It started in the autumn when Mark Mangino’s seemingly sinking football team needed to win every game, save the virtually insurmountable one against eventual national champion Texas, to play for any sort of title.
And win it did. Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa State all went down at Memorial Stadium, giving the Jayhawks the opportunity to play for and win the Fort Worth Bowl title against overmatched Houston.
It resurfaced in the spring, when Tracy Bunge took her sixth-seeded team into Oklahoma City for the Big 12 tournament and watched her players shock the college softball world by winning it with victories over Baylor, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
Ritch Price, completing his four-year facelift of a once-sorry baseball program, coached the team that continued Kansas University’s remarkable run of clutch, win-or-else performances against Big 12 competition by winning the tournament title Sunday in Oklahoma City.
Given the super-power status of the KU basketball program, and the way things went against Bradley, it probably doesn’t fit here to include that Bill Self’s team won the Big 12 title with an upset victory over Texas, but it did seem like a pretty big accomplishment for a young team at the time.
Back to the underdogs. Back to Mangino, Bunge and Price.
Give athletic director Lew Perkins credit for not firing them, for realizing his predecessors hired the right people for these challenging jobs.
All three coaches obviously knew how to bring their teams along in a way that made them play their best at the most important points in the season.
Price didn’t get to see his son Robby help Free State High win its first baseball state title Saturday in Wichita, but he did get to witness his other sons, Ritchie, the shortstop, and Ryne the feisty, suspended second baseman, help the Jayhawks win the school’s first baseball Big 12 tournament title.
The Prices weren’t the only happy baseball family. Nick Czyz made the start and earned the win for KU, and his big brother, Don Czyz, picked up the save in the 9-7 victory over Nebraska.
It capped a remarkable few days for Lawrence, aka Titletown, USA. A 13-minute drive from where Free State won its state baseball title, Lawrence High’s boys track team won the state title, and the girls from LHS nearly did the same, placing second.
Their seasons are over. Ritch Price’s challenge now is to convince his players their season has just begun. If anybody can, it’s Price, who inherited a team that routinely finished last or close to it in the Big 12, and never had won a game in the conference tourney until knocking off Oklahoma, Missouri, Oklahoma State and Nebraska in Oklahoma City.
As for any fear Price will be lured back to California to head a Pac-10 program, there’s good reason to believe it won’t happen. His son Robby, repeatedly called, “the best baseball player in the state of Kansas” by Mike Hill, his high school coach, will be a freshman at KU next year, which ought to make his dad stay put at least four more years.
ESPN telecasts its selection show this morning at 11:30. Tell the truth now: Did you ever think you would be grateful that the NCAA baseball tournament selection show was airing on a holiday so that you could stay home and watch it? The times are changing. For the better.
