For the better part of two weeks now, Max Good – world-class foot-stomper, renowned sideline screecher and former coach at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield – has been a man in transition.

Three weeks ago he was the bad cop who sent the practice messages for head coach Bill Bayno at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Then, as quick as you can spell U-N-L-V, Bayno was out, as school officials fired the man they blamed for their second NCAA probation in seven years.

Enter Max Good, a man one media outlet described as “a pickup truck guy in a glitz and glitter town.”

Good takes issue with that characterization. Almost.

“I don’t know if I’m a pickup-type guy, but I’m in bed by eight o’clock most nights and I never go on the strip,” he admits.

In the wake of Bayno, whose late-night shenanigans are the stuff of Las Vegas legend, that’s not a bad thing.

“I had no premonition that this was gonna happen,” Good said on Wednesday. “I had no desire to do this.”

The “this” is this: Good has stepped into the maelstrom that is UNLV hoop just seven games into the season, with a losing record, in place of the flamboyant Bayno.

At first, the players were happy. There would be no house-cleaning. Things would be the same.

Then came the first practice under head coach Max Good.

“They might not be as excited about this now that they’ve practiced with me for a week,” Good says with a wry chuckle.

That’s because after spending more than a year as an assistant, Good is free to put his own stamp … make that stomp … on the team.

“We lit ’em up pretty good this week, I can tell you that,” Good said.

Surprise.

But it’s not as if Good had been exactly invisible even before he took control of the program. And the players should have been able to see what was coming.

“Even as an assistant, they knew,” he says. “I think they just hoped it would be kept to a base level.”

No chance. In 10 years at MCI in Pittsfield, Good led the nation in worn-out shoe leather and ear-popping rants.

It’s the same in Las Vegas.

“Mainly we wanted a stepped-up process of mental toughness because I frankly didn’t think we were as mentally tough as we needed to be,” Good says.

And after a year of being the No. 2 guy, it was nice to have a bigger hammer to wield when it came to molding good work habits.

“[I] have the decision-making power to see that they don’t play,” Good said. “That’s what kids understand. So many kids today take kindness for weakness.”

Make that mistake with Max Good, and you’ll find yourself in the doghouse … with a 59-year-old man doing all of the barking.

In his second game at the helm, he sent another message, yanking two starters before the game was two minutes old.

“I’m not a very patient person.” What he is, is a man who makes plenty of demands, then backs them up with his own loyalty.

Just two games into his UNLV run, Good is already planning ahead: He’s no longer satisfied to be “interim coach,” and he wants the job on a more permanent basis.

When he moved to Las Vegas, Good cited the job, along with the weather … and some great golf courses.

Now his job has changed. The weather’s still nice. And the golf?

On Tuesday Good fielded an invitation to tee it up with basketball Hall-of-Famer Bill Russell and a local car dealer.

The answer was obvious.

“I didn’t do it,” Good says. Too much work.

“There’s no way I’m gonna play golf during the year,” Good says.

John Holyoke is a NEWS sportswriter.