Early basketball games at Kansas University the coming season will have a Motion Picture Academy Awards atmosphere.
The game ultimately will be the thing, or should be, of course, same as the presentation of the Oscars for film achievements. But some sidelights also will generate a lot of scrutiny.
Many people follow the “Hollywood” spectacle to see and be seen and to note who is sitting where and with whom. There could be a lot of the latter during the shakedown cruise for Allen Fieldhouse seating assignments after a Summer of Discontent over realignment under the new point system.
Don’t think people won’t be rubber-necking a lot, at least in the early stages.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway has been quoted as saying nobody who has held season tickets up to now and who has renewed them will be left out of the hall. That doesn’t mean they’ll be pleased with where they end up, or that they’ll be any better off after the “seeding” process is refined and continued into the following season. But if they’ve steadily been on the rolls they’re due to remain on the premises at least for 2004-05, regardless of point totals.
Where to be or not to be, that is the big question, the prototype of which originally was posed by some Danish character who never heard of basketball, James Naismith, Phog Allen, a Kansas Jayhawk or even Nike.
How many “families” will be broken up by the reassignments based on points and money gifts? Will proud old friends who’ve hooted and hollered for 40 or more years, exchanged Christmas and birthday cards and gathered at each others’ houses for televised road games be scattered all over in favor of more monetarily endowed viewers?
Lots of good people who have contributed heavily to KU say they have waited patiently (well, sometimes) for years to be rewarded. They say, with justification, they have seen people they know have not been as generous sitting prettier than they, even though these old-timers and “blue-hairs” haven’t kicked in nearly as much for the Jayhawk program. I touched on that subject in a recent column; some longtime fans with great records of largesse have made solid arguments for upgrading of their derriere designations, and continue to do so. Their time is now.
One young guy eager to get a better location told me that the devotion of such people should not be questioned but that their loyalty can be because they haven’t put nearly as much into the pot as he has. Does the concept of buying your way into heaven come to mind? The Medicis made a profitable science of that in the earlier days of the Roman Catholic Church.
Then there is the former athlete who has given immensely and productively. He’s served constantly in major KU support programs and says he never did any of that for credit — that it was done because of his appreciation and love of KU and the fact the school was so vital to his success. He wants to help the school that helped him and which can do likewise for so many more youngsters. He’s done it because it’s right, not for some kind of sudden credit or reward.
This gentleman probably could sit on the KU bench if he pushed it because of his huge point total, yet he’s saddened at the fact KU is having to battle a cold-blooded image of selling its favors.
I liken it to a guy who goes to KU, meets a girl, falls in love, marries her and enjoys a lifelong love affair. But along can come some rich dude who deduces he can get the same kind of satisfaction from hiring a high-priced campus hooker. To each his or her own, but a school tends to benefit most from the former kind of affection rather than the latter, which seems so negotiated on a cash-and-carry basis.
Something that rankles old-timers to the core is that business and corporate entities may finagle ways to gobble up batches of tickets to distribute to visiting firemen from places such as Azusa, Anaheim and Kookamonga. They can be one-trick ponies with little concern for KU’s players and team and tradition — mainly how many contacts they can make so they can leave early and rush back to their hotels to do business on the Internet.
OK, that may be pushing it. The vast majority of people at KU games in the fieldhouse are there to see who can best do what and with which and to whom. Most want Kansas to prevail. It’s just that a number of devotees who have been doing countless things that don’t transmit onto a point chart think they’re going to be swept under the carpet. They’ve stuck with KU through thick and thin at least since 1955. They resent being taken for granted, even forgotten.
I have heard from people who say they are so upset that they plan to change their wills, either editing KU out of the package or lessening what they’ll leave it. That might be something like when the Journal-World has run a controversial story or picture and callers respond with rancor — saying they are going to cancel their subscriptions. Believe me, in 54 years around these digs I’ve heard from a lot of them. But out of eight or 10 calls, maybe a couple cut off the paper … when you check, they may be back before long. The no-will rhetoric may be more emotional than pragmatic. Yet this an emotional time for many; the dear old Jayhawk has become like a bird battered back and forth in a badminton game.
Whether you are pro-points or anti-upgrade, KU’s warm and fuzzy image has taken a substantial hit in the past few months. Many in all categories of the issue are saddened by that — at a time when KU and higher education in general need all the friends and help they can get. I can only hope all this hassle can be resolved reasonably amicably, soon, and that attention will shift to rooting for an improved football team and howling madly for a basketball team with NCAA Final Four potential. There’s been heavy hard feeling and resentment for much too long as the new order dutifully tries to do what it was hired for: Raise money to get KU off that embarrassing 11th rung on the Big 12 Conference all-sports ladder.
You can be sure, though, that when fans attend football and basketball games this fall and next winter they’ll be watching their backs, their sides and fronts to see who’s missing and who’s new. It won’t be so Oscar-night intense for football as for basketball.
Oh, what a tangled web that sports, the alleged Toy Department of Life, can weave!
