Monday Night, March 6, 1967, AFH
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I’m starting to think being 37 years old I maybe one of the youngsters on here haha. @jojoandme I really enjoy the old stories from before my time. 100% Wilt is the GOAT imo, people forget he was a track star and unbelievably athletic. They are only about 5 guys the good lord put on earth with his size and athleticism. They changed the rules time and time again to prevent Wilt from dominating games. They changed the rules time and time again so guys like Michael and LeBron could dominate. Big difference in the two. If Wilt was born about 20 years later it wouldn’t even be a question as to whom the greatest was in college or professional.
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@kjayhawks2.0 Couldn't agree more. Phenom!
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Merry Christmas to All! It's fun to share. Glad y'all are enjoying these clips from the past. Here's a good one.
The 1961 KU vs MU game is the game I remember the most. KU was 6-2-1 going into the Missouri game with a one-point loss at TCU and a one-point loss at Colorado. KU was loaded with All-American John Hadl at quarterback, Bert Coan and Curtis McClinton at halfback, and Doyle Shick at fullback. (All four would go on to play professional football.)
Both teams were highly ranked. It was a much-anticipated game. I have mental pictures of this day. A bright, crisp fall day with the field surrounded by Kansas Highway patrolmen, many of them with German police dogs! That’s how intense the rivalry was still 100 years after the start of the Civil War. (People just don't realize how intense the rivalry was. German shepards surrounded the playing field!) Before the game, the spirit squad had covered the bottom of the south goal posts with a paper sign encouraging KU, and the team was to charge out of the locker room, burst through the sign and onto the field. Before the KU players came out of their locker room (in those days under the east stands), a Missouri student ran onto the field toward the sign-covered south goal posts. A highway patrolman with a German Shepherd on a leash started after him. Just as the Missouri student broke through the sign, the German Shepherd was nipping at the buttocks of the student’s blue jeans. (A mental picture that is indelibly etched in my mind.)
The game ended dramatically with the Columbia blue-clad KU Jayhawks leading 7–3 when, late in the fourth quarter, a KU fumble near the west sideline (back-lit by a late fall sun) bounced in the air. A MU player grabbed it and ran it in for a 10–7 Missouri victory. (Another mental picture I’ll never forget)
In spite of the loss, KU went to the Bluebonnet Bowl, and MU did not get a bowl invitation! Ha ha. Missouri officials were, of course, incensed. So they tattled to the Big 8 Conference. Bert Coan, a Texas recruit, had been flown in the private airplane of Bud Adams, owner of the Houston Oilers, to the College All-Star game in Chicago, Illinois. Bud Adams was also an alumnus of the University of Kansas. The violation of rules, however, happened when Coan was previously enrolled at TCU!
Still, the Big 8 forfeited KU’s win two years previously in 1960 when MU had been ranked #1, thus erasing Missouri’s only loss that year. Missouri counts the 1960 game as a win by forfeit, thus giving it the only undefeated and untied season in school history. However, Kansas (and the NCAA) count the game as a Kansas victory. Ever since, the two universities have disputed the overall win–loss record in (what used to be) the longest-running continuous series west of the Mississippi River.
Coan, notable for his extraordinary speed (9.4 in the 100-yard dash) at 6’ 5” and 220 lb., went on to play in 72 games in seven seasons in the American Football League, the first season with the San Diego Chargers and the rest with the Kansas City Chiefs.
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I hope I'm not boring you . . . . Here's a "chuckle" from the mid-60's. It shows you how much the game has changed!
I had three fraternity brothers who played football. One was Bill Wohlford, a farm boy from Geneseo, Kansas, who became an attorney on Bob dole's staff in D.C. Bill started at guard, linebacker and center his three years of eligibility. After returning from a game against Missouri in Columbia, Bill told me that in a team meeting on Friday before the game, Coach Jack Mitchell asked the team what they wanted to do that night. (Notice how casual and loosely planned the program was in those days.) No one said anything, so Coach Mitchell said, “Why don’t we go to a drive-in movie?” One of the players replied, “But coach, how are we gonna do that? We got here in busses.” Coach Mitchell replied, apparently in all seriousness, “Well, we’ll park the busses sideways.” This story came directly from Bill Wohlford. I have no reason to believe it’s not true.
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@JoJoAndMe ha just read through this one now. Would love a physical picture of the missouri student sign ripping German shephard takedown!
Thats great that Missouri disputes the rest of the world on its only undefeated season
Thanks for sharing this one! -
@JoJoAndMe haha as a person who has spent time craning my neck on the couch 90 degrees to see the tv i recognize this as a joke… i think
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@approxinfinity No joke. I promise. Would swear by it in a court of law.
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@JoJoAndMe Oh I mean... did they actually watch it out the side of the bus or was the coach just joking?
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@approxinfinity No. They didn't actually take the buses to the drive-in. However, just the suggestion shows how different and basic college football was 60 years ago. It was truly an amateur sport. Remember, it had been only since 1952 that Kansas hired a high school coach to revise (unsuccessfully) its football program.
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Here's another adventure to remember. Please note how "times have changed" in so many ways.
The “Famous” POPP Buttons
My mis-adventures as a Jayhawk student continued the following fall during football season, and it had to do with the Kansas State Wildcats. Vince Gibson had been hired as their coach the previous season (1967) following a 21-game losing streak. Boasting and bloviating, Vince Gibson’s battle cry was Purple Pride and “We gonna win.” He painted everything he could purple. It was annoying, to say the least.
Flashback: When I was a sophomore in high school, the week before the KU vs MU football game, my algebra teacher came to class wearing a yellow button with black letters that read AHAB. I innocently asked him what the button meant. Without a pause, he said simply “All Hawks Are Bastards.” (Even at my age then, I was surprised that the school let him wear that button in class.)
I remembered that button when, in the fall of 1968, I created the POPP button. Red letters on blue, it stood for Piss On Purple Pride. Feeling my own Jayhawk pride, my interest in making some extra money, and my entrepreneurial spirit, I ordered 2,000 buttons. Having worked on the University Daily Kansan as a journalism student, it was easy for me to design and place advertisements in the UDK. I had posters made up and placed the buttons, on consignment, in every bar on campus. They were sold for $1 each, with the bar keeping 50% of the proceeds. Sales were apparently picking up as game day approached. On Thursday before the game, Chancellor Wescoe tracked me down and called me to his office in Strong Hall. He asked if I was selling these buttons (which, of course, he knew I was). Then he asked me what it meant. I said that it meant Pounce On Purple Pride. He said he didn’t believe it. I stood by what I said it meant. (“That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.”) He disagreed and suggested that I needed to stop selling the buttons if I wanted to graduate. (Would / Could that happen today?) Accepting the threat, I did so. I had sold enough buttons that I just about broke even. Even so, imagine what a chancellor would do today. Nothing, for fear of being sued, I suppose. My how times do change! -
@JoJoAndMe It's surprising that the Chancellor would even occupy two brain cells on the topic of a button, let alone track down the student and have a 1 on 1 conversation. That's amazing.
Also love to hear from a fellow UDK alum! (I was there 86-88).
Did Willie work there way back in the day (I think his name was Bill Thomas?). He was an employee-- an older fellow who was very friendly to the students. He was a liaison with the KU printing services and set the ads on the old cold type system among other things. Not sure if that system was in use pre-70?
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@bskeet Don't recall a Willie. Sorry, but spent plenty of time in Flint Hall in the advertising sequence after I discovered I wasn't going to be an architect!
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Let's keep it goin'. Who remembers Nolan Cromwell?
The 1970s weren’t a lot of fun for KU Football, but there was at least one highlight, in my opinion. That was the move of Nolan Cromwell from defensive back to quarterback, and it proved how important coaching still is.
Cromwell was an incredible athlete from tiny Ransom, Kansas. (pop. 260 at the 2020 census) Cromwell earned recognition as the Wichita Eagle’s Kansas Player of the decade for the 1970’s. Cromwell was all-state in football and basketball. In his freshman and sophomore years, he played free safety for Coach Don Fambrough. In 1974, the team finished 4-7, and Fambrough was fired . . . again! The next year, new Head Coach Bud Moore moved Cromwell to quarterback and ran the wishbone. KU beat Oklahoma 23-3 in Norman when the Sooners were ranked #1 in the AP poll. Cromwell rushed for a TD in that game. The Jayhawks finished 7-4 and then lost to Pitt in the Sun Bowl.
During the 1976 season, the Jayhawks were 5-1 and ranked #10 in the country when Cromwell suffered a season-ending knee injury. The ‘Hawks finished 6-5. In spite of his shortened season, Cromwell earned Big 8 Conference Offensive Player of the Year honors.
Cromwell went on to play 11 years as a defensive back for the Los Angeles Rams, was a four-time Pro Bowler and a participant in Super Bowl XIV.By the way, do you know what a Sooner is? By definition the Sooners were the cheaters in the first Oklahoma Land Rush. Do you know what a Boomer is? They were the cheaters in the second Oklahoma Land Rush.
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@JoJoAndMe glad Cromwell didnt have to sacrifice his soul for 7 years of prosperity (like Oliver Cromwell)
Cool stories!
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Coach Don Fambrough is a University of Kansas Legend! No one cared more or gave more to the University post World War II. This Texan had played football at the University of Texas when the war broke out. But during the War, Fambrough played football with a number of football players from Kansas who convinced him to enroll at KU. He played guard on the 1948 Orange Bowl team and became a life-long Jayhawk, coaching the Jayhawks football team – twice!
Where, when and how he learned his disdain for the University of Missouri, I am not sure, but he did once say, “I don’t hate anyone, but I truly dislike the University of Missouri. I disliked ‘em when I played ‘em. I disliked ‘em when I was an assistant coach. I disliked them when I was head coach. I dislike ‘em now, and I always will.”
I did a little research and found what might be the reason for Fambrough’s disdain. In 1947, KU enjoyed one of its most successful seasons in program history, earning an 8-1-2 record, a co-Big Eight Conference championship and a 1948 Orange Bowl bid and victory. As spring practice began the following year, KU had five players, including Fambrough, who were about to play their final season. However, former MU coach Don Faurot wanted to change the World War II exemption rule that had allowed for freshmen eligibility. Two weeks after spring practice, Faurot, then MU athletic director, called an emergency session of the Big Six Conference. Conference officials eventually sided with Faurot, and made the exemption retroactive, meaning Fambrough’s expectation of a senior season had been dissolved by the Tigers, and his playing career was over. Kansas lost its top two quarterbacks and the entire left side of its offensive line as a result.
Coach was well known for his pre-game speech for the KU – MU game. Even when he was not coaching, Fambrough was often invited into the KU locker room before the game to fire up the team. (I once had an audio tape of one of his pre-game speeches; but I loaned it out, and it was never returned. Lesson learned!)
Coach Fambrough’s annual speech went something like this: (Delivered in a gruff, gravely voice) Now boys, y’all need to know how this game got started. Years ago, a drop-out from the University of Missouri gathered up his low-rent buddies. They were nothin’ but a bunch of no-good, hard-drinkin’ thugs. By God, they rode horseback over to Lawrence [Fambrough’s voice is rising.] where they killed our men, even our boys. They raped our women! . . . then the burned the whole DAMNED TOWN!
Today is not a day when you give 100%. Today is a day when you give 110% every down, every play! Every Kansan who ever lived is counting on you today. Go out and beat those DAMN Tigers!
It’s a shame, in my opinion, the City of Lawrence, Kansas, could not find a way to re-name Missouri Street to Fambrough Street as it leads south into Memorial Stadium. -
I was alive and in Topeka for the 70s. Cromwell was amazing. Didn’t he letter in several sports? Just a freak athlete as I recall.
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@JoJoAndMe helluva speech. Hard to imagine mustering the kind of energy we might need against Arizona this year that a rivalry speech like that could conjure up
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@approxinfinity Glad you are enjoying my posts.
