Is this any way to treat one of your own?
Judging by the nightmare the Kansas tennis team has gone through this season, the Kansas Athletics Department appears to have forgotten that it cut only one of the two tennis teams in 2001. Women’s tennis still exists at Kansas, hanging on by a thread with little to no support by the powers-that-be in the mismanaged department.
The sad thing is the women on the tennis team are part of the minority of Kansas athletes who have actually succeeded in Big 12 Conference play the last couple of years. Not so much this season — the team finished ninth in the Big 12 and fizzled in the conference tournament Thursday — but it’s tough to succeed when you have to drive an hour and a half round trip every day for practice.
“I don’t think we all realized how difficult it would be to make the drive,” coach Kilmeny Waterman said. “It was so much time.”
Alvamar Racquet Club, Kansas’ former home for indoor practice and matches, shut down a year ago, causing department officials — notably former director Al Bohl — to do nothing but yawn.
A new indoor facility should’ve been bumped to the top of the fundraising priority list the moment they learned Alvamar was closing down. It wasn’t.
“We need to fundraise money is what we’ve been told,” Waterman said. “We’re trying to find people who are interested.”
Sounds simple, except when the department cut men’s tennis in 2001, many former players got understandably pissed off. I’m sure they’re not quite ready to fork over hard-earned cash after the department got rid of the men’s team.
So as a result, the nine women load a stretch van every day, leave Lawrence and head to various other locations in the Sunflower State. Waterman refuses to use the agonizing travel necessities as an excuse for her team’s struggles, but I’ll be happy to do it for her: that was a big reason these Jayhawks underachieved in 2003.
Kansas’s outdoor home — Robinson Courts — is terrible for the fans, but it is in Lawrence.
However, three of the four matches scheduled to be played at Robinson were either canceled or moved out of town because of bad weather.
“We had one match at Robinson,” Waterman said, shaking her head. “One home match.”
The other eight “home matches” were played all over, from Topeka to Overland Park to Mission. The ultimate punch in the stomach, though, came on April 19 when rain forced a “home” match with Texas A&M out of Lawrence and into the Carriage Club in Kansas City, Mo. Yes, the Kansas Jayhawks played a home match in the great state of Missouri.
Anyone else cringing?
Sadly, it’s not going to change anytime soon. There are no plans to give Kansas an indoor facility in Lawrence right now. The powers-that-be just assume these women trek to Topeka or Overland Park or even the hated Show-Me-State. They don’t seem to really care.
All this ignorance goes back to the worst hire Kansas has ever had — the nut job that was Al Bohl. Since his Fresno State days, Bohl was obviously a two-sport athletics director — football and softball. All the other sports could kiss his bizarre backside. Volleyball coach Ray Bechard said he hardly knew Bohl. Former basketball coach Roy Williams told The Kansas City Star that Bohl never did anything for him. Waterman agrees with both of them.
“We had been preached that football was the priority,” Waterman said. “That’s all we ever heard.”
Funny, because at Bohl’s going away party on his driveway April 9, he blamed Roy Williams for not letting him make the department as a whole better. Apparently, Bohl thought Kansas only had three sports — football, basketball and softball.
Now that the clown is out, someone with a brain needs to notice this tennis team. The treatment these women are getting is ridiculous. Tennis players all across the conference are pampered with state-of-the-art facilities, a men’s team to share their season with and the comfort of knowing that the university actually has an interest in them.
Jayhawk players, meanwhile, continue to live under neglect. They have no home, the men’s team was cut two years ago and nobody at Kansas seems to care that they’re getting abused.
That’s no way to treat one of your own.
