Jayhawks promote trainer

By Gary Bedore Jun 6, 2003

There will be new coaches on Kansas University’s basketball bench next season … and a new athletic trainer, too.

Mark Cairns, who hasn’t missed a KU hoops game the past 17 seasons in assisting Roy Williams and Larry Brown — he also worked some games as a student when Ted Owens was coach — has been promoted to KU “clinic manager.” He will oversee the day-to-day operations of KU’s athletic training room for all Jayhawks’ sports.

“It’ll be a shock, I’m sure, that first basketball game when I’m sitting up in the stands and not on the bench,” said Cairns, a 1984 KU graduate from Salina. “I do have the memories, a lot of memories.”

Cairns has vivid memories of helping treat players who helped win one national championship, nine conference championships and reach five Final Fours.

“One of the things that personally stands out is former players are starting to come back and they are starting to bring their kids to see me,” Cairns said.

“It makes me proud they have confidence in me to bring their kids in. The regular day-to-day stuff is what’s made me feel awfully good.”

Good times, good times

In working at KU the past 24 years, Cairns has countless stories about coaches Owens, Brown and Williams.

An Owens recollection: “I remember his very last victory as KU coach was at Oklahoma in the Big Eight Tournament (in 1983). We upset OU up there and coach got carried off the court and people were throwing stuff at us,” Cairns said.

“We rode the bus back that night. We got on the bus and (assistant) Bob Hill said, ‘Coach, you need to pay up.’

“I saw coach Hill open a Skoal can (of tobacco). I said, ‘What’s this all about?’ Coach Owens said, ‘I bet him if we won I’d take a pinch of Skoal. To see coach Owens’ face when the Skoal went in was an absolute treat. It might have stayed in his mouth a minute at the most.”

Next, a Brown tidbit: “After we won the national title in ’88, I remember coach Brown walked into Allen Fieldhouse weeks before he accepted the Spurs’ job. This was when UCLA wanted him. Coach Brown scheduled a press conference and I firmly believe he walked into Allen Fieldhouse convinced he was going to UCLA. But he looked around the fieldhouse and couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave.

“Believe me, this place is tough to leave.”

Finally, memories of Williams: “I remember his first or second year here when he tried to climb over a chair in Boulder (Colo.) to get in the stands. He looked like he was going to take a fan out,” Cairns said. “Some fan had been yelling things at him the whole game. Coach and I talked about that years later, and he admitted he’d changed throughout the years and learned to not let things like that bother him.

“I also remember when he first got here the players used to do a lot of long distance running, up Campanile Hill and things like that. It was a battle the first few years. I didn’t believe in that. I believed more in sprints. In time he came around,” Cairns laughed. “We cut out almost all long distance running.”

Cream of KU crop

Cairns has worked with some tough KU athletes.

“In recent history, what Kirk did was absolutely fantastic,” Cairns said of Kirk Hinrich, who quickly recovered from a severe ankle sprain in a first-round 2002 NCAA Tournament game against Holy Cross and returned for the second-round battle against Stanford.

“Danny (Manning) was one of the toughest. He would turn an ankle and be back the next day. Nick Collison … one of the NBA scouts asked me who I’d compare Nick to in toughness and I said Danny Manning. Nick never missed a day. Danny never missed a day.

“Mike Maddox had a bad back and tried to play through a very bad back. He had injections. Sean Alvarado played with a stress fracture in his tibia most of the year. I remember Raef LaFrentz at practice went head first into the floor — there still is a little divot on the floor where he did it — and he got up, said, ‘I’m OK,’ and kept practicing.

“Keith Langford,” Cairns said, “showed up for a practice this year and was throwing up five minutes before practice. I said, ‘Do what you can today.’ He went out there and had a heck of a practice. He was sick as can be and never complained, just practiced.”

Moving on

Cairns now will skip most practices to work on sports medicine budgets, scheduling rehabilitation sessions for athletes, working on drug testing and a new privacy policy concerning KU complying with government regulations in releasing injury information.

KU currently is looking for a new hoops trainer, and Cairns has spoken with several KU graduates about the position.

“Coach (Bill) Self said he firmly wants me to be in contact with the basketball team, maybe not on a day-to-day basis, but made it clear he doesn’t want me to leave the basketball team alone,” Cairns said. “He’s been great. He said he wasn’t looking forward to going through the interview process (with candidates), but he will be involved in the hiring of a new trainer.

“I’m excited about this because there won’t be any travel for me any more unless in an emergency situation. I’ll be able to stay home and watch my two daughters (8-year-old Mary and 7-year-old Grace) grow up and actually attend some Christmas programs and Thanksgiving dinners I’ve not been able to do.”

Of Cairns, associate AD Doug Vance said: “It’s great for Mark to have an opportunity to move forward in this role after so many years of helping so many athletes in the basketball program. He has certainly been significant in providing support for the basketball team for a long period of time. It’s a good time for changing of the guard and whoever replaces Mark will have big shoes to fill.”