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Jayhawks on parade? No plan for one yet

By Chad Lawhorn (Contact)

Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Photo by Richard Gwin

City Crews were out at 7:00 a.m. picking up the trash from the late-night into the early-morning parting in Downtown Lawrence after the Jayhawk won the national championship.

Photo by Richard Gwin

Crews were out early but not as early as Harvey Lovell, of Tongonoxie, as he was one of a few people picking up cans and other items, from the late night into the early morning parting in Downtown Lawrence, after the Jayhawks won the national championship.

Prospects for a parade to celebrate Kansas University’s National Championship were a lot like the weather that greeted the team on Tuesday — cloudy at best.

Jim Marchiony, assistant athletic director for KU, said the athletic department had no plans for the basketball team to take part in a parade down Massachusetts Street, which was a crescendo to the celebration in 1988 when the Jayhawks last won the crown.

Instead, the team was honored at a celebration Tuesday at Memorial Stadium.

“That is all we have planned,” Marchiony said Tuesday morning.

Later in the day, Lynn Bretz, a KU spokeswoman, said the university hadn’t completely ruled out the possibility of a parade but stopped well short of saying one was likely.

“Once they (athletic department leaders) have a chance to catch their breath, they’ll discuss all possibilities,” Bretz said. “They’re going to try to be sensitive to everyone — fans, businesses, everyone — but their main focus will be the student athletes.”

Leaders with Downtown Lawrence Inc. and Lawrence Chamber of Commerce said the public is clamoring for a parade.

“The phone has pretty much been ringing off the hook asking about one,” said Becca Booth, chamber communications director.

Jane Pennington, director of Downtown Lawrence Inc., said her organization was willing to take full responsibility for planning and promoting the event, and made that offer to the Kansas University Athletic Department two weeks ago.

“We have asked and there has been no response,” Pennington said. “We invited them to do a parade after the Orange Bowl as well, and they declined.”

Booth said the Chamber also was interested in helping with a parade and had made phone calls to KU Athletics officials after Monday evening’s game.

But Marchiony said KU leaders had not discussed a parade, and he was reluctant to do so on Tuesday.

“We’re going to celebrate the way we want to celebrate,” Marchiony said. “We’re going to do what’s best for our student athletes.”

When asked whether there were logistical reasons or other student athlete concerns that made a parade difficult for the team to participate in, Marchiony declined to discuss it any more.

Pennington said her group was pushing for a parade because it would carry on a tradition and would draw folks to the symbolic city center for a family-friendly celebration.

She also said she had proposed to Marchiony that a parade could include the football team to celebrate its historic Orange Bowl victory.

“We could easily get 40,000 people downtown for a parade,” Pennington said.

Other developments

In other news surrounding the NCAA Tournament madness that gripped the city on Monday:

• Ernie Shaw, the city’s acting director of parks and recreation, said city crews had to get much more aggressive to ensure that downtown was cleaned up by Tuesday morning.

Shaw said there were about 40 city employees on cleanup duty early Tuesday morning. That is about twice as many as were used to clean up the trash left from Saturday night’s celebration when KU defeated North Carolina and the March 30 celebration when Kansas punched its ticket to the Final Four.

Shaw said the heavy rain made it difficult for crews to clean up early Tuesday morning because large amounts of paper debris wanted to stick to the sidewalk. But he said permanent damage, such as destroyed trees, was at a minimum.

“Considering the number of people in that size of area, we feel like it went very well,” Shaw said.

• A pair of banner headlines helped produce banner sales for the Journal-World on Tuesday. The newspaper — which featured a front-page headline of “Champions!” along with a photo by staff photographer Nick Krug and a sports headline of “Mario and The Miracle!” along with a photo by staff photographer Thad Allender — set a single-day sales record.

Journal-World General Manager Al Bonner said the newspaper doubled its normal press run of approximately 20,000 copies. But about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the company restarted the presses to print about 12,000 additional copies to resupply grocery and convenience stores.

“We’ve had people order all kinds of different quantities,” Bonner said. “Somebody from Memphis wanted 500 papers and is driving back here to get them.”

The previous single-day sales record was set on the day following KU’s 1988 National Championship.

• Leaders with Sunflower Broadband are lamenting the terrible timing of an accident that knocked out cable service in a portion of Lawrence on Monday evening.

An unknown vehicle struck a light pole and cable node — one of those green boxes containing Sunflower’s technical equipment. The accident knocked out cable television service to 367 customers with about 2 minutes remaining in the overtime period of the National Championship contest.

“We had the node back up in about 30 minutes, but obviously it was the worst time possible that it could happen,” said Rod Kutemeier, director of customer support and marketing for Sunflower Broadband.

Sunflower Broadband is owned by The World Company, which also publishes the Journal-World.

Kutemeier said the vehicle did not stay on the scene of the accident, and Sunflower reported the incident to police for investigation. A hubcap and pieces of a white vehicle were found at the scene. The incident remains under investigation.