On Thursday, July 19, about 9 pm, a person performing a wellness check found Russ Culver dead on the kitchen floor of his home in Gilbert, Arizona. Russ had health issues in recent years -- a blood disorder, sleep apnea, and a mobility issue that was a side effect of medication he was taking for high cholesterol. He was using a walker to get around. He was only 68 years old but his body just wore out.
Russ Culver grew up in Middlebury, Indiana, a small town 130 miles from Chicago in Northern Indiana’s Amish country. His parents founded and ran what Russ always called a duck farm (I teased him by calling it a slaughterhouse). Culver Ducks was the biggest operation of its kind in the country. If you ever ate duck at a Chinese restaurant, it likely came from Culver Ducks. Russ graduated with a degree in political science from Indiana U. and was a proud Hoosier.
In 1981, after moving to Las Vegas, Russ entered the Castaways Challenge, the precursor of the Hilton (now Westgate) SuperContest. At the end of the regular season, he was tied with a fellow named Keith Glantz. The contest for them continued into the playoffs. Russ and Keith naturally arranged to meet and worked out a hedging arrangement.
From that meeting was born a long lasting friendship and business partnership. At its peak the Glantz-Culver line, an overnight line that was syndicated by World Features Syndicate, appeared in several hundred newspapers.
Russ and Keith jointly managed the first sports book at Palace Station (when it was the only Station in town) and then each branched out to different properties. Russ was Jimmy Vaccaro’s right hand man at Bally’s, the Golden Nugget, and the Mirage.
Long ago (I couldn’t tell you the exact year), Russ was approached by someone at UNLV to do a once-a-week mid-afternoon handicapping-oriented sports talk show from the radio studio on the college campus.
Russ said okay although he wouldn’t be paid. He had no experience talking into a microphone and thought it a good idea to have a sidekick. I had no experience either, but he picked me.
When the show moved to a local news station, we got paid. And although we weren’t kids anymore – I was approaching 40 – we were like kids in a candy store; it was great fun. Keep in mind that this was before ESPN and well before sports talk radio became all the rage.
Later on during my checkered radio career, Russ and I were reunited on the Stardust Line. This came after Russ won an NFL handicapping contest at the Stratosphere. Joe Lupo then ran the book at the ‘Dust and he thought it wise to beef up the panel of talking heads with someone that didn’t just talk the talk, but walked the walk; a smart move by Joe.
About the year 2000, Russ hired on with an Internet start-up called Vegas Insider which would be folded into CBS Sportsline. He was given the title of Director of Sports Analysis and charged with assembling a team of handicappers.
Russ left Vegas Insider when Wayne Allyn Root wormed his way onto the team. Root carved out a deal whereby V.I. would sponsor and promote his cable TV show, “The Winning Edge.”
When Russ learned of the deal, he promptly quit. He turned in his resignation on Aug. 15, 2002, nine days before he was slated to moderate a Vegas Insider handicapping seminar at Palace Station.
Russ was understandably peeved that someone at the home office in Florida had adulterated his authority, but this wasn’t just about having his ego bruised. Not for a second would Russ Culver cozy up with some oily character running a big boiler room operation.
Out of loyalty to Russ, many of the handicappers he hired followed him out the door. The leave-takers included the late Mike Lee, Stephen Nover, and David Malinsky who perished in April after a fall while hiking on Mount Charleston.
In 2006, when this site was owned by Ken “The Shrink” Weitzner, Russ joined EOG. A press release dated May 15 of that year said that Culver “has agreed to promote EOG with exclusive free wagering content.” The press release made note of Russ’s prowess in handicapping U.S. presidential elections. This reporter recalls that one year Russ determined that the best odds on the election were to be found at some of the bet shops in the U.K. and so off to London he went.
When Russ joined EOG he was back home in Indiana. He and his wife Kay were living in a home adjacent to the duck farm he had worked at as boy. Russ was very tight with his large extended family which gathered each year around Christmastime at a beach community in Florida for the annual Culver family reunion.
Russ and Kay later moved to The Villages, a humongous retirement community that sprawls across parts of several counties in Florida. As luck would have it, my in-laws lived in the adjacent town. One afternoon, Russ gave me a tour of The Villages. I saw him several times after that but these occasions were fleeting compared to that leisurely afternoon in Florida when we rode around The Villages in his convertible.
When Russ left The Villages, he settled in Gilbert, a suburb of Phoenix. He chose the Phoenix area for two reasons. His best friend from his high school days lived here and baseball. The pros play it virtually year round in these parts and baseball was his first love. When I first met him he had a golden retriever named Koufax.
As a young man recently moved to Las Vegas, Russ made the acquaintance of the late Lee Pete and the late “Papa Joe” Chevalier. One spring the three of them got together and spent the better part of a week at Arizona spring training sites. It was one of Russ’s fondest memories.
This coming October will be my 31[SUP]st[/SUP] wedding anniversary. Kitt and I were married outdoors in Red Rock Canyon. Russ Culver was my best man.
I had been married once before, a tumultuous union that was thankfully short-lived. I got it right the second time and I credit Russ with being my good luck charm.
Every year before the biggest golf tournaments, Russ and his friend Alan in North Carolina would team up in a fantasy draft. They would hash over their selections a few days before the tournament started. This had been ongoing for more than a decade.
This year, Russ didn’t chime in on the appointed day and Alan knew something was amiss. And so it was that Alan reached out to someone who reached out to others who reached out to someone who could get to the bottom of it. And Alan’s worst fears were confirmed. In the process, Alan learned that some of Russ’s immediate family were off on an Alaskan cruise. He asked me and others in whom he confided to keep the news under wraps for a little while to allow time for all of his family to be notified.
“Russ was the catalyst,” Alan told me, “if not for Russ I would have never met Eric (Strasser) or Dave (Malinsky)” or.…..and then there was a long pause, the words that Alan wanted to say stifled by the lump in his throat.
We were talking on the telephone but the tears rolling down his cheek were palpable.
Russ Culver grew up in Middlebury, Indiana, a small town 130 miles from Chicago in Northern Indiana’s Amish country. His parents founded and ran what Russ always called a duck farm (I teased him by calling it a slaughterhouse). Culver Ducks was the biggest operation of its kind in the country. If you ever ate duck at a Chinese restaurant, it likely came from Culver Ducks. Russ graduated with a degree in political science from Indiana U. and was a proud Hoosier.
In 1981, after moving to Las Vegas, Russ entered the Castaways Challenge, the precursor of the Hilton (now Westgate) SuperContest. At the end of the regular season, he was tied with a fellow named Keith Glantz. The contest for them continued into the playoffs. Russ and Keith naturally arranged to meet and worked out a hedging arrangement.
From that meeting was born a long lasting friendship and business partnership. At its peak the Glantz-Culver line, an overnight line that was syndicated by World Features Syndicate, appeared in several hundred newspapers.
Russ and Keith jointly managed the first sports book at Palace Station (when it was the only Station in town) and then each branched out to different properties. Russ was Jimmy Vaccaro’s right hand man at Bally’s, the Golden Nugget, and the Mirage.
Long ago (I couldn’t tell you the exact year), Russ was approached by someone at UNLV to do a once-a-week mid-afternoon handicapping-oriented sports talk show from the radio studio on the college campus.
Russ said okay although he wouldn’t be paid. He had no experience talking into a microphone and thought it a good idea to have a sidekick. I had no experience either, but he picked me.
When the show moved to a local news station, we got paid. And although we weren’t kids anymore – I was approaching 40 – we were like kids in a candy store; it was great fun. Keep in mind that this was before ESPN and well before sports talk radio became all the rage.
Later on during my checkered radio career, Russ and I were reunited on the Stardust Line. This came after Russ won an NFL handicapping contest at the Stratosphere. Joe Lupo then ran the book at the ‘Dust and he thought it wise to beef up the panel of talking heads with someone that didn’t just talk the talk, but walked the walk; a smart move by Joe.
About the year 2000, Russ hired on with an Internet start-up called Vegas Insider which would be folded into CBS Sportsline. He was given the title of Director of Sports Analysis and charged with assembling a team of handicappers.
Russ left Vegas Insider when Wayne Allyn Root wormed his way onto the team. Root carved out a deal whereby V.I. would sponsor and promote his cable TV show, “The Winning Edge.”
When Russ learned of the deal, he promptly quit. He turned in his resignation on Aug. 15, 2002, nine days before he was slated to moderate a Vegas Insider handicapping seminar at Palace Station.
Russ was understandably peeved that someone at the home office in Florida had adulterated his authority, but this wasn’t just about having his ego bruised. Not for a second would Russ Culver cozy up with some oily character running a big boiler room operation.
Out of loyalty to Russ, many of the handicappers he hired followed him out the door. The leave-takers included the late Mike Lee, Stephen Nover, and David Malinsky who perished in April after a fall while hiking on Mount Charleston.
In 2006, when this site was owned by Ken “The Shrink” Weitzner, Russ joined EOG. A press release dated May 15 of that year said that Culver “has agreed to promote EOG with exclusive free wagering content.” The press release made note of Russ’s prowess in handicapping U.S. presidential elections. This reporter recalls that one year Russ determined that the best odds on the election were to be found at some of the bet shops in the U.K. and so off to London he went.
When Russ joined EOG he was back home in Indiana. He and his wife Kay were living in a home adjacent to the duck farm he had worked at as boy. Russ was very tight with his large extended family which gathered each year around Christmastime at a beach community in Florida for the annual Culver family reunion.
Russ and Kay later moved to The Villages, a humongous retirement community that sprawls across parts of several counties in Florida. As luck would have it, my in-laws lived in the adjacent town. One afternoon, Russ gave me a tour of The Villages. I saw him several times after that but these occasions were fleeting compared to that leisurely afternoon in Florida when we rode around The Villages in his convertible.
When Russ left The Villages, he settled in Gilbert, a suburb of Phoenix. He chose the Phoenix area for two reasons. His best friend from his high school days lived here and baseball. The pros play it virtually year round in these parts and baseball was his first love. When I first met him he had a golden retriever named Koufax.
As a young man recently moved to Las Vegas, Russ made the acquaintance of the late Lee Pete and the late “Papa Joe” Chevalier. One spring the three of them got together and spent the better part of a week at Arizona spring training sites. It was one of Russ’s fondest memories.
This coming October will be my 31[SUP]st[/SUP] wedding anniversary. Kitt and I were married outdoors in Red Rock Canyon. Russ Culver was my best man.
I had been married once before, a tumultuous union that was thankfully short-lived. I got it right the second time and I credit Russ with being my good luck charm.
Every year before the biggest golf tournaments, Russ and his friend Alan in North Carolina would team up in a fantasy draft. They would hash over their selections a few days before the tournament started. This had been ongoing for more than a decade.
This year, Russ didn’t chime in on the appointed day and Alan knew something was amiss. And so it was that Alan reached out to someone who reached out to others who reached out to someone who could get to the bottom of it. And Alan’s worst fears were confirmed. In the process, Alan learned that some of Russ’s immediate family were off on an Alaskan cruise. He asked me and others in whom he confided to keep the news under wraps for a little while to allow time for all of his family to be notified.
“Russ was the catalyst,” Alan told me, “if not for Russ I would have never met Eric (Strasser) or Dave (Malinsky)” or.…..and then there was a long pause, the words that Alan wanted to say stifled by the lump in his throat.
We were talking on the telephone but the tears rolling down his cheek were palpable.
