How could you not fall in love with a Kansas softball team with the tremendous charisma of the 2006ers and a star named Destiny Frankenstein? First time I ever saw her name, I got interested and started rooting for Tracy Bunge’s Jayhawks harder than ever.
Has KU ever had a female athlete with a more unique handle? She was an outstanding player along with owning a celebrity moniker. I was delighted to see the Jayhawks do so well, so sorry when they didn’t advance in the NCAA, to see how non-familiar writers would capitalize on that sensational label.
Unique names? Cite me, if you can, a Kansas football player who’s ever had a more definitive handle than Zvonimir Kvaternik. He was a darn good 1931-33 guard who played with all-leaguers like tackle Otto Rost, tackle Pete Mehringer, guard George Atkeson, end Ernest Casini and halfback Elmer Schaake, one of the finest players Lawrence ever produced. Zonie, Kvaternik’s label, is no longer with us, but you can win some money betting against guys who think they can spell his name without looking it up.
Haskell has had some unusual football names, like Manuel Covers Up, Ted Standing Soldier and Laverne Buffalomeat. Thanks to the recent returnees from KU’s Class of 1956, I was finally able to prove to skeptics that the Jayhawks once had a starting quarterback named Beverly (Buller). Bev came back for his 50th.
Buller, originally from Lyons, where his dad was school superintendent, now goes by the name of John Bev Buller. He became a successful business executive in Sandusky, Ohio. Bev figured in an amusing 1955 story involving Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson.
Buller started against OU at Norman where there were constant rumors that Wilkinson aide Gomer Jones was the power behind the throne and that glib, handsome Bud was just a figurehead. Sooners love gossip. Right after the kickoff, Buller ran a quarterback keep for something like a 90-yard score; 6-0 KU. A jackass sitting just below the press box bellowed: “Wilkinson, get the hell off the sideline and let Gomer coach!”
Bud, Gomer, somebody must have heard him. OU answered with a 44-6 whipping of Chuck Mather’s Jayhawks. At 6-foot-1 and 175 pounds, Bev was described in the KU media guide as “an elusive little flinger who throws capably off the run.” He suffered through an 0-10 season in ’54 and got pounded again as KU went 3-6-1 in ’55. Anyone who mistook Bev Buller as a soft touch made a big mistake.
Among the ex-Matherites here for this week’s memorial service for Dr. John Wertzberger, a Lawrence High and KU gridder of note, was Ted Rohde, onetime halfback and cannon-leg punter who also attended last fall’s reunion of Mather guys. We got to chuckling, again, over Ted’s take on the agony of that winless ’54 season.
Fifty-yard kicks were routine for Ted; he was always getting KU out of trouble. Often he was the best weapon available. He recalls:
“Chuck’s idea, from his high school days, I guess, was that the way to beat defenses was to make the big linemen run and run and run until they dropped. He’d try it time and again with one double-reverse after another. Didn’t work too well, so he’d send me in to kick.
“For a long time that year, our offense consisted of three double-reverses and a punt,” Rohde recalled. “There were games where my leg was about to drop off.”
