UNLV’s football team rarely makes national headlines, as the Rebels have struggled in recent years in the Mountain West. This season, they find themselves 0-5 on the season, with one final game scheduled for this weekend in Hawaii to try and avoid a winless season in a shortened 2020.
However, on Monday, quarterback Max Gilliam and UNLV coach Marcus Arroyo both issued statements regarding a reality TV show incident that has become quite the story in Las Vegas. Gilliam appeared on the Bravo show Below Deck, in which he and some friends chartered a yacht in Antigua back in February and requested that their sushi dinner be served on a nude model to the dismay of the chef. The episode aired in late November and has caused a bit of a stir.
I will be rewatching this episode to make sure I didn’t miss anything the first time but … for those who would like more context re: UNLV QB Max Gilliam’s apology, here is the name and image Bravo uses to promote the episode: pic.twitter.com/BNOIZqoSkv
— Nicole Auerbach
(@NicoleAuerbach) December 7, 2020
Gilliam says it was not the idea of he or his friends, but that of the producers and says he regrets not pushing back on the idea and allowing it to happen. He notes it’s not a reflection of the culture of UNLV football and doesn’t want it to take away from their focus on finishing the season this week.
Max Gilliam was on a reality TV show called Below Deck.
Gilliam has apologized and Marcus Arroyo said players have to recognize they represent UNLV when in public. Both their statements are below.
But I can’t figure out what Gilliam did wrong. pic.twitter.com/i0jSm3kqcV
— Tyler Bischoff (@Bischoff_Tyler) December 7, 2020
It is one of the most bizarre college football stories of the year, as you rarely get an apology for a reality TV show appearance, and the biggest shocker is that this happened to a UNLV player but not at something filmed in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Review Journal dove into some of the details of the when and how his appearance on the show came to be, but while it seems nothing was amiss from a legal or NCAA standpoint, it seems it was not the kind of attention Gilliam or the program wanted to be getting this fall.