So far, Stanley Redwine has signed nine high schoolers to Kansas University track and field letters-of-intent.
He’s most familiar with one of the incoming Jayhawks — Crysta Redwine, a sprinter out of Tulsa (Okla.) Union High School.
Crysta happens to be the daughter of new KU coach Stanley and Jacqueline Redwine.
“It’s going to be OK. It’s going to be pretty cool, but I think it’ll be hard (running for dad),” said Crysta Redwine, a state qualifier in the 400, 800 and 1,600 meter relays last year in Oklahoma. “I know him well. He knows when I’m doing my best and when I’m not.”
Crysta Redwine was all set to attend the University of Tulsa, where her dad served as head coach the past six years. She changed her mind, however, and inked with KU after Stanley was named Kansas track coach on May 25.
“I was going to stay with Tulsa, but I didn’t want to leave him,” Crysta Redwine said. “He really knows how to push people and make them do their best. This is a good opportunity for him, as well. He already likes it. He believes in the program here. He talks about it all the time.”
On Thursday, Stanley Redwine and members of his new Jayhawk track staff were honored at a late-afternoon/early evening reception at Parrott Athletic Center.
“We’re going to do our best to make sure things change,” Redwine said of rebuilding a KU program that has struggled some in recent years. “There is a lot of tradition here. A lot of things can happen.
“Was Rome built in a day? No,” noted Redwine, a four-time All-America middle distance runner at Arkansas and 16-year veteran of collegiate and international track competition. “But we’ll make sure we work our butts off to make sure it happens here.”
Olympian Cliff Wiley, a former KU sprint standout and member of the search committee that tabbed Redwine, attended Thursday’s reception as did several former KU tracksters and current athletics department staff members.
“I remember at our first search committee meeting … Paul Buskirk (committee chair) saying, ‘This is the Kansas job we are talking about,”‘ Wiley said. “He is right. The Kansas job is a powerful job and it is a powerful position you now have.”
Wiley presented KU’s new coach a book chronicling the history of KU athletics. Athletics director Bob Frederick gave Redwine a KU track ring.
Here’s a list of athletes who have signed track letters-of-intent with KU:
Lauren Brownrigg, distance runner, Tualatin, Ore.; Jenaya Carman, high jump, Moline, Ill.; Abbey Ferris, multi-events, Abilene, Texas; Emily Hess, distance, Carthage, Mo.; Stacy Keller, sprints, Halstead; Laura Lavoie, distance, Springfield, Mo.; Abby Nielsen, hurdler, Granby, Mo.; Crysta Redwine, sprints, Tulsa; Ty Williams, pole vault, Liberal.
