110 YEARS OF KANSAS BASKETBALL
WHAT THREE MEN CAN DO How Johnson, Brown and Manning rejuvenated Kansas basketball
PHOTOIS COUNTIES Y OF SPECIALE RÉSEARCH LIBRARYAM
Above: Danny Manning and Larry Brown celebrate during the 1988 NCAA tournament. Shortly after the Jayhawks had a disappointing season, Kansas went all the way, defeating Oklahoma in the championship.
Right:Darnell Valentine and Ted Owens faced much disappointment at the end of Owens' tenure as coach.
BY MARK DENT
Monte Johnson sat in the stands at Allen Fieldhouse not sure what to make of the disaster unfolding around him.
A team was losing badly on the floor, and it seemed as if no one cared. Only about 3,000 people were in the stands with him. The beautiful building had lost its charm.
"It's a Saturday," friends would tell him. "People aren't used to games on Saturdays yet."
Johnson knew that wasn't the reason. He'd seen Allen Fieldhouse full before, back when he was a player in the 1950s and teamed up with Wilt Chamberlain to play in the Final Four, and as an employee of the Athletics Department in 1960s when he watched almost every game. Now, after making the trip from his home in Wichita, he knew something was wrong. It certainly wasn't the Saturday afternoon game time.
It was the product.
There was Johnson, the athletics director, Larry Brown, the coach, and Danny Manning, the player. Plenty of others helped, but decisions and performances by these three turned Kansas from a team that finished with two straight losing seasons in the early 1980s to national champions by 1988.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kansas basketball slipped from perennial power to bottom of the Big 8. It took three men to help restore its tradition.
Monte Johnson was perfectly content living a low-key life in Wichita as a banker. He'd done the KU Athletics thing for a while, working nearly every job within the Athletics Department from 1961 to 1970. By then, he'd had enough. Johnson found plenty of success and more money in the banking business. He was happy.
Then, in the fall of 1982, he received some surprising news. Johnson was nominated to be the Athletics Director at his alma mater. The nomination was completely out of the blue. Johnson had spent very little time in Lawrence, only making the two-hour trip to help former teammate Bob Billings with developments in the Alvamar neighborhood or to go to the occasional basketball game.
STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 47
1982-1983: Athletic Director Monte Johnson lured coach Larry Brown away from the NBA to replace the sinking ship captained by Ted Owens. Although the talent was somewhat lacking, Brown led the team to a second-place finish in the conference.
1983-1984: Danny Manning burst on to the scene, scoring nearly 15 points per game as a freshman. This season laid the foundation for the great teams of'86 and'88.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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