We hear often about an alleged short list of prospects that Kansas athletics director Al Bohl has regarding the successor to football coach Terry Allen. First, though, Al may need a longer roster of sugar-daddies to provide the million bucks or so it may take to finance a wholesale coaching change, unless some of the guys can be assigned to other sectors of the department.
The KU sports budget already has its problems, and a million-rasbuknik lug won’t be easily absorbed. Still, it’s generally accepted that a change has to be made and money spent to bring in some high-profiler to get the juices flowing among potential ticket-buyers. How soon can that faucet be turned on and by whom?
One name making the rounds among a number of knowledgeable Jayhawk faithful is that of Mike Stoops, the associate head coach and co-defensive coordinator under brother Bob at Oklahoma. But is he willing to tackle a struggling program like the one he knows about here? Can Bohl and Co. produce enough loot and benefits to lure Stoops and the kind of staff he’d want to relocate? Mike’s doing doggone well at OU; it will take a tremendous package to land a guy like that.
But KU jacked up Bob Frederick’s $161,000 to a $255,000 wallop for Bohl. Is it willing to mortgage the farm to bring in somebody like Stoops? How soon would a healthy profit show?
Mike’s pedigree reads delightfully. All-America defensive back at Iowa, short pro career, assistantships at Iowa (with Bill Snyder), Kansas State (under Snyder) and Oklahoma under Bob. Knows the Big 12, knows Kansas and loves defense, special teams and discipline. Boy, does Kansas need a huge dose of the latter! along with about 15 more really good players, starting at quarterback.
But again, there’s big money involved; KU is among the marginalists despite basketball largesse. A survey a year ago showed that of 104 Division 1A schools responding (there are about 120 in all), only 48 athletics departments at least broke even. Outside Division 1A, schools with football teams almost all lost money on athletics.
Things have been in limbo since 1995. Bob Frederick was back here trying to hire the likes of Frank Solich or Dennis Franchione to replace Glen Mason and Chancellor Bob Hemenway was in Hawaii letting Mason come back after commiting to Georgia. So Glen could spend another year at KU, then jump to Minnesota.
Sometimes Kansas has such a tough time doing anything easily football-wise.
I’m old-fashioned enough to think a newspaper story quickly should identify the sport in question. No matter if you mention touchdowns, slam dunks, volleys or holes-in-one. Readers feel a security blanket by seeing, real fast, precisely what is being covered.
Younger reporters in particular seem to forget one of the most basic aspects of the journalistic “who, what, when, where and why” and seem so sure the reader will know instinctively what the subject is.
There may be an overall heading for several “unidentified” reports, like “Area football games.” But free-standing stories need “ident” of some kind; too often writers don’t give it.
But then there are the people on television and radio shows who seem obsessed with not letting even five seconds pass without reminding us of the sport.
Take golf telecasts, for example, and the way various throats seem compelled to remind us peons about their sacred activity. To wit:
“Here the golfers come up to the golf green with the golf caddies carrying their golf bags and approaching the golf ball, hoping they can get off a good golf shot to get the golf ball into the hole and win this golf match. This golf course has a lot of golf bunkers, but I can’t recall when I’ve seen a better golf drive and second golf shot to get the golf ball to the edge of the golf cup so they can try to put it into the hole on the golf green.”
You get the point. You’re looking at yards and yards of fairways, greens, tees, people wearing testimonial caps and hats (especially the silly ones like those visor-up sales pitches by Jesper Parnevik) and know it’s the Masters (golf tournament). Still these clowns feel forced to remind us at least three times per sentence that we’re watching golf.
Then there are football people. You’ll hear some coach blathering about how “we flipped the coin to see who got the football and then the other team kicked off the football to our football team and we tried to advance the football up the football field. Our football quarterback then tried to throw or hand off the football but the other football team charged in and made our guy put the football on the ground where everyone tried to get the football and when we didn’t get the football, they did, so they won the football game with a field goal kicked with a football through the uprights.”
And we used to gripe about the clowns who couldn’t say five words without “ya know,” like an annoying dripping faucet where you cringe in anticipation of the next boink.
Enough, guys. After 10 references, we dummies are inclined to determine what is happening and in what athletics venue. Ya know?
We hear often about an alleged short list of prospects that Kansas athletics director Al Bohl has regarding the successor to football coach Terry Allen. First, though, Al may need a longer roster of sugar-daddies to provide the million bucks or so it may take to finance a wholesale coaching change, unless some of the guys can be assigned to other sectors of the department.
The KU sports budget already has its problems, and a million-rasbuknik lug won’t be easily absorbed. Still, it’s generally accepted that a change has to be made and money spent to bring in some high-profiler to get the juices flowing among potential ticket-buyers. How soon can that faucet be turned on and by whom?
One name making the rounds among a number of knowledgeable Jayhawk faithful is that of Mike Stoops, the associate head coach and co-defensive coordinator under brother Bob at Oklahoma. But is he willing to tackle a struggling program like the one he knows about here? Can Bohl and Co. produce enough loot and benefits to lure Stoops and the kind of staff he’d want to relocate? Mike’s doing doggone well at OU; it will take a tremendous package to land a guy like that.
But KU jacked up Bob Frederick’s $161,000 to a $255,000 wallop for Bohl. Is it willing to mortgage the farm to bring in somebody like Stoops? How soon would a healthy profit show?
Mike’s pedigree reads delightfully. All-America defensive back at Iowa, short pro career, assistantships at Iowa (with Bill Snyder), Kansas State (under Snyder) and Oklahoma under Bob. Knows the Big 12, knows Kansas and loves defense, special teams and discipline. Boy, does Kansas need a huge dose of the latter! along with about 15 more really good players, starting at quarterback.
But again, there’s big money involved; KU is among the marginalists despite basketball largesse. A survey a year ago showed that of 104 Division 1A schools responding (there are about 120 in all), only 48 athletics departments at least broke even. Outside Division 1A, schools with football teams almost all lost money on athletics.
Things have been in limbo since 1995. Bob Frederick was back here trying to hire the likes of Frank Solich or Dennis Franchione to replace Glen Mason and Chancellor Bob Hemenway was in Hawaii letting Mason come back after commiting to Georgia. So Glen could spend another year at KU, then jump to Minnesota.
Sometimes Kansas has such a tough time doing anything easily football-wise.
I’m old-fashioned enough to think a newspaper story quickly should identify the sport in question. No matter if you mention touchdowns, slam dunks, volleys or holes-in-one. Readers feel a security blanket by seeing, real fast, precisely what is being covered.
Younger reporters in particular seem to forget one of the most basic aspects of the journalistic “who, what, when, where and why” and seem so sure the reader will know instinctively what the subject is.
There may be an overall heading for several “unidentified” reports, like “Area football games.” But free-standing stories need “ident” of some kind; too often writers don’t give it.
But then there are the people on television and radio shows who seem obsessed with not letting even five seconds pass without reminding us of the sport.
Take golf telecasts, for example, and the way various throats seem compelled to remind us peons about their sacred activity. To wit:
“Here the golfers come up to the golf green with the golf caddies carrying their golf bags and approaching the golf ball, hoping they can get off a good golf shot to get the golf ball into the hole and win this golf match. This golf course has a lot of golf bunkers, but I can’t recall when I’ve seen a better golf drive and second golf shot to get the golf ball to the edge of the golf cup so they can try to put it into the hole on the golf green.”
You get the point. You’re looking at yards and yards of fairways, greens, tees, people wearing testimonial caps and hats (especially the silly ones like those visor-up sales pitches by Jesper Parnevik) and know it’s the Masters (golf tournament). Still these clowns feel forced to remind us at least three times per sentence that we’re watching golf.
Then there are football people. You’ll hear some coach blathering about how “we flipped the coin to see who got the football and then the other team kicked off the football to our football team and we tried to advance the football up the football field. Our football quarterback then tried to throw or hand off the football but the other football team charged in and made our guy put the football on the ground where everyone tried to get the football and when we didn’t get the football, they did, so they won the football game with a field goal kicked with a football through the uprights.”
And we used to gripe about the clowns who couldn’t say five words without “ya know,” like an annoying dripping faucet where you cringe in anticipation of the next boink.
Enough, guys. After 10 references, we dummies are inclined to determine what is happening and in what athletics venue. Ya know?
We hear often about an alleged short list of prospects that Kansas athletics director Al Bohl has regarding the successor to football coach Terry Allen. First, though, Al may need a longer roster of sugar-daddies to provide the million bucks or so it may take to finance a wholesale coaching change, unless some of the guys can be assigned to other sectors of the department.
The KU sports budget already has its problems, and a million-rasbuknik lug won’t be easily absorbed. Still, it’s generally accepted that a change has to be made and money spent to bring in some high-profiler to get the juices flowing among potential ticket-buyers. How soon can that faucet be turned on and by whom?
One name making the rounds among a number of knowledgeable Jayhawk faithful is that of Mike Stoops, the associate head coach and co-defensive coordinator under brother Bob at Oklahoma. But is he willing to tackle a struggling program like the one he knows about here? Can Bohl and Co. produce enough loot and benefits to lure Stoops and the kind of staff he’d want to relocate? Mike’s doing doggone well at OU; it will take a tremendous package to land a guy like that.
But KU jacked up Bob Frederick’s $161,000 to a $255,000 wallop for Bohl. Is it willing to mortgage the farm to bring in somebody like Stoops? How soon would a healthy profit show?
Mike’s pedigree reads delightfully. All-America defensive back at Iowa, short pro career, assistantships at Iowa (with Bill Snyder), Kansas State (under Snyder) and Oklahoma under Bob. Knows the Big 12, knows Kansas and loves defense, special teams and discipline. Boy, does Kansas need a huge dose of the latter! along with about 15 more really good players, starting at quarterback.
But again, there’s big money involved; KU is among the marginalists despite basketball largesse. A survey a year ago showed that of 104 Division 1A schools responding (there are about 120 in all), only 48 athletics departments at least broke even. Outside Division 1A, schools with football teams almost all lost money on athletics.
Things have been in limbo since 1995. Bob Frederick was back here trying to hire the likes of Frank Solich or Dennis Franchione to replace Glen Mason and Chancellor Bob Hemenway was in Hawaii letting Mason come back after commiting to Georgia. So Glen could spend another year at KU, then jump to Minnesota.
Sometimes Kansas has such a tough time doing anything easily football-wise.
I’m old-fashioned enough to think a newspaper story quickly should identify the sport in question. No matter if you mention touchdowns, slam dunks, volleys or holes-in-one. Readers feel a security blanket by seeing, real fast, precisely what is being covered.
Younger reporters in particular seem to forget one of the most basic aspects of the journalistic “who, what, when, where and why” and seem so sure the reader will know instinctively what the subject is.
There may be an overall heading for several “unidentified” reports, like “Area football games.” But free-standing stories need “ident” of some kind; too often writers don’t give it.
But then there are the people on television and radio shows who seem obsessed with not letting even five seconds pass without reminding us of the sport.
Take golf telecasts, for example, and the way various throats seem compelled to remind us peons about their sacred activity. To wit:
“Here the golfers come up to the golf green with the golf caddies carrying their golf bags and approaching the golf ball, hoping they can get off a good golf shot to get the golf ball into the hole and win this golf match. This golf course has a lot of golf bunkers, but I can’t recall when I’ve seen a better golf drive and second golf shot to get the golf ball to the edge of the golf cup so they can try to put it into the hole on the golf green.”
You get the point. You’re looking at yards and yards of fairways, greens, tees, people wearing testimonial caps and hats (especially the silly ones like those visor-up sales pitches by Jesper Parnevik) and know it’s the Masters (golf tournament). Still these clowns feel forced to remind us at least three times per sentence that we’re watching golf.
Then there are football people. You’ll hear some coach blathering about how “we flipped the coin to see who got the football and then the other team kicked off the football to our football team and we tried to advance the football up the football field. Our football quarterback then tried to throw or hand off the football but the other football team charged in and made our guy put the football on the ground where everyone tried to get the football and when we didn’t get the football, they did, so they won the football game with a field goal kicked with a football through the uprights.”
And we used to gripe about the clowns who couldn’t say five words without “ya know,” like an annoying dripping faucet where you cringe in anticipation of the next boink.
Enough, guys. After 10 references, we dummies are inclined to determine what is happening and in what athletics venue. Ya know?
We hear often about an alleged short list of prospects that Kansas athletics director Al Bohl has regarding the successor to football coach Terry Allen. First, though, Al may need a longer roster of sugar-daddies to provide the million bucks or so it may take to finance a wholesale coaching change, unless some of the guys can be assigned to other sectors of the department.
The KU sports budget already has its problems, and a million-rasbuknik lug won’t be easily absorbed. Still, it’s generally accepted that a change has to be made and money spent to bring in some high-profiler to get the juices flowing among potential ticket-buyers. How soon can that faucet be turned on and by whom?
One name making the rounds among a number of knowledgeable Jayhawk faithful is that of Mike Stoops, the associate head coach and co-defensive coordinator under brother Bob at Oklahoma. But is he willing to tackle a struggling program like the one he knows about here? Can Bohl and Co. produce enough loot and benefits to lure Stoops and the kind of staff he’d want to relocate? Mike’s doing doggone well at OU; it will take a tremendous package to land a guy like that.
But KU jacked up Bob Frederick’s $161,000 to a $255,000 wallop for Bohl. Is it willing to mortgage the farm to bring in somebody like Stoops? How soon would a healthy profit show?
Mike’s pedigree reads delightfully. All-America defensive back at Iowa, short pro career, assistantships at Iowa (with Bill Snyder), Kansas State (under Snyder) and Oklahoma under Bob. Knows the Big 12, knows Kansas and loves defense, special teams and discipline. Boy, does Kansas need a huge dose of the latter! along with about 15 more really good players, starting at quarterback.
But again, there’s big money involved; KU is among the marginalists despite basketball largesse. A survey a year ago showed that of 104 Division 1A schools responding (there are about 120 in all), only 48 athletics departments at least broke even. Outside Division 1A, schools with football teams almost all lost money on athletics.
Things have been in limbo since 1995. Bob Frederick was back here trying to hire the likes of Frank Solich or Dennis Franchione to replace Glen Mason and Chancellor Bob Hemenway was in Hawaii letting Mason come back after commiting to Georgia. So Glen could spend another year at KU, then jump to Minnesota.
Sometimes Kansas has such a tough time doing anything easily football-wise.
I’m old-fashioned enough to think a newspaper story quickly should identify the sport in question. No matter if you mention touchdowns, slam dunks, volleys or holes-in-one. Readers feel a security blanket by seeing, real fast, precisely what is being covered.
Younger reporters in particular seem to forget one of the most basic aspects of the journalistic “who, what, when, where and why” and seem so sure the reader will know instinctively what the subject is.
There may be an overall heading for several “unidentified” reports, like “Area football games.” But free-standing stories need “ident” of some kind; too often writers don’t give it.
But then there are the people on television and radio shows who seem obsessed with not letting even five seconds pass without reminding us of the sport.
Take golf telecasts, for example, and the way various throats seem compelled to remind us peons about their sacred activity. To wit:
“Here the golfers come up to the golf green with the golf caddies carrying their golf bags and approaching the golf ball, hoping they can get off a good golf shot to get the golf ball into the hole and win this golf match. This golf course has a lot of golf bunkers, but I can’t recall when I’ve seen a better golf drive and second golf shot to get the golf ball to the edge of the golf cup so they can try to put it into the hole on the golf green.”
You get the point. You’re looking at yards and yards of fairways, greens, tees, people wearing testimonial caps and hats (especially the silly ones like those visor-up sales pitches by Jesper Parnevik) and know it’s the Masters (golf tournament). Still these clowns feel forced to remind us at least three times per sentence that we’re watching golf.
Then there are football people. You’ll hear some coach blathering about how “we flipped the coin to see who got the football and then the other team kicked off the football to our football team and we tried to advance the football up the football field. Our football quarterback then tried to throw or hand off the football but the other football team charged in and made our guy put the football on the ground where everyone tried to get the football and when we didn’t get the football, they did, so they won the football game with a field goal kicked with a football through the uprights.”
And we used to gripe about the clowns who couldn’t say five words without “ya know,” like an annoying dripping faucet where you cringe in anticipation of the next boink.
Enough, guys. After 10 references, we dummies are inclined to determine what is happening and in what athletics venue. Ya know?
