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Thursday, November 17, 1994
UN I V E R S I T Y D A I L Y K A N S A N
**Above:** Leaper and his brother Sean talk before Sean's wedding at Plymouth Congregational Church. **Right:** Leaper runs on the field to pick up the place-kicker's tee. He is responsible for making sure the tee is off of the field after KU kicks off.
THE JAYHAWKS'
BIGGEST
FAN
Continued from Page 1.
ther founded the Williams Educational Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to athletes at KU. He has been called the "gum man" while supplying KU football players with chewing gum during his career as an assistant equipment manager. He has been called a hard-working athlete by his Special Olympian teammates and the KU coaches with whom he plays basketball during his lunch break
But everyone calls Todd Williams "Leaper," a high school nickname given to him for his rebounding skills. And just as his nickname has endured, so has he, a lasting structure at the University of Kansas
○○○
He vacuums the carpet in the men's basketball locker room, systematically moving around the room's edges, from Greg Ostertag's chair to Jacque Vaughn's, to the plush Jayhawk in the middle of the floor.
Much of what Leaper does at the field house is done in solitude, before the regulars show up.
At the door to the men's track and field locker room, he punches in the security code and wheels in his yellow moping cart. His big broom corrals a pile of dirt dragged in from the track field, along with a candy bar wrapper, a green sheet of paper with one day's practice schedule on it and a T-shirt label. He picks up a used bandage from the shower floor. Cockroaches are about the only things that bother Leaper.
He doesn't complain about unkempt locker rooms or even a lost KU game for that matter. Maybe that is because for every urinal he cleans, there are many more high-fives and shouted greetings in the halls of the field house, on the field at Memorial Stadium or anywhere Leaper is.
"Hey, Leap!"
The greetings come from football players — Tony Blevins, Van Davis, Tyler Quast and Matt Vandree.
"What's un. babv?"
Morning, Leap.
Leaper walks down the track inside Allen Field House one early October morning. He spends
More greetings — from Amelia Holmes of the women's track team, from Judy Lacock of the mail room at the field house. Usually, people beat him to the greeting. But when there's a newcomer to the field house, Leaser's on top of it.
When men's basketball coach Roy Williams arrived at KU, Leaper introduced himself and welcomed the new coach to the field house.
"Walking away, I just knew — there was a guy who loved this place and this University." Williams says.
Now the two joke that, because they have the same last name, they must be distant relatives.
As Matt Doherty walked through the field house on his first day as assistant men's basketball coach, Leaper walked up, welcomed him and started talking basketball. Now the two have a kind-of secret handshake, a "gimme five" pounding of fists, finished off with a snap.
On the first day they met, Leaper enlightened Doherty on the tradition of KU athletics. And today, Doherty still is impressed with Leaper's knowledge of KU sports.
"I can be having the sorrist day of my life, and Leaper can walk by and put a smile on my face," Doherty says. "I think the world of him. I wish we all could share some of his enthusiasm for life."
"He probably knows more about KU athletics than anybody around here," Doherty says.
Having grown up in Lawrence, Leaper has been tracking the careers of KU athletes and coaches since he was a child. His younger brother, Sean, a property and investment manager in Lawrence and Leeper's best pal, says the two can be watching a professional football game, and Leeper will name all the former KU players on both teams and their positions, as well as the former KU coaches and assistant coaches on the teams.
"One time, in our old house, I was calling out to him for supper." Sean recalls. "I finally went up, and he was in his room with a yearbook open. And he was staring at the football team. And I said, 'Todd, what are you doing? I've been calling you. It's time for supper.' I said, 'What are you
doing anyway?"
"Oh, just memorizing names," Leaper answered.
At first, Sean thought Leaper had some special talent, something tied to his mental retardation, that made him remember names and facts. But then, Sean thought more about it.
"He reads the Kansas City Star sports page, the Topeka Capital-Journal, USA Today and the Lawrence Journal-World. He watches Cablevision, he talks with people in the sports world, he works around the field house," Sean says, smiling. "He has so much inundation of these sports names and stuff. And he works at it just like anybody else."
But when his cleaning is finished around noon, Leaper the custodian walks into the locker room that he has just cleaned and walks out Leaper the basketball player — sports goggles, yellow tank top with No. 13 on the back, snug gray shorts, white wristbands on each arm, white mid-calf socks, blue knee brace on right knee and black basketball shoes.
It's time for the Noon Basketball League, an ongoing tradition of several field house regulars. Doherty; Steve Robinson, men's assistant basketball coach; Michael Center, men's tennis coach; and Dean Buchan, sports information director, are among the shirts and skins who meet on the court.
The games are Leaper's way of living up to his philosophy of life — "Just stay healthy and stay active in my 40 years here." he says.
Leaper runs down the court, snags a pass and goes up for a shot. Doherty, standing between Leaper and the backboard, juts his arm in the air and blocks the shot without much effort. Leaper and the others laugh. They all know Doherty's height puts a stocky Leeper, at 5 feet 7 inches tall and 185 pounds, at a disadvantage.
In his red and blue KU cap, gray Alaho Bowl T-shirt, blue warm-up pants and gray Nike running shoes, Leaper looks more like an athlete than the custodian who cleans up after them.
/
The regulars know they can kid around with Leaper. "Cuz I'm a joking type of
guv." Leaner says.
The football players get a good laugh, too. One year, to fire up the team before the annual game with Kansas State, he wore purple wrist bands to the football practice. He even has shown up wearing a helmet and shoulder pad. At his annual chili feed for the defensive secondary players at his mother's home, Leaper leaves the players laughing with his make-up nicknames for each player who arrives. They laugh at the things he intends to be funny and a few things he intends to be serious.
he got a good laugh at the note taped to his locker just before the noon basketball game. The white paper, with Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder's picture on it, read: "Leaper, Thanks for sending us a copy of the Kansas game plan. We look forward to having you over for dinner Wednesday night. Go Cats!"
But Leaper laughs with them.
For as long as he has been cleaning the field house, he has been helping the football team's equipment managers. After work at the field house, he heads over to the practice field or to Memorial Stadium, where he huts the red bag of footballs, helps with drills and cheers on the team.
Though Leaper is paid for his job at the field house, his work for the football team is volunteer. To many Jayhawk players, Leeper's work makes him just as much a member of the team as anyone else.
"He's just always telling us to hurry up, get over here, sending us to the right direction, even if it's the wrong direction. I think he likes to feel like he's needed out there."
"Leap, he gets his coaching bits in," Tony Blevins, a defensive back, says with a chuckle. "Leaper always keeps us up, and he won't hesitate to tell us when we need to work more and work harder."
With that position comes a unwavering faith in the KU football team that few, maybe none, have maintained for so many years. Leaper's brother Sean calls him an "undrownable optimist."
"Personally, to me, I think he's the No. 1 fan for the KU football team," says Gerald McBurrows, a defensive back for the Jayhacks.
awks.
Out there, on game day, Leaper is needed. He's the gum man, and he's the tee man.
A game day for Leaper starts at 6:30 a.m. He walks the three blocks from his house to the Kwik Shop on 23rd Street, where he buys several packs of red, green and yellow gum, the Kansas City Star and the Tomka Capital-Journal.
He stuffs the gum and papers in his Aloha Bowl bag and walks over to Carol Lee Donuts, where he waits for some of the football managers.
"I beat the other managers there, so I'm
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