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Keegan: Probe timing curious
The timing is one of the strangest facets of the Kansas University athletic department’s investigation into football coach Mark Mangino’s treatment of his players. Why in the world couldn’t it wait until the end of the season? Why the urgency to jump-start it with two weeks remaining in the season?
Keegan: KU coach kinder, gentler
A kinder, gentler Mark Mangino watched from the sideline as his team was overwhelmed by Texas talent, 51-20, Saturday night in front of 101,357 witnesses who can’t give Lori Williams anything interesting for her investigative report.
Keegan: Meier mature, classy
With all the mud-slinging flying through the eight years of Mark Mangino’s soon-to-end reign as coach of the Kansas University football team hogging the headlines, it ought to come as no surprise that one man standing above the fray is a guy who always has managed to sound a voice of reason and conduct himself with class and maturity.
Keegan: What if KU stuns Texas?
In theory, Central Arkansas could have defeated No. 1 Kansas on Thursday night in Allen Fieldhouse. The Bears didn’t, losing 94-44, but since they played on the same basketball court under the same rules, a victory was within the realm of possibility.
Keegan: Center Aldrich steady
Xavier Henry missed shots, froze the offense by keeping the ball too long and at times was sloppy.
Keegan: Mangino wins games, not friends
When he coached his team to an Orange Bowl victory and a 12-1 record just two seasons ago, he was fiery, a western Pennsylvania, blue-collar underdog who made it big and never forgot his roots.
KU AD Perkins meets with football players over concerns about coach Mark Mangino
KU linebacker Arist Wright complained that Mangino poked him in the chest
Kansas University athletic director Lew Perkins met Monday night with the school’s football players to discuss concerns about football coach Mark Mangino brought to his attention by one of the current players and others with ties to the football program, the Journal-World has learned.
Keegan: Women put on a show
Look for Allen Fieldhouse crowd counts to climb from Sunday’s figure (3,860) once word spreads throughout town about just how captivating a show sixth-year Kansas University coach Bonnie Henrickson’s best team puts on.
Keegan: Kansas seniors deserved better
In some ways, it seemed like just yesterday that Todd Reesing stretched his arms and started tossing a football on the sideline, warming up to rip off his red shirt, save a sinking game and, as it turned out, push a tradition-poor football program to new heights.
Keegan: Kansas proves unselfish
The fear, expressed often by those who pin a large chunk of their happiness on the outcome of Kansas University basketball games, was this year’s team would be so deep there wouldn’t be enough minutes to go around.
Keegan: Robinson not just a ‘motor’
One of the coolest things about the game Dr. James Naismith invented in Springfield, Mass., as it’s played today, is that no two players are alike.
Keegan: KU ’09 like ’07? Hardly
A popular opinion heading into this football season espoused the belief that this Kansas University team would be just as good as the 2007 version, but would not be able to duplicate its 12-1 record because that team played a softer conference schedule than this one. It sounded reasonable enough at the time, but it has played out wrong on both counts.
Keegan: K-State wins by not losing
Sometimes the best way to win a football game is by not losing it.
Keegan: Reesing’s impact huge
It won’t be until next year, when Todd Reesing is gone, that it will become clear how much of the growth of the Kansas University football program can be attributed to improved recruiting and how much to having a once-in-a-generation quarterback. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Keegan: Johnson provides suspense
Given the presence of softies on a nonconference schedule that features Allen Fieldhouse visitors Central Arkansas, Tennessee Tech and Alcorn State, the crowd will need something other than suspense to stave off daydreaming.
Keegan: Meier could be answer
If Todd Reesing doesn’t show enough in practice to prove he’s fully healthy, then the right choice for QB, obviously, is senior receiver Kerry Meier.
Keegan: QB playing hurt, and it clearly shows
Kansas University football coach Mark Mangino has his reasons for keeping injuries a secret. Knowing a player is hurt can change the way the opposition prepares its game plan. Dirty players might even want to aim for the injured guy’s aching body part.
How Keegan voted — Preseason AP basketball poll
Here is how Journal-World sports editor Tom Keegan voted in the AP preseason college basketball poll, released Oct. 29, 2009.
Keegan: Opurum may be equalizer
College football offenses have come so far since the days of the Ohio State teams of Woody Hayes employing the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust approach. The spread offense makes defenses cover the entire field. Scoring has soared.
Keegan: Mangino won’t take date bait
Fat paychecks make gaining celebrity status in sports all worthwhile, but that doesn’t mean the job is not without drawbacks.
Keegan: Machine taps NU in North
The Sagarin predictor says Nebraska should win the convoluted Big 12 North division.
How Keegan voted
The following is Tom Keegan’s Oct. 25 ballot for the Associated Press college football poll.
Keegan: Crash and burn
Kansas merely mediocre
That southbound train to nowhere known as the Big 12 North looked uglier than ever Saturday.
Keegan: No time to waste
KU offense’s first-quarter production could use a boost
Finding something about which to nitpick the Kansas University football team’s offense would be akin to winning the Batmobile in a raffle and griping about a scratch on the door, getting selected by Cindy Crawford in the Dating Game and obsessing on her mole, having Eli Manning under center and complaining his name’s not Peyton.
Keegan: Kansas will beat Sooners
Members of the local Pessimist Breakfast Club — they know who they are — between complaints about the texture of the eggs and the weakness of the coffee undoubtedly are grousing about how, if the Kansas University football team can’t defeat reeling Colorado, then it’s curtains for KU on Saturday against Oklahoma.
Keegan: Off the unbeaten path
Call costly, but so were 2 turnovers
Makeup calls by officials don’t happen in football games. That’s a basketball thing. Or is it?
Keegan: Robinson has right mind-set
The funniest lines usually are delivered with straight face and serious tone, and that’s how Kansas basketball coach Bill Self communicated his best quip Thursday during Media Day.
Guard Kohn a star during Late Night
Too often, Late Night skit participants look like basketball players trying to come off as show-business performers and in the process look like, well, basketball players.
Keegan: Murphy setting example
It’s certainly not fashionable to write nice words about anyone associated with the Kansas University football team’s defense, but since fashion never has been a strength of mine, here goes:
Keegan: Defensive disparity damning
The recruitment of Toben Opurum and Bradley McDougald points to part of what led to the disparity between KU’s offense and defense.
Keegan: Kansas only half bad
KU undefeated, not invulnerable
Kansas University is the worst undefeated Football Bowl Subdivision team in the nation.
Keegan: KU fall incidents will fade
The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, may it rest in peace, died 20 autumns ago and not a day has gone by in which I haven’t missed it.
Keegan: Mangino calm, collected
They thought they were walking into an eardrum-assaulting Motorhead concert, and what they instead got was elevator music.
How Keegan voted
The following is Tom Keegan’s Oct. 4 ballot for the Associated Press college football poll.
Keegan: Cross country coach has strong pedigree
No, Jay Bilas hasn’t shrunk. No, you haven’t seen him around town. And, no, new Kansas University distance coach Michael Whittlesey wasn’t driven out of North Carolina for looking too much like a Duke icon.
Keegan: Fam’s pal survives accident
The old football coach’s best buddy figured maybe miracles happen in twos, so when John Novotny Sr. returned Tuesday to the scene of his serious automobile accident in Moran, four weeks after it happened, three weeks after he was released from the hospital, a part of him hoped against hope his dog Maddie would be sitting there in the ditch, waiting for his master to bring him home.
Keegan: Fast start reveals little
Kansas University’s 4-0 football start was expected — and not particularly revealing.
How Keegan voted
The following is Tom Keegan’s Sept. 27 ballot for the Associated Press college football poll.
Keegan: Murphy has first big day at Kansas
The TV camera lights and the winning smile lit up Ryan Murphy’s face again Saturday, a slice of nostalgia for the former Free State High superstar quarterback and defensive back.
Keegan: Standards have been lowered
The disconnect between the words Tyshawn Taylor used on his Facebook page and the ones he had used when speaking in public sent my constant companion — a headache that beats down from the top — to new levels of discomfort, so I just had to talk to him to see which was the real Tyshawn Taylor.
Keegan: Kansas playing dodgeball
As if athletic director Lew Perkins didn’t have enough things bumming him out Wednesday, he just had to know his archenemy, T-shirt creator Larry Sinks of Joe College, was busy at work cashing in on his misery.
Keegan: It’s time to call a truce
The credibility of all that happy talk about the Kansas University athletic department being one big, cuddly family has been called into question by football players and basketball players getting into repeated fights with each other.
Keegan: Offense must do better
In order for this KU football team to hang with Big 12 heavyweights, the offense will have to perform at near perfection because the defense is young in some spots and soft in others.
How Keegan voted
The following is Tom Keegan’s Sept. 20 ballot for the Associated Press college football poll.
Keegan: Pick shows flashes of bright KU future
Upperclassmen at Kansas University who like to take in sporting events are no strangers to late-game, garbage-time novelty acts producing freakishly phenomenal statistics as the parking lots begin to jam up.
Ex-players to gather in honor of Randall
Alvamar to host retirement party tournament today for former Kansas golf coach
Alvamar Country Club head pro Randy Towner came up with the idea and sent the word out through the Internet that Alvamar would play host to a “Ross Chalk Tournament” as the official retirement party for former Kansas University golf coach Ross Randall, who spent 30 years in the school’s golf program, the first 28 as head coach of the men’s team.
Keegan: Duke strikes a nerve
The game had been played, the trip completed and still the song looped in my head. The more I tried to think about something else, the louder it roared, bringing pressure from the top of head down on my eyes, slightly blurring my vision.
Keegan: Maturing before our eyes
For the Kansas University football team, 2-0 with a combined score of 83-10, it’s worth examining two players from each class who so far have shown they are developing well, ahead of projections many had for them coming into the season.
How Keegan voted
The following is Tom Keegan’s Sept. 13 ballot for the Associated Press college football poll.
Keegan: D-line shows its fangs
Bar stools across America are kept warm with former defensive backs crying into their drinks, convinced they were failures as football players, haunted by unflattering nicknames pinned on them for giving up touchdowns to flashy receivers.
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Morris leads KU women past Michigan November 22, 2009
Huskers sweep KU volleyball November 22, 2009
KU football competes but falls at Texas November 22, 2009
Inside a college kicker's mind November 22, 2009
Mangino heads to Austin for Saturday game November 20, 2009
_r90x60.jpg?781011941c6c07bdfc65b7b14fce7e91909b1ea6 "KU guard Sade Morris battles Michigan guard Dayeesha Hicks for a loose ball during the first half of the game on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009, at Allen Fieldhouse.")
