No, to appreciate Jerry Tarkanian in his full glory is to know that at the time Allen signed that Letter of Intent, UNLV had a new president, Robert Maxson, who was trying to improve its academic profile. UNLV was a growing commuter school shaking off the mobster-era reputation of old Vegas.
It needed something big to get some better students, so a new plan was implemented that no matter where a kid went to high school, anywhere in America, they would receive a full academic scholarship to UNLV if they graduated as the valedictorian.
Tark said they read about this in the newspaper one day and one of his assistants immediately cracked a joke: "Hell, Clifford was the valedictorian of that El Paso de Robles GED program. He should qualify for a full academic scholarship."
"We all laughed," Tarkanian said, "but then I got to thinking …"
If Allen was on an academic scholarship then that freed up one more basketball scholarship to bring in another guy. Plus they could publicize it and would help Allen's reputation. Win-win.
An assistant was dispatched to the youth correctional facility and an official paper was drafted (a couple bucks may or may not have been used to grease the skids with a dumbfounded prison worker).
However it was done, Allen was declared the valedictorian of the prison GED program, even if no one knew if a prison GED program could even have a valedictorian because, you know, it's a prison GED program and all.
UNLV wasn't just rubber-stamping this though. It may not have been Harvard, but this seemed suspect, so a hearing was set up where Tark was going to present Allen's case and the signed official paper and all of that.
So what happened?
"Week before the meeting, Clifford boosted a car, got sent back in," Tarkanian said.
He lost his prized big man.
"Yes," Tark cracked, "but I could always say I recruited a valedictorian."
to Vegas's administration. That really was some 
stuff there.
