Note: No court storming
Everyone stayed until Bill finished his interview
Class.

@approxinfinity

I recently completed a 56-page reflection on my Adventures and Misadventures as a Jayhawk. Plenty of stories to tell starting with my first football game in 1952 vs Santa Clara. Hope the guys get a chuckle out of this excerpt.

The basketball season offered the highlight (or low light) of my one-year career as a Kansas Jayhawk Yell Leader. It was Monday night, March 6, 1967. The Jayhawks were 21-3 playing against Colorado at Allen Field House. KU had beaten CU in the Pre-Season Holiday Tournament in Kansas City, but lost earlier in the season to Colorado in Boulder 59-62. This team featured sophomore Jo Jo White, later to be a two-time second team All-American, seven-time NBA All-Pro, and Olympic gold medalist. The Boston Celtics retired his #10. This K.U. team also included Roger Bohnenstiehl, Ron Franz (who played in the ABA and the NBA) and big man, Vernon Vanoy who also played tight end for the football team. The Field House was packed and going nuts!
Colorado was led by 6’ 4” shooting guard Pat Frink. He was the kind of “hot shot” player that opposition crowds loved to hate. I was sitting with other yell leaders on the edge of the court just outside the baseline under one of the baskets. (In those days, the court was raised three feet above the dirt floor.) Late in the second half Jo Jo White came streaking toward me, headed for a breakaway layup. Just as he got to the free throw line, Frink caught him and wrapped his arms around him. The Field House went crazy! I blanked out. Somehow, a few seconds of my life, and even my memory at the time, disappeared. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the free throw lane looking up at Frink. Jo Jo calmly said to me, “It’s okay, man.” I turned around and sat back down on the edge of the court with my megaphone clutched close to my side.
Amazingly, neither of the referees said anything to me. The game went on. Nothing was written in the local papers about the incident, but Sports Illustrated carried a little sidebar article describing the incident . . . but not giving my name!
Oh, what a different time it was. Had it happened in the era of ESPN, video of the “incident” and my name would have been splattered all over national TV!

I'm ack home after what turned out to be a 10-day hospital stay for my wife's heart surgery. Wasn't expected to be open heart, but that's what it turned out to be. The good news is that the vitral valve was repaired. Going to be a month-long recovery with rest and exercise, but she'll live longer with more vigor.
Thanks to approxinfinitty revising the site. I'm now onboard so I can comment. Approxinfinity encouraged me to post excerpts from my journal of Adventures and Misadventures as a Jayhawk. Here's another. Enjoy!

My Dad took me to my first KU football game when I was seven-years-old. (Yes. I'm 80, but still in good health!) The Jayhawks beat the Santa Clara Broncos 21–9 on September 27, 1952, having beat TCU at home the previous Saturday. In those days, and for many years, the Jayhawks always opened their season playing Texas Christian University, either at home or on the road. It was a beautiful, jacket-less fall day. (Much like the ISU game when I was a yell leader! Ha.)

My first KU “football heroes” probably came out of that game – the running backs Charlie Hoag #21 and Bob Brandenberry #44. (Charlie Hoag also played on the 1952 National Championship basketball team.) Later that fall or the next, I remember my mother driving me to Downtown Kansas City to a sporting goods store and buying me a leather helmet, a pair of heavy canvas football pants and a long-sleeved off-white football jersey. I picked the number 21 for them to iron on the back of the shirt.

J. V. Sikes was the head football coach in ‘52, and the Jayhawks went 7-3 but 3-3 in what was then the Big 7 Conference. The next year they went 2–8. Sikes was fired and replaced by a highly touted, successful coach at powerhouse Massilon, Ohio, high school. Chuck Mather went 0-10 in his first season. His record improved slightly each year, when in 1957, he finally had a winning season at 5 - 4 – 1 and was fired. What I remember about those years was that KU football players wore white pants, bright blue jerseys and yellow helmets (Yellow Helmets!). I also recall the first face guards – a single composite grey bar or a plexiglass strip. (Invented by Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns. Did ya know?) Mather was replaced by Jack Mitchell.

During these years Dad took me to a number of KU football games. He never had season tickets, but we always seemed to have good seats. Our routine was to drive to Lawrence via K-10 highway to the ATO fraternity house for lunch. As we approached Lawrence and Haskell Indian Institute (as it was known in those days), we had a curious habit of trying to predict whether an Indian (or more) would be standing on the corner of the intersection by Haskell’s stadium! (There was a convenience store there, which made it likely.) It was just a fun thing to do. We didn't have to worry about being accused of racism in those days.

There was always a good gathering of alums at the ATO house in those days. And, pre-television, the games ALWAYS kicked-off at 1:30 p.m. After lunch, we’d walk over the hill to the stadium, buy a program and take our seats. Sometimes we’d rent canvas seat-backs for $1 each. On homecoming weekends, my Mother would always join us. Students would have five-gallon buckets filled with long-stemmed mums outside the stadium. Dad would buy her a big white or yellow mum with a blue and red “KU” affixed atop it using dyed pipe cleaners to wear on her dress or jacket.
That's enough history for this morning. If I get a little encouragement, I'll post more memories. All the best to each of you. I enjoy our civil conversations.

"WE'RE PUTTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER." Jake Elwood

I'll be back with more. Right now @ Anchutz in Denver as my wife recovers from open heart surgery!
Phillip Anchutz is a good lad from Russell. Too bad he doesn't follow KU football like David Booth!

Here's another entry . . . from way back. Fun to share. Hope you enjoy.

From all my KU experiences, my one regret is that I didn’t get to see a game in Hoch Auditorium. In 1927 the basketball games moved from Robinson Gymnasium to the newly constructed Hoch Auditorium next door to Robinson which seated 3,800 for basketball. Being a theater, it had an unusual configuration for basketball. The floor was in front of the stage with additional bleacher seating on the stage! The floor was hard, Coach Phog Allen complained. Two corners of the floor met at walls by the stage. And, both teams had to use locker rooms in still-standing Robinson Gym. That meant that both teams ran between buildings before, at half-time and after games . . . sometimes in snow storms!

When K-State opened Ahern Field House in 1951, Coach Allen pressed his long-standing hope for a new basketball venue. He obtained funding from the state legislature, but construction was held up by the federal restriction on steel during the Korean War. To get past the restrictions, they re-labeled the plans as an armory with two rooms designated for ammunition storage. The guise worked. The initial steel came from surplus steel designated for the Korean War. Architects on the project later reported that they considered the project as just a “big barn” with a dirt floor. (Which it was, originally!)

Coach Allen wanted the building named in honor of Coach Naismith, the inventor of the game and the University of Kansas’ first basketball coach. However, by a vote of the student body, the facility was named Allen Field House.

As the 1955 school year approached, the “Big News” (pun intended) was that the first nationally recruited basketball player, Wilton Norman Chamberlain from Philadelphia, was coming to KU. “Alerted” by a reporter that the 7’ 1” Chamberlain had enrolled at KU, Coach Allen responded, “I just hope he comes out for basketball.”

Wilt was, in my opinion, the best college basketball player . . . ever, and most likely the best to play in the pros. (If you had the first pick in the “All-Time Pro” draft, would you pick Wilt or Michael Jordan?) We could have a debate here.

Opening night of Allen Field House was March 1, 1955, and I was there, with my Dad and 17,286 other fans, an attendance record that stands to this day. Kansas won the game 77 – 67 over Kansas State. I had the program for many years, but it was later ruined in a basement flood. I really don’t have any specific memories of that game except that the iconic Jayhawk on the small, overhanging center court scoreboard had a red light bulb for an eye that lit up each time KU scored – two flashes for a field goal and one flash for a free throw. Interestingly, that first Jayhawk on the scoreboard was the 1929 version. Maybe that was a request by Phog Allen who had coached during those years.

Prior to the ‘55-’56 season, (when freshman were still not eligible to compete at the varsity level), Wilt dominated in the traditional Frosh vs Varsity game before 14,000 at Allen Field House, scoring 42 points with 28 rebounds. Always the wit, Allen commented, “Wilt could team-up with two Phi Beta Kappas and two co-eds and give us a battle.”

But then it was discovered that Allen would be unable to coach his prized recruit. Most unfortunately, Kansas state regulations required state employees to retire at age 70. Chamberlain really wanted to be coached by Allen. Coach Allen and the administration tried everything, but could not get an exception made.

It may have been a contributing factor as to why, after KU’s crushing three-overtime defeat in the 1958 NCAA Championship Game, Wilt chose not to return for his senior season. But the biggest reason seemed to be Wilt’s frustration with the college game at that time. Opposing teams would triple team him; and in one game, the Hank Iba coached Oklahoma State Cowboys passed the ball 160 times before shooting.

That 1958 championship game was played at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City. I truly believe that had Coach Allen still been coaching, KU would have won that three-overtime game. I watched it on black and white TV at home. Why we didn’t go to that game, I’ll never know!

By the way, in the days of the Big Seven Conference, the Pre-Season Basketball Tournament at Municipal Auditorium was always a big attraction. My Dad often took me to a game (or two) as each “session” (afternoon or evening) was two games). Every team played three games, so the tournament participants finished 1 through 8. To make it an eight-team tournament, they always invited a school from outside the conference . . . and it was never a school that had any chance of winning the tournament. The neatest thing about it, from a young boy’s perspective, was that all the teams stayed at nearby downtown hotels, so they would just walk to and from the Auditorium. If you arrived very early, you could stand outside and watch the players in their warm-ups walk into the arena.

Here's what I was taught by my father: "We're all Kansans, so we root for K-State except when we play them." (I know. Some may take exception.) "As for Missouri, we hope they lose every damn game!" It's the only time I ever heard my father swear. This was the attitude circa 1940 to 1960. I lived it, and I was there in Memorial Stadium in 1960 for the KU v MU game when the field was surrounded by highway patrolmen with German Shepherds. TRUE! Later, when I was a junior in high school, Dad said, " Son, I want you to know that you may attend any college or university in the country. However, I need to make it clear that, as your father, I will NEVER write a check to the University of Missouri." Rock Chalk

Here's one more post from the "Way Back Machine." If I don't get any comments (Approxinfinity?), then I'll quit.
My Dad and I had a tradition for the end of each football game in Lawrence when I was young. Depending on which team was leading with two minutes left in the game, we'd go down onto the track (You could do that in those days!) and walk toward that team's locker room to watch “the big boys” jog off the field. On this particular day, October 1, 1960, KU was playing Syracuse, the 1959 National Champions featuring All-American-to-be Ernie Davis. With two minutes remaining, the Orange were up 14-7 (the eventual final score), so we headed out of the west stands and down onto the track. Laying beside one of the wooden benches was a pile of about ten white Syracuse jerseys. The Orange were wearing “tear-away” jerseys, and some of them had been replaced during the game. Dad said, “Why don't you ask someone if you could have one of those jerseys?” Instead, I just grabbed one. I stuffed it under my gray hooded sweatshirt and walked on. Much to my amazement, Dad didn't say a thing! When we got outside Memorial Stadium, I pulled the jersey out, and it was #44, Ernie Davis'. Ernie was a great football player and a great person. He would be diagnosed with leukemia at the College All-Star Game and die within the year. The jersey was pinned to the wall of my bedroom for many years. As an adult, it was in the bottom of a drawer.

I liked Bill's coaching at the end.

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.

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.

@DanR Melvin might be a more important player to the team's success than DP.

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.

In an effort to distract thought from this year's basketball team, here's another "look back." The '80s is an era that is difficult to write about. It’s difficult because I was as close to the program as anyone could be who was not on the University payroll. I saw first-hand how difficult it was to compete in athletics without the support of the University’s administration. (Gene Budig)
In the early 1980’s, I joined a local KU support group in Kansas City called the Hawks Club. The main purpose was to sell KU football season tickets. Heading into the 1984 season, I had become president of the Hawks Club and took the leadership position seriously. As a club, we sold the most season tickets ever. My involvement in the Hawks Club was my first opportunity to get close to the program and the players. My son, Jason, was a budding little league quarterback and placekicker. In the spring of 1983 I met Bruce Kallymeyer, the K.U. placekicker. That summer, Bruce volunteered to work with Jason. Because Bruce was from the Shawnee Mission area, I drove Jason across town to Shawnee Mission East to meet on their football field. Bruce was 20 minutes late, apologizing because he had been helping to complete the harvest of his parents’ asparagus crop! Opening up a big net bag full of footballs, Bruce and Jason kicked, and I shagged balls! I wanted to pay Bruce for his time, but he was adamant about not jeopardizing his eligibility. Bruce, by the way, kicked 78.6 percent of his career field goals and in 1981 set the K.U. single season record of 85.7%.
A year later, we worked with kicker Dodge Schwartzberg. His dad was president of Lawrence Paper Co. In 1985 the K.U. kicker was Chase Van Dyne, again from Shawnee Mission. Jason had a chance to work with Chase, too. That winter, at halftime of a K.U. basketball game, Chase spotted us and came up to our seats to say “Hi.” I was so often impressed with the quality of young men on the K.U. football teams.
Unrelated to KU, but a good kicking story is one involving Jan Stenerud, the All-Pro kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs who had retired in 1985 after finishing his career with Green Bay and then Minnesota. While on a business trip to Green Bay, I stopped by a Packers practice and was standing outside a chain link fence. Jan was off kicking by himself. I yelled, “Hey, Jan, I’m from KC.” He walked over to the fence and said, “What the heck are you doing here?” We had a brief conversation. Back in K.C. the following summer, I was in Jan’s office to buy a kicking tee from him for Jason. (Jan had developed and was selling his own branded tee.) Jason was a left-footed kicker, and Jan didn’t have in stock a standard left-footed tee. So he gave me a taller, non-legal, 3” high tee saying, “The refs will never notice. Heck, I wore baseball cleats on my plant foot in Green Bay and the refs never noticed!” And the high school refs never notice Jason’s 3” tee!

@FarmerJayhawk so true. We can get even better if they can learn to play with DP . . . Or DP can learn to play WITH his teammates.

Kotelnicki returning as assoc head coach!

@kjayhawks2.0 Too early to tell. I suspect much is going on behind the scenes. There will be a TON of good players out there when the portal opens. It will be a matter of using our player procurement budget effectively. With Booth's money, I'm counting on having plently to spend. (My only concern is defensive coordinator. We should spend some money there!)

Thanks for the re-boot. After many years, I've been able to register and post for the first time in a long time. (Will never know how it was that my account was there, but I could never access it.) Oh, well! I'm back and ready to contribute to the conversation.

My wife traveled in her work. She could talk sports with the guys. They would ask, "What teams do you root for? She would answer, "Any team that's playing Ohio State, USC, Texas or Alabama."

Here's what you younger Jayhawks need to know about John Hadl.
In 1961 Coach Jack Mitchell made an unusual change by moving Lawrence native John Hadl from halfback to quarterback prior to his junior season. Hadl was also the punter, setting a KU record that still stands and one that led the nation for many years – a season punting average at 45.6 yards. He also holds the record for the longest punt of 94 yards against Oklahoma in 1960. I was there. I saw it – a quick kick that just bounced and bounced and bounced!

Hadl also holds the record for the longest kick-off return of 97-yards against Syracuse. He also set a record that stood for over 50 years with the longest pass interception return of 98-yards against TCU. He was named first-team All-American as a halfback in 1960 and a first-team All-American at quarterback in 1961. He led the Jayhawks to their first bowl victory, a 33–7 win over the Rice Owls in the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston, Texas, signing his pro contract under the goal posts after the game. I watched the game on TV. The contract signing was carried on TV as well, as this was the beginning of the “war” to sign college footballers between the established NFL and the upstart AFL. Hadl was named the MVP of the East-West Shrine Game AND the College All-Star game, the only player to be so-honored. Of course, Hadl went on to a pro Hall of Fame career playing quarterback for the San Diego Chargers, still wearing #21.