Shannon O’Connor’s eyes give her away.
At first glance, you might miss them. She looks like one of the lucky ones.
She could be. A glowing smile, framed by delicate features and olive skin, has undoubtedly led many to that conclusion.
Then there are the layouts in the Women of KU calendar. O’Connor is one of two models to make a second appearance in the swimsuit and fashion calendar worthy of a PG-13 rating.
But there are those eyes.
Sports fans recognize her from her other job as a manager for the men’s basketball team. They gossip about her on the message boards of Web sites devoted to sports. A search at press time revealed 343 threads singing her praises on Kansas basketball rumor mill Phog.net.
Rob Curly is the general manager for KUsports.com, the company responsible for producing the Women of KU calendar with the Jayhawk Bookstore. Curly said 70 to 80 percent of the website’s hits resulted from the calendar.
Still, those mahogany eyes keep staring from across the table, never blinking.
Shannon O’Connor, men’s basketball manager, sits on the sidelines at a game. She appeared in the Women of KU calendar for the second time.
It seems blinking is the only thing O’Connor doesn’t do.
Along with modeling and managing the men’s basketball team, she is working toward degrees in communications and Spanish and works four to 10 hours a week at a part time job.
“I don’t sleep much,” O’Connor said.
Despite separating basketball practice, photo shoots, homework and her job by mere minutes during her day, O’Connor said she tries to keep her activities from interfering with each other.
O’Connor said she was nervous that the calendar photos might strain her working relationship with coach Roy Williams. But he didn’t even notice until questioned about O’Connor after a press conference.
“I was more worried about his opinion than my own father’s opinion of the calendar,” O’Connor said of Williams. “It’s almost more of a relief now that he knows and has talked to me about it, because I was worried how he was going to react to it.”
O’Connor’s anxiety seems to have been unwarranted. Williams said he was not concerned about her inclusion in the calendar.
“I’m supportive of Shannon,” Williams said. “I haven’t seen the calendar, but I’m always supportive of Shannon. She’s a terrific young lady.”
The calendar may have escaped Williams’ gaze, but senior forward Nick Collison said the players were familiar with it.
“It was a good calendar,” Collison said. “She looked good in it.”
O’Connor said her familiarity with the team helped make the calendar a nonissue with the players.
“I think of them as people, whereas a lot of other girls think of them as basketball superstars,” she said. “It’s more of like a friendship level, so it’s really no different than any of my other guy friends commenting on it.”
Friends or not, guys will be talking about her. They will line up at the Jayhawk Bookstore, hoping for a glimpse of O’Connor and the other calendar models.
The majority of the models signed their pictures from 2 to 4 Friday afternoon, but O’Connor was not there.
She was hard at work on her other job – flying to Oregon to help the basketball team.
