It’s wonderful to see golden throats of television finally deriding athletic hot-dogs who do their celebrating and taunting under flawed conditions. Most showoffs are distasteful enough when they’re doing well; they’re even more disgusting when they’re getting hare-lipped. Criticism by telecasters has been too long in coming.
Colorful John Madden recently noted a defensive football performer beating his chest and strutting after he’d tackled an opponent for a couple yards of loss. Commented Madden: “That might look a lot better if his team wasn’t behind by 45 points.”
Bill Curry, onetime Green Bay Packer center and head college coach, put the focus on a collegian who was hip-hopping and ripped him: “If my team was behind as far as his is, and I hadn’t played any better than he has, I’d be hiding under the bench, not prancing around after a tackle that’s meaningless.”
Then there are the jocks who so dearly love to paint themselves as victims. You know, “Well, they didn’t show us any respect and we sure proved them wrong.” Or, “Everybody had written us off and I guess we showed them.”
There was a hint of that from several Kansas footballers after their upset of Missouri at Columbia recently. They’d been playing like sausages, as in that flogging by Kansas State, Missouri was the favorite and winning a league road game was a notable feat by the Jayhawks. They had a right to be proud, but they needed to be wary of bragging too much too soon with five games left, all of which they could lose.
Beleaguered KU coach Terry Allen now has to know the relief a woman experiences after a difficult childbirth. Terry had an enormous anvil on his shoulders, and it had to feel good to get rid of it for at least a week. To his credit, he weeded out the players who weren’t giving their best and took only 64 guys to Missouri. Tough love didn’t hurt. To his credit, Terry flashed no “we told you so” responses because he, too, knows full well the dangers ahead.
KU has won a number of important football games through the years but too seldom has continued the momentum with major impact. After a 0-3 start in 1967, Pepper Rodgers’s Jayhawks upset mighty Nebraska 10-0, winning five of their last seven to finish a respectable 5-5, including a 17-6 win over Missouri before a Lawrence crowd of 42,956.
In more recent times, Glen Mason’s 1995 KU club upset Colorado 40-24 at Boulder and wound up with a 10-2 mark that included an Aloha Bowl win over glamor-boy UCLA.
But, sadly, KU has had a tendency to post a surprise, then fail to capitalize. The win at Missouri was huge. It would mean even more if a victory over Colorado followed. Colorado, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Texas and Iowa State erratic, error-prone KU is capable of winning two, even three, of those, but equally qualified to run the table with a 0-5 floppola.
Let’s save the boasting until another couple victories are in the till, huh?
The all-Big 12 preseason basketball choices should give Kansas’s three basketball seniors and a veteran junior even more incentive to show their gratitude to coach Roy Williams for staying.
Jayhawk seniors Eric Chenowith and Kenny Gregory got some votes but senior Luke Axtell and junior veteran Jeff Boschee were skunked. Sophomores Nick Collison and Drew Gooden made the first five. There are no Marcus Fizers or Eduardo Najera “sure things” this year so it’s a wide-open battle. The other preseason first-teamers are Iowa State’s Jamaal Tinsley, Missouri’s Kareem Rush and Nebraska’s Kimani Ffriend.
Do you get the impression the league is a little short of bellwether stars so far? That being the case, if Chenowith, Gregory, Axtell and Boschee play as well as they’re supposed to and Collison, Gooden and Kirk Hinrich have fairly predictable good years, KU should rule the league. Nobody else seems to have the potential the Jayhawks do. But potential still means they gotta prove it, right?
Last season, Iowa State’s Fizer, now a Chicago Bull, was hyped as standing 6-7. Several scouts said he looked more like a 6-6. Came the NBA draft and he was listed at 6-8. Now the Bulls’ roster says he’s a 6-9, 262-pound entity. What gives? Whatever the case, Kansas has to be glad he’s gone considering the damage Fizer did to the Jayhawks.
Lots of athletes to admire, even with the muckers and bums. I deeply respect Daunte Culpepper, the hefty quarterback triggering an unbeaten season to date for the Minnesota Vikings.
He posted huge numbers at Central Florida and could’ve turned pro after his junior year. But he announced UCF was the only school that had offered him a scholarship and that he wanted to show his gratitude by giving them all four years. He did, meeting a commitment same as Peyton Manning at Tennessee.
Further plaudits for Daunte. Early on, he was adopted by a woman who has raised 14 children. First thing Culpepper did after signing a pro contract was build that lady a new house and get her a new car. They remain as close as ever and nobody enjoys the kids’ success more than mama and the siblings.
Still plenty of heroes and role models if you look a little bit, kids.
