secret contract that paid him an additional $375,000 a year through something called the "Varsity Club."

Rollie was such a failure as coach, even those who once supported him in the Varsity Club had withdrawn their support and stopped paying the cash to the Club.

Guinn once described the shock to me that he had as he learned of this scheme to launder more money to Rollie without public disclosure. "I was amazed to learn what had been done by the previous administration. I knew the first thing I had to do was make the secret contract details public." UNLV is a public university and all contracts must be part of the public record.

Guinn cleaned up the mess left my Maxson. Within a week after learning of the secret contrat, Guinn engineered a deal to get rid of Rollie, buy him out of both of his contracts made by Maxson and close an ugly chapter in UNLV history.

He was a great friend and he will be missed dearly by Nevada.

New Call Letters for Channel 3

Catchy slogans RUs

You call it KVBC, I'll call it KSNV----what's in a name?

Actually, a lot is in a name when you're talking about the indentity of a local TV station.

Channel 3 wants to change its call letters (pending FCC approval) from KVBC to KSNV. In case you were wondering the VBC stands for Valley Broadcasting Company, the SNV stands for Southern Nevada.

But---the call letters really won't matter much because they actually want the public to know them as MyNews3. That's their new slogan and new pitch---it's also their new e-mail address.

Channel 8 made the switch a while back when they became 8NewsNow.

Channel 13 is still with the Action News theme, but look for them to change before too long because a) the Action News theme has not really been working in this market, 2) they change their theme often, so it seems close to their time to make another change.

The idea here is that people remember snappy names and slogans long before they could retain call letters--which is absolutely right.

Radio started doing this years ago. Think of Mix 94.1 here in town. Do you know their call letters? Do you care what their call letters are? Of course you don't. For the record, it's KMXB---but you don't really care. All you care about is that it's Mark and Mercedes in the morning, it's great radio and you know where to find it!

It's all about marketing and simple is better.

Barry Family Looks Forward to Golden Gloves Competition

Pat Barry, wife, look forward to Golden Gloves July 22-24 at CasaBlanca




Long-time youth boxing enthusiast Pat Barry congratulates a competitor

following a Golden Gloves event at the CasaBlanca in 2009.

The popular Berry returns to the CasaBlanca July 22-24 when the Golden Gloves Junior Nationals.



MESQUITE, Nev. -- For Pat Barry, the Golden Gloves Junior Nationals July 22-24 at the CasaBlanca Resort and Casino may be the purest form of boxing. With an estimated 400 competitors ages 8-16 competing in the CasaBlanca Event Center, the future of the sport will be showcased in a classic event.
“There is so much value in Golden Gloves,” said the 57 year-old Beary, who with his wife, Dawn, runs Barry’s Boxing Center at 2664 S. Highland Ave., in Las Vegas. “The sport instills discipline into young people while also giving them a sense of self-worth.”
Barry speaks from experience as evidenced by a career which saw him mount a 12-8 record with five draws. His biggest win came over Jessie Bender, who was the New England state middleweight champion in 1975.
“I took the fight on a two-day notice,” Barry remembers. “I was between managers at the time. I didn’t know Bender from Adam and my grandmother had just died and my mother was horrified about the fight. I won a six-round unanimous decision. That was my claim to fame.
“I loved boxing. The problem was that my shoulder kept popping out, so I say now that I loved boxing more than it loved me.”
A former member of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department who spent 30 years (1978-2009) working as a detective in Patrol, Canine, Domestic Violence and Juvenile, Barry and his wife, Dawn, (she, too, retired from Metro where she worked in Detention Services and Patrol Section) now spend their days running the boxing gym in Las Vegas.
“Youth boxing has always been my passion,” he said adding that the gym in Vegas is a non-stop facility of about 4,000 square feet. “We first opened the gym in 1984 at Spring Mountain and Decatur in Las Vegas. Now, we have both young men and young women competing and I really believe that boxing can save lives.
“The sport shows young people the responsible way of doing things rather than blowing their temper and doing something they will regret later. People many times learn to pick themselves up off the canvas. They learn to face their fears head-on.”
Barry’s own path to Las Vegas is very interesting. A native of Long Island, N.Y., he journeyed to Las Vegas in 1976 for a chance to fight Michael Spinks who had just won the Super Middleweight title at the Olympics.
“I came to Vegas and my weight went under 148, and I was told I was too light to fight Spinks,” Barry said. “The fight was all set for the Aladdin Hotel and on the week of the fight, I was told it wouldn’t work. I walked into a gym, and saw some guy who told me he was actually fighting Michael.”
After the fight with Spinks fell apart, Barry was going to return to Long Island. After speaking with noted boxing gymnasium and fight manager Johnny Tocco, Barry decided to stay and eventually joined the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
But while injuries stopped Barry’s own boxing career, he stayed active in youth boxing in Las Vegas and you can bet hundreds of competitors and their families are thankful that he remained in the desert. After retiring from the police department, he and his wife, Dawn, focused their efforts fully on the gym.
In fact, when he retired from Metro, the gym became an official first job.
“Retiring can be scary,” Barry said. “Way too many people retire and then they die. Now, I’m at the gym to open the doors first thing in the morning and my schedule is full. My life really hasn’t changed much at all. I’m still up first thing in the morning doing road work before heading to the gym.
‘My day is full and I would not have it any other way.”
Barry’s professional coaching has included mentoring world champion contender Augie Sanchez from 1998-2002; World Champion Bones Adams from 1998-2000; and world champion contender Roman Ladon from 1997-99.
His amateur boxing has included coaching stints with Junior Golden Gloves champions Jesus Magdaleno (he also won the Senior Golden Gloves and USA Senior Golden Gloves titles), Haseim Rahman and Kevin Pimentel in 2007. He also led USA National Champion Diego Magdaleno, who is now 16-0 as a professional; and Medalist Louie Padilla (all three medaled USA national championships along with Golden Gloves titles).
In addition, Barry’s international coaching experience has included trips to Mexico, Canada and Milan, Italy. He was also named the Coach of the Year for USA Boxing in 2007 while being named one of the top five volunteer coaches of all sports by the United States Olympic Committee.
Even with the many years of activity in youth boxing, the event at the CasaBlanca stands out as one of Barry’s favorite.
“The location is excellent,” Barry said. “There is so much for the kids to do in Mesquite not to mention the fact that the competition is incredible. The facility itself is first-class and perfect for the Golden Gloves.”
Further information regarding the Golden Gloves can be found at www.juniorgoldengloves.com or by calling Dawn Barry at 702-368-2696.

CasaBlanca in Mesquite Lands Golden Gloves Boxing!

Mesquite scored a huge win recently when it was announced that the city had landed the Golden Gloves Junior Nationals for three years and the Golden Gloves Senior National Championship for a single year.

The Junior Nationals will kick off the final event of a four-year stand July 22-24 in the Event Center of the CasaBlanca Resort and Casino in a blockbuster event which will attract about 400 competitors ages 8-16. The Junior Nationals will return to the city through 2013.

The Senior Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions has also been inked for April 28-May 5 of 2012. With ten weight classes, the event will draw about 300 boxers ages 17 and up.

A group of Southern Nevadans journeyed to Little Rock, Ark., where meetings were held earlier this month. Also attempting to land the prestigious events were representatives from Lafayette, La., and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Representing Mesquite in the bidding were Dawn Barry, a Golden Gloves franchise holder from Las Vegas; Dawn Sanchez, the executive director for Barry’s Boxing in Las Vegas; Barry’s husband, Pat, a long-time boxing coach; along with Black Gaming General Sales Manager Michelle Yegge Evans, who combined to convince 30 delegates to bring the events to Mesquite.

Click here for more information

Can Big D put Vegas on the Ropes?

Great article here from Jordan Hirsch of the Wall St. Journal about how Las Vegas could lose the Mayweather Pacquaio fight to Dallas----



BY JORDAN HIRSCH
Any boxing fanatic will tell you that the ultimate bout to watch these days is Manny Pacquaio versus Floyd Mayweather. But for most fans, buying a spot in the 17,000-seat MGM Grand to see who will become the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world simply isn't a possibility.

Yet the opportunity to view such bouts live may be changing. Thanks to a challenge from Dallas, Vegas is no longer the assumed home for marquee sports and entertainment events. Call it the Strip v. the Screen.

The Screen refers to the largest video board in the world, located in the recently ...

Read full article here:

Wall Street Journal

Floyd Mayweather Jr. to hold Kids Boxing Camp

Las Vegas, NV (July 1, 2010)...Floyd "Money" Mayweather, the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world today, will open up his Las Vegas gym to campers starting next Monday, July 5, for the start of the Mayweather Boxing Club Summer Camp. The program, with three sessions to be held over a six-week period, is being hosted free of charge by The Floyd Mayweather Jr. Foundation (TFMJF). The camp will take place in an environment where hard work, dedication, responsibility, integrity and the importance of education are promoted in conjunction with the basic boxing skills. Sessions will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Each of the campers, 150 boys and girls in total ages 5-18 from Las Vegas and around the country, will receive instruction on boxing skills, such as floor exercises, shadow boxing and work on speed bags and heavy bags. In addition, they will learn valuable life skills from Team Mayweather's fighters, trainers and staff, volunteers, members of the UNLV career services program and from the future hall-of-famer Mayweather himself.

"Giving back to this community and providing opportunities for youth to stay active and gain new skills is very important to me. It is also one of the goals of The Floyd Mayweather Jr. Foundation," said Mayweather, Founder of TFMJF. "The Mayweather Boxing Club Summer Camp is a chance for these kids to learn the fundamentals of boxing, as well as the important life lessons that come with participation in sports."

In addition to support received from TFMJF and Mayweather Promotions, the Mayweather Boxing Club Summer Camp is sponsored by Reebok, Everlast and H20 Over Drive. Reebok and Everlast will provide boxing gear and equipment, and H20 Over Drive has donated energy drinks and water bottles for each camper, who will also be served a snack daily.

Founded in 2007, TFMJF has endeavored to empower and encourage community alliances, impact youth leadership and strengthen family foundations through community development, entrepreneurialism and education.

"Without boxing, I would not be where I am today," continued Mayweather. "To be able to give these kids a chance to learn about this sport is exciting for me. This camp is just another step for the Foundation to continue to make an impact on youth locally and nationally."

For more information on Mayweather Boxing Club Summer Camp please visit www.tfmjf.org.