Clark County NV Archives Obituaries.....Drakulich, Michael December 4, 2004 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nv/nvfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Gerry Perry missgerry@cox.net June 29, 2013, 12:32 am Las Vegas Sun, 12/7/2004 Chub Drakulich put UNLV sports on map Michael "Chub" Drakulich's organizational skills and his concern for others made him a winning coach, friends and family say. On his deathbed Friday night, Drakulich demonstrated those traits by making it a priority to finish writing a Christmas shopping list for his nine grandchildren. He then turned to his daughter Terry Miller-Newcomb and said, "I'm a lucky man." "He always saw himself as being in the right place at the right time," said Miller-Newcomb, who took her father into her Las Vegas home for the last week of his life. "He was organized and was always thinking of others. To his players he was as much a guidance counselor as he was their coach." Drakulich was UNLV's first baseball, basketball and golf coach. He was also the school's first athletic director, laying the groundwork for its major college sports program. He died Saturday at the age of 80 following a two-month battle with cancer. Services for the Las Vegas resident of 49 years will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Canyon Ridge Christian Church, 6200 Lone Mountain Road at Jones Boulevard. Interment will be in Palm Mortuary-Jones Cemetery. A native Nevadan, Drakulich got his nickname from being chubby as a toddler, but he grew up to be a stringbean of a baseball player, playing second base for White Pine High in the early 1940s and pro ball for the Reno Silver Sox in the 1950s. But his legacy is the UNLV athletics program. "He laid the foundation upon which UNLV's sports program was built," said Las Vegas baseball figure and coach Lou Pisani, who played for the semipro Cashman Cowboys of Las Vegas with Drakulich. "He had the vision to see what the UNLV athletic program could become." Brad Rothermel, currently a special adviser to the UNLV athletic director and the school's athletic director from 1981-90, called Drakulich "the founding father of UNLV athletics." "He was first in a lot of ways," Rothermel said. "Chub did the grass-roots, basement-level development of the program and saw the value of adding football (in 1968)." When Drakulich retired as UNLV golf coach in 1989, Rothermel insisted that Drakulich chair the search committee that hired Dwaine Knight, who would go on to lead UNLV to a national title. Drakulich came to UNLV -- then Nevada Southern University -- in 1958 from Rancho High School, where he had coached basketball. His initial duties were to start the college's basketball program, which won just five of 18 games its first season and played its home games at the downtown Dula Center gym. "You could not ask for a man with more integrity than Chub Drakulich," said "Corky" Poole, basketball student manager for Drakulich at Rancho and Nevada Southern. "He led by example and he understood it would take time for the program to gel. He didn't yell at his players. He allowed them to mature." Poole, who now is retired, coached Roy Martin Junior High to two county basketball championships and coached basketball and cross-country at Vo-Tech. He said much of his success was the due to following Drakulich's leadership example. Drakulich's initial UNLV basketball team lost its first nine games before defeating Nellis Air Force Base 52-47 on Jan. 14, 1959. It was Drakulich's only losing basketball team in the five years he coached the Rebels, amassing a 68- 45 record. As athletic director, Drakulich hired the schools' next three basketball coaches -- Ed Gregory, who went 40-15 in two seasons; Rolland Todd, who went 96- 40 in five seasons; and John Bayer, who went 44-36 in three seasons. Drakulich also hired the school's first football coach, Bill Ireland, who in 1974 succeeded Drakulich as athletic director. Ireland hired Jerry Tarkanian, who in 19 seasons as basketball coach went 509-105 and won an NCAA title. Born June 15, 1924, in Kimberly, Drakulich was raised in McGill where he excelled in sports at White Pine High and was enshrined in that school's Hall of Fame in 1996. Drakulich attended UNR, where he was a member of the basketball and baseball teams, until he went into the military during World War II. After graduating from UNR in 1948, Drakulich taught and coached basketball at Churchill County High School, leading teams to the state playoffs five times. At Rancho, he coached the basketball team to three state tournament appearances and taught physical education and drafting. At UNLV, Drakulich was a professor of physical education. In 1960, he fielded the school's first baseball team, and coached it until 1965, a year before he became the golf coach. "I think that if we did not have Chub Drakulich, UNLV would not be on the map like it is today," said Danny Taylor, a retired Las Vegas insurance agent who played two baseball seasons under Drakulich in the early 1960s. "What is more amazing is that he accomplished all that he did at a time when the school didn't give him much money. And he never got the credit he deserved." Drakulich was inducted into the first class of the UNLV Athletics Hall of Fame in 1987. In addition to his daughter and grandchildren, he is survived by another daughter, Linda VanCitters of Reno; three sisters, Mary Carline of Reno, Helen Platzke of Salt Lake City, and Millie Goldman of Galt, Calif.; and two brothers, Bob Drakulich of Reno and George Kanter of Galt. Drakulich was preceded in death by his wife Theresa Drakulich in May, a brother Steve Drakulich and a sister Ann Bogden. Donations can be made in Chub Drakulich's memory to the UNLV Rebel Athletic Fund at (702) 895-1533 or to a scholarship fund that has been established in his name. Read more: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2004/dec/07/chub-drakulich-put-unlv- sports-on-map/#ixzz2XZlHi35I Additional Comments: Additional Comments: The information provided for publication was provided by an outside source and is not proven to be correct File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nv/clark/obits/drakulic2158gob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/nvfiles/ File size: 6.5 Kb