You’ve heard it a hundred times: The right to free speech is sharply compromised when someone capriciously yells “fire” in a crowded theater.
A female Kansas University basketball player last weekend didn’t arouse the whole theater at Missouri, but she ruffled some of the actors on the stage. While it wasn’t the brightest thing she could have done, it didn’t quite merit the dangerous, embarrassing conflagration it created. But, this was hostile Columbia, Mo. Many Jayhawks and their fans have unpleasant memories about visits there. So why purposely open the door for more muckerism?
As the story goes, a KU player excited about ending a frustrating drought against the woman Tigers emitted something like “What streak?” as the combatants exchanged high fives, bumped bellies and the like. One MU player bristled, and there was degrading nastiness.
It took awhile to sort out who did what and with which and to whom. Coaches, the MU athletic director and other players on both sides tried to restore order, but there was tackiness, including a kick. KU gals also contend that band members, or at least one, spit on them. I’m guessing it was more than somebody just clearing saliva from a trumpet.
Usually the muckerism comes from the MU crowd in general, in both football and basketball, rather than from the athletes and musicians. The jocks often are the sanest on the scene. Hindsight, it would have been far better if the overzealous Jayhawk hadn’t gloated. But “What streak?” is not the equivalent of “Your mother wears Army shoes!” or Vinnie Barberino’s “Up your nose with a rubber hose!”
MU coach Cindy Stein quickly suspended a couple of her players. KU’s Marian Washington said she had no plans to take similar action against any players since MU supposedly produced the original hitters and KU merely supplied the hittees. The Big 12 Conference suspended three Jayhawks and two Tigers for a game each, chastised the lippy Jayhawk for her thoughtless incitement and was critical of Washington’s cavalier reaction. Marian seemed to think they couldn’t touch her girls with a 10-foot pole, so the league got out its 11-foot pole and proved otherwise. The coach also got tapped.
KU has been erratic this season. The MU debacle could unite the team or fragment it further. In this final year of coach Washington’s controversial contract, it will be interesting to see how this affects her job status.
But one thing all jocks of both sexual persuasions need to keep in mind anymore is that it’s unwise even to come close to twisting the loser’s tail when you’re in the opponent’s house.
I thought Roy Williams was going to kill the ditzy Eric Chenowith and, I think, Kenny Gregory the time they paraded on the MU court flashing their “Kansas” jerseys after defeating the Tigers. Fortunately, the Missouri crowd with its decadent Antlers group didn’t pursue it. They might well have. (Never saw anything as tasteless as Oklahoma under Billy Tubbs cutting down KU nets one year in the 1980s.)
While MU football crowds tend to be more abusive, Tiger court groups also should not be fooled with. You can be sure the Antler Bandits will be primed when the men visit, with all kinds of “What streak?” zingers. Hope that at least the KU people show class and control in the upcoming men’s and women’s matchups. Let’s be the adults this time around.
Satisfying as it might have seemed at the time, you shouldn’t have lipped off, girl. Next time, act as if you’ve been or at least belong on victory row.
It’s sad the athletic scene has deteriorated so sharply that people can’t have nearly as much harmless fun as they once did. Everyone’s looking for a reason to lash out. (Consider, too, when a guy and his wife can put out something like $250 to attend a Kansas City Chiefs game with two kids and be isolated in a den of profanity jammed with social carbuncles.)
Let’s flash back to one of the more enjoyable ongoing capers involving KU basketball, where there was good-natured give and take and lots of laughter?
After Kansas State opened Ahearn Fieldhouse in 1950, Dinty Moore, Leo Eller and some other Lawrence Sertoma Club members began to charter buses to the games with KU. One of these impish guys got a notion involving a rooster.
They’d get a bird, dye it blue; with its red comb and yellow feet and a few cosmetic enhancements, it would resemble an ersatz Jayhawk for the KSU barnyard. They’d carry it to Manhattan in a cage and smuggle it in under one of their overcoats. When the teams were introduced, a designated flinger would propel Chanticleer Jayhawk onto the court where he would strut around nervously and drive the crowd nutty.
It became a game. KSU’s Fritz Knorr and his athletic staff minions would scout for the Sertoma bus and do a feathery strip search of the occupants, although women never were scoped.
Dinty, Leo and Co. got wise and had another member take the tinted bird to Manhattan in a car to avoid K-State’s Brandenburg Gate. But how to get it into the fieldhouse?
A grandson of one of the Sertomans attending KSU would gain access with the bird and, for a 10-buck fee, pass it to one of the old-timers for the ceremonial toss. Some janitor would always remove the strutter. We can suppose, since K-State has a noted veterinary school, it was given a good home — after the Jayhawk hues were removed.
All this went on for some time and both the K-Staters and the Kansas folks had fun with it. I’d had Fritz Knorr, a Kansas all-sports hall-of-fame wrestling coach, as my junior high gym teacher in Kansas City. Never saw him laugh as much as I did when we used to rehash the ins and outs of the Sertoma Rooster Ramble and his guys’ efforts to derail it.
There’s too little such fun in sports anymore. I’m sorry for those of you who’ve never been enriched by such harmless goofiness.
