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2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Final Four revelry expressed through littering, T-shirt sales

By Chad Lawhorn, Lindsey Slater

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2008 NCAA Tournament

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It looked like a frat house exploded.

That's one way to describe the mess of beer cups, beer cans, beer bottles and anything else beer-related you can think of on Massachusetts Street following Kansas University's basketball victory Sunday evening that sent the Jayhawks to the Final Four.

Curt Talken, a parks and recreation employee who was finishing cleanup efforts Monday morning, had an even simpler description.

"It looked like a real good party," Talken said.

A crew of about 15 employees from the city's parks and recreation and the public works departments started cleaning at about 7:30 a.m. Monday. About two hours later, it looked like Massachusetts Street again.

Crews - who fought strong morning winds - filled an entire trash truck with debris and employed the use of a street sweeper to get the area clean. Talken said most debris were contained to the block of Massachusetts Street between 10th and 11th streets.

Parks and recreation leaders said the only lasting damage appeared to be most of the planters that had trampled vegetation around the 10th and Massachusetts intersection.

Ernie Shaw, acting director for parks and recreation, said that means many flower bulbs likely won't bloom this year. But he said other spring flowers can be planted to help replace the lost color.

"But we definitely won't be doing that until after next weekend," Shaw said, alluding to possibly an even larger celebration if the Jayhawks have success in the Final Four.

Shaw said he also was pleased that it appeared revelers stayed out of the trees, which in past celebrations have been damaged.

He said his only concern was the amount of glass, including glass pitchers from nearby bars, on the streets.

"The plastic cups and stuff we can deal with, but the glass is really the worst to clean up," Shaw said.

Saying it on a shirt

While revelers were whooping it up downtown Sunday night, some paused to buy Kansas Final Four T-shirts, hot off the presses.

Brian Hoffman, owner of Sports Dome, 1000 Mass., and his employees ran out to the streets with their 84 preordered Final Four T-shirts immediately after Sunday's game.

Sports Dome sells only officially licensed merchandise and will have about 10 different designs of Final Four T-shirts this week.

"We had five left. We did it for about an hour, and then we shut it down," he said.

Hoffman, who hopes to sell about 1,000 Final Four T-shirts this week, was somewhat disappointed with Monday's business.

"I thought we'd be a little bit busier because of what was going on last night," he said.

"I think people are recovering. Hopefully they get a good 24 hours of sleep and are out spending and shopping tomorrow."

Down the street at the Joe-College.com store, 734 Mass., Jayhawk fans find a different sort of T-shirt - the unofficial kind. Ashley Barkey, a KU student, bought two shirts - one that says "Beat the Tar out of Benedict Williams" and the other that tells KU to "Beat the Tar out of Them Heel-billys." The store printed a few new shirts Sunday night and early Monday morning.

"You're supporting them in a different way, in kind of a funny way," said KU student Tanner Delapena. "It's got a hometown feeling to it rather than just a general shirt that you can get anywhere in the nation."

Comments

KU (anonymous) says...

Have some respect for your city people! You can have a good time without burdening the city works folks. Be responsible and dispose of your own trash after the National Championship parade!

April 1, 2008 at 7:49 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Dr_Hawkenstein (anonymous) says...

what a stupid comment. all that happened was some trash and some trampled flowers. you are talking about 18-22 year old kids! have you seen the "celebrations" that go on in Michigan or Ohio? Flipped cars, broken store fronts, destroyed property. I think this shows that our students can have a good time without rioting.

April 1, 2008 at 9:02 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

txrockchalk (anonymous) says...

Stupid comment?

Dr_Hawkenstien's previous two posts:

Posted on March 30 at 7:32 p.m.

rush is a f-ing joke! sure he can score 20 points when we are winning by 30 but when we really need a 3 or we are behing he folds like a girlscout tent. we are going to lose to UNC and rush is going to score 4 points.

On Keegan: Rush's popularity has caught up to his productivity

Posted on March 30 at 7:29 p.m.

i wish we would have lost. now roy gets to kick our teeth in on the court. pitiful, sorry, disgusting game. how many missed layups? how may timeouts to keep from 5 second calls? if we can't stop curry, there is no f-ing way we can do anything about hansbrough! we should have won this game by 10, instead we get to wait a week to loose to a-hole's boys by 30. wooo-hooo!

On Next up: UNC - KU downs Davidson, returns to Final Four a 59-57 winner

------------------------------------------

You should check yourself before you criticize other posters' thoughts.

April 1, 2008 at 9:14 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

odc213 (anonymous) says...

When I was in school there and we were going to final fours in the 80's and 90's we USED TO DO ALL THIS STUFF
ON CAMPUS!!! Why are we not celebrating on WESCOE??
THIS IS A KU CELEBRATION - Maybe KU can pitch in
on the clean up costs.....

April 1, 2008 at 11:22 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

jacqueshock (anonymous) says...

I tell you what, them darned left-leaning students just can't recycle. Is there a soil and water conservation district in that county?

April 1, 2008 at 11:38 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

jhawkbrian815 (anonymous) says...

Dr. Hawkenstein you are a disgrace to KU fans...pick a different school please

April 1, 2008 at 11:52 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

lance1jhawk (anonymous) says...

Dr. Hawkenstein- Please go back to whatever mizzery board you use to post on and stay off this one. Sure their are people who get down on the Hawks and Coach, but you went to a whole other level. I called out you fandom when you said "I wish we would have lost....Blah Blah.." Put the keyboard away, and find a nice cave to go crawl into for a week or a year, maybe a lifetime! Jackass!

txrockchalk- Thanks for reminding me what an A-Hol* Dr. Hawkenstein is.

April 1, 2008 at 1:35 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

txrockchalk (anonymous) says...

You got it, Lance. Sorry I couldn't assist you and NH_JHawk with Sunday's in-game imbibing ritual. It looks like you guys did an honorable job, though!

April 1, 2008 at 1:46 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

lance1jhawk (anonymous) says...

txrockchalk- It was a close one. Hopefully saturday USS Tarheel will get blown out of the water.

April 1, 2008 at 6:22 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

jayhwk5288 (anonymous) says...

hawkenstein...people like you need to lock themselves up in a room and not come out
how incompetent can one person be?

April 1, 2008 at 8:57 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

jhox (anonymous) says...

With all of the attention on coaches (Self, Williams and Sutton) I thought you may all appreciate a diversion. Check out this video link from the Oklahoma City newspaper. It's an interview with Xavier Henry. Of special note is 4:40 into the interview...a Jayhawk statue. Let's hope KU is where his heart is!

http://www.newsok.tv/?titleID=1483830712

April 1, 2008 at 9:25 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

OklahomaJayhawk5 (anonymous) says...

Hahaha great post txrockchalk...... (Foot in mouth now please Dr_Hawkenstein)

April 1, 2008 at 11:39 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

kylecisnum1 (anonymous) says...

thanks for the link to joe-college! just got one of the t-shirts and hopefully itll be here by the weekend!

April 2, 2008 at 12:08 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

coloradojayhawk (anonymous) says...

The link from jhox's great catch is about 3:45; the whole video is 4:40 long.

April 2, 2008 at 12:56 a.m. ( | suggest removal )