aie

stepped cut in front and maintained a lead, and looked like near- champions. Kansas

played a marvelous gamo against atte Sooners.

Maybe the press dispatches of February 16 gave you an inkling of the Kansas-
Kansas State game at Monhattan. (Kansas State was very much in the running for the
championship. Since they had beaten the Sooners and had run up 70 points on:
Nebraska, and had defeated Missouri, they were in a championship mood. They had
not lost a game on the home court and this was the game that Kansas was to get her
licking. Not since 1937 had the Aggies won a game fron i.U. Everything was in the
cards for kansas State to break this jinx. jmd what a ball game it was! The teans
were splendid on both sides regarding their sportsmanship and fine attitude. But
the crowd had come for blood and they wanted some of the Jayhawker meat. To make
a long story short, kansas won in one of the most hectic games. Atkins, the Kansas
State boy, double dribbled in coming down the court and passed to an Aggie boy ‘who
shot a goal which would have put the Aggies one point ahead. The crowd was so wild
they failed to hear the whistle or to see the double-dribble, and they —— the
referees had taken the ball and the game away from Kansas State.

After the game, John Lance and Hddie Hogue, the officials, walked over to the |
scorers bench. to verify the score, which Kansas had won by two points, and in the
interval between the time John Lance left the scorer's table he was divested of.
most of his raiment. a part of that said raiment hangs on the bulletin board here
in my office. It is a piece of cloth 34 inches long and 24 inches wide. It’ has
black and white stripes, and at one tine was a part of his refereeing shirt. This
is once where a referee lost his shirt ond almost everything else if he had. stayed.
on the job long, but Coach Fritz Knorr of the Aggies grabbed Lance by the arm and —
what clothing was. still on him and hustled him down the side entrance ‘to ‘the base- |
ment. There were only a few trouble-makers. The majority of the crowd were fine,
and all the coaches and athletic officers at Kansas State were wonderful. It was
just one of those mob scenés that happens when some chunn starts to take netters
in his own hands. President Eisenhower, Mike Ahearn, Couch Fritz Knorr, and’ Frank
Myers, the financial secretary, were all wonderful in sesins that we all got
courteous treatment. But for a while things were exciting. True, sore nit wit .
shadow boxer let all the air out of ny tires by takinz the valve cores out, but
this was dene by sone distorted brain who thought he was doing something to aid
the war effort. Ss

Everything is lovely and I am going down there on March 23 to speak at a
basxetball banquet at the Manhattan High School. Of course, we will do everything
we can to spread the gospel of good will and friendliness between the two Kansas
cousins:- Kansas and Kansas State. The student boéy of Kansas State were fine, I
think it is a wonderful commentary to make when we think of Kansas and hansas State,
two bitter rivals, playing all these vears without any more -trouble than has
occurred, It speaks well for the leadership in peehess ae on: — ‘sides, - ond may
it ever thus remain. ;

Wie hada the Surprise of our lives at Lincoln on penary- 10, ee we hed ‘a fine
visit with Ray Evans. Our Kansas Jayhawkers got a big wallop out of talking with
him. Big, fine looking and. poised, aggressive, this alleAnc¥iean in two sports was
as modest as a college freshman. Ray steyed with us in our defoat.and until late
at night when we pulled out of Lincoln. Ie was consoling the boys after the red
hot Nebraskans had poured it on them. He met u buck private with izthon he ‘had played
baseball and he was just as swell to th‘s Ge I. Joe as if this private had bcéen a .
general. That is the thing that nakes cy Evans great; that, anda lot of otuner

thi
ngs. Ray was on his wav to his assignment with the Cypsy Task Force, and after