LAS VEGAS —It never ceases to amaze me these days, my random whereabouts covering an event in Las Vegas.
Could be Allegiant Stadium for a Raiders game, maybe Michelob Ultra Arena for an Aces game.
Saturday night, it was T-Mobile Arena for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.
What a game!
What a life, for that matter!
From Rat Pack/Mob Town/Entertainment Capital kid, to professional sports town journalist.
It seemed only fitting, as I wrapped up this introductory column Monday morning, I flipped on the television to watch Unsportsmanlike, and the last channel I was watching happened to be showing the Las Vegas, Mafia-related movie "Casino."
The story of bookmaker Frank Rosenthal, whose rise in Las Vegas aligned with his mob ties predominantly in the 1970s. The tale is all too familiar.
I mean, I went to elementary school with Rosenthal's son.
From a time in the 70s, when my hometown had roughly 350,000 people, and all we cheered for was UNLV's athletic teams, and any high school team playing Bishop Gorman.
Now, in June of 2026, there are NFL towns where crickets are the loudest roar.
The other night at T-Mobile, more than 18,000 screaming fans poured into Toshiba Plaza after the Golden Knights beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 5-4, in double overtime to take a 2-1 series lead in the Cup Final.
We've come a long way, this town of mine and I.
Perspective, an example I've overly shared and will never stop using: we used to drive the length of Las Vegas Boulevard in about 15 minutes - 10 if you caught every green light. Now it takes that long to travel between traffic signals.
Yep, a long, long way.
Growing up Vegas
I still remember sitting inside the Las Vegas Convention Center's Rotunda, which looked like a spaceship parked on Paradise Road, watching UNLV's Runnin' Rebels. The Hardway Eight brought a spotlight to Las Vegas, especially in 1977, when they made it to the Final Four.
And if you weren't watching the Rebs, you were waiting for the annual visit from Meadowlark Lemon and the Harlem Globetrotters.
Roughly 10 miles away, at Sam Boyd Stadium - which I still call the Silver Bowl - we got to see UNLV's football team. Wearing Pop Warner jerseys to the games hours after playing in them was a ritual.
Personally, I loved football.
I might have been a self-proclaimed all-pro wide receiver in light-pole football at the Palms Apartments on East Sahara.
"Go long, I'll hit you at the front end of that Cadillac," were the instructions most times. My hands were magnets.
My adoration for the sport carried into Sunday mornings, watching NFL Today with Brent Musberger every week. Notepad in hand, I kept track of everything. Scores, highlights, stats.
Point spreads, too.
I was going to school with a better knowledge of the numbers than the teachers and would've loved to play bookmaker if I could. I can think of at least four teachers from Kit Carson Sixth Grade Center who were putting in parlay cards.
By the time I was at Clark High School, I was hopping in my candy-apple red 1968 VW Bug at lunch, and sneaking off to the Frontier Hotel to put my own parlay cards in for Sunday's games.
It wasn't that much longer after my senior year, I was running money for a betting group out of New Orleans, making $1,000 and $2,000 bets on college basketball games.
I didn't go to college. So while I was honing in on a writing career by doing odds and ends before taking over as the sports editor at the state's only Black newspaper, the now-defunct Las Vegas Sentinel-Voice, I was hustling in the streets of Las Vegas.
I am not ashamed to say it whatsoever.
There are parts of me, now, that know I would have benefited from a college degree. But I wouldn't trade in my street degree.
I wouldn't trade in anything for growing up in Vegas.
Writing Las Vegas
As much as I miss good ol' Las Vegas, racing around town on my FMF bike (BMX was our mode of transportation back then), I'm baffled and amazed nearly every time I leave my house for an event.
And not because I remember the area I live in being nothing but desert when I was a kid, of the eerie thought there could be bodies out here, but because of the infiltration of professional sports. Well, all sports, to be quite honest.
Since 2017, I've now covered three Stanley Cup Finals, three WNBA championships, the NFL, numerous NBA Summer League seasons, March Madness in every sense, NASCAR, UFC... you get the picture.
Talk about coming a long way.
I went from the Rotunda and the Silver Bowl in the 70s, to UNLV sports and championship boxing in the 90s, to where we are today.
See, I remember when the NFL wouldn't even flirt with the idea of playing a preseason game here or allowing the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) to buy a commercial during the Super Bowl.
Now, we have a storied franchise here.
The CFP national championship will be played here in 2027.
The Final Four is coming in 2028. Can you imagine the look on the late, great Jerry Tarkanian's face?
The Athletics and Major League Baseball will also be here in 2028. Heck, they're playing here this week, giving locals a taste of what's coming.
We have to assume the NBA will confirm that Las Vegas and Seattle will be the newest cities.
Chennedy Carter was added to the Las Vegas Aces roster this week. In spite of a checkered history, @williegramirez said @cofieldandco that he thinks the LVA structure and leadership is perfect to get Carter's WNBA career back on track. pic.twitter.com/K6gqHWU80h
— ESPN 1100/100.9 FM (@ESPNLasVegas) April 17, 2026
I complain almost daily about corporations and their relationships with the LVCVA, and what they've done to the locals in what is mostly an overpriced town. Watching Las Vegas Boulevard transform from the nostalgic skyline of Caesars Palace, the Dunes, Sands, and Desert Inn, into a suffocating artery with Lego-like fitted casinos that cater to tourists while ostracizing locals has been disheartening.
But, it's that growth that's also turned Las Vegas into a sports town every league and organization is dying to call home.
It's that growth that has me beginning my week at Lotus Broadcasting for a promotional photoshoot in an Athletics jersey with on-air personalities (oh yeah, I occasionally co-host a radio show on ESPN Las Vegas) and also to do a radio spot on Raider Nation Radio to discuss the Golden Knights and Aces. It's that growth that has me leaving there and heading to T-Mobile Arena to cover the Hurricanes' media availability. It's that growth that will have me back at T-Mobile on Tuesday for Game 4 of the Cup Final.
It's that growth that has me looking forward to writing batches of new stories for the Ballislife family. From league-wide WNBA stories, an insight into sports betting, and NFL coverage this Fall. I have you covered.
The powers-that-be have also said I can share a weekly column, and it's there you'll not only read a rant about something, but perhaps an occasional tale that compares old Vegas to the new.
I mean, who wouldn't want to hear about my interactions with some of the most nefarious characters from old Vegas, or nights at the old "Tramps" nightclub with members of the 1986-87 Runnin' Rebels, or about leaving some of those nightclubs at 6 a.m. and heading to early-morning breakfasts that were never more than $1.99?
Sheesh! I don't think I can get a side of avocado for $1.99 these days.
We've come a long way, this town of mine and I.
W.G. Ramirez is a veteran sports writer from Las Vegas and a Senior Staff Writer at Ballislife.com. Follow him on X at @WillieGRamirez