THE TIME OF THE GREAT WEIGHT MAN CLUSTER IN KANSAS
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Once upon a massive time, five great weightmen (aka shot putters and discus throwers) with ties to Kansas sports clustered in track and field. They were not all at KU. They were not all from the state of Kansas. They did not all perform simultaneously. But they all came in a late 60s/early 70s cluster and had strong ties to Kansas sports.
Three were on KU’s track and field team:
They were left to right in the picture above: Doug Knop, Karl Salb, Steve Wilhelm–KU
All three also played football for KU. Read more about them here: http://www.si.com/vault/issue/43031/82/2
But there were two others that overlapped, or came close on their heels in years to come…
Al Feurerbach (above), grew up in Iowa, and attended Emporia State before going onto great fame afterwards as an Olympic shot putter in several Olympics. Read about Feuerbach here and at many other links: http://www.kshof.org/inductees/2-kansas-sports-hall-of-fame/inductees/124-feuerbach-al.html
Ken Stadel (above) was from Quenemo, Kansas and attended Rice. Read about Ken at: http://quinmcwhirter.com/quinmarti/homepage/1974KenStadel.html
It remains a remarkable clustering of athletes in a single sport, much less in just two field events.
(Note: I have mentioned these great weight men before, but I wanted to gather them up in a single post with pictures and links in case changes to the site had made the old threads disappear, or become inaccessible.)
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Thanks for sharing this nugget. I would have had no idea.
