Remember that old bit that folks who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it? There can be other versions.
My thinking, considering how a lot of folks feel right now, is that The Suits in and around Kansas University’s Allen Fieldhouse would do well to study the past carefully — then try like hell to repeat a lot of it from a public-relations standpoint.
An awful lot of the natives are restless about a perceived attitude of bottom-line heartlessness from the new regime. Lew Perkins and the boys have been mending some fences of late and there is growing evidence they are trying to make more people, such as the faculty, happier than it first appeared they gave a damn about. That’s gotta continue. They need to “grandfather” some old-timers, do some compassionate salesmanship and be patient. And cut out those cold, impersonal form letters.
The focal points, of course, are athletic tickets and strong-arm fund-raising techniques. There’s a feeling the “eastern elitists” have invaded and don’t quite comprehend the more neighborly approach to life out here. We don’t like guns at our heads.
Flashback: I cannot recall a time when I came onto the scene in mid-1940s when somebody wasn’t complaining about some kind of ticket problem. There was a time when students could attend only half the basketball games in old Hoch Auditorium. There was frantic trading, bartering and everything else just for the privilege of seeing all the games from bleachers on the stage. Somebody’s always irate, but not in droves, such as now.
Football-wise, there were usually enough ducats, but there still was a scramble for the best ones. When somebody didn’t hear soon enough or didn’t get the precise old spots, there was howling. Ticket operations can be hell.
First time anyone really focused on the fact that big money could be made from football was Nov. 22, 1947, when they vaselined more than 40,000 into 32,000-capacity Memorial Stadium. The occasion: a 20-14 Kansas victory over Missouri that cemented an Orange Bowl bid. At the time, that was the largest crowd ever to witness a Big Six or Missouri Valley football game, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, all the rest be damned.
Ernie Quigley was the penny-pinching athletic director and his eyes lit up like a runaway video game. Man, there was money to be made from sports and it could be made right here in River City.
KU’s stadium later was enlarged twice to the current 50,000-plus. It has been unfilled far more often than not. Allen Fieldhouse went into operation in 1955 and for all its spaciousness it wasn’t really exploited until Wilt Chamberlain burst upon the scene. There were ebbs and flows during the Dick Harp and Ted Owens regimes, Larry Brown and his hustlers started packing the house and Roy Williams and Co. set new standards for ticket hassles.
Football still isn’t too hot a ticket, although Mark Mangino and his guys are trying to make it such. Basketball is the giant bone of contention and in the eyes of some, the carpetbaggers have moved in and are trying to shake down devoted people who can’t ante up to fill their “point chart.”
Now here we are with renewed enthusiasm for football. Folks see chances for a .500 season and bowl-eligibility, marginal as the prospects may be. There was that incredible night of good feeling for the Don Fambrough gathering Sept. 25, something to really build on if the new people use it properly.
There’s a feel-good basketball situation with tremendous promise, terrific personnel, a new court boss who not only is good but charming … heck, the stage is set for lots of positive warmth and fuzziness. But enough long-loyal people seem to get getting the shaft because of the almighty dollar, so the traditional good will is being sorely tested.
Again, the new folks have seemed of late to be listening to some old-timers conversant with the history around here. They seem to be trying to regain some of the good public support that KU sports enjoyed in the past. They have to realize the people “out here” have pride, dignity and loyalty, and aren’t about to be pushed around by stone-cold moneychangers in the temple.
There’s a tremendous history of dedication and devotion among the people here, guys. Put an arm around it and nurture it rather than grabbing it by the throat and choking dollars out of it like Wile E. Coyote might try to do with the Road Runner. No matter how crafty the new Coyote might be with its eastern ways, I’m betting on the Road Runner for long-term benefit to KU and its programs. They also better do that.
Never, repeat NEVER, make the mistake of taking Lawrence and Kansas people for granted. Maybe not immediately, but eventually they’ll rear up and bite you in the tuckus.
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Two KU-Nebraska football notes: Duane Morris and John Hadl are the last quarterbacks at Kansas to leave here with 3-0 records against the Huskers — Morris 1957-59 and Hadl 1959-61. KU went 5-0 against NU in that period; all the guys on those five teams are justifiably proud of their dominance. Maybe next year.
Again, KU managed to boost another Nebraska reserve to stardom: Cory Ross, 108 yards Saturday. The Jayhawks have a history of creating NU heroes. There was the marginal Craig Johnson, ’78-80, and Dave Gillespie, ’74-76. Gillespie, by the way, was a KU assistant in ’95 and ’96.
Man, 35 years is a long time, even for an old guy such as I.