Tomorrow's weather
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Kansan
Warm tomorrow afternoon with partly-cloudy conditions.
Wednesday
November 17, 1999
Section:
A
Vol. 110 • No. 64
Online today
Warm weather and no rain have helped several construction projects on campus get ahead of schedule.
SEE PAGE 3A
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Sports today
The Kansas women's basketball team won its final exhibition game 87-51 against Latvia-Club Riga last night in Allen Fieldhouse.
SEE PAGE 1B
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Swimming and diving coach Gary Kempf faces complaints from athletes, parents
By Emily Hughey
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
She was just 18 years old. Sitting in a group with the rest of the freshman swimmers, Tracey McCallley listened as the upperclassman and team captains told her about her new coach.
"I thought it was a little strange when the senior captains told us as freshmen, 'You're not going to get along with Gary. If you have a confrontation with him, just agree because you can it win.'" McCalley said.
The May 1998 graduate quit the Kansas swimming team as a junior, leaving behind a scholarship and her year of NCAA eligibility. McCailley hasn't been the only one. An exodus of nearly 40 swimmers and 10 assistant coaches has left Robinson Natatorium during the last five years. The athletes leave before their eligibility is complete, and the coaches leave for other coaching jobs or the corporate world. Some swimmers sign with other schools; other swimers stay at Kansas — never to compete again. Although not all who have left it Kempf as their reason for leaving, interviews with former
swimmers and coaches who have left the University, along with their letters of complaint to the chancellor, tell a story about Gary Kempf, swimming and diving coach.
"He made me hate the sport," said McCalley, a nursing student at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. "I lost a huge part of what I loved." To this day, I can't walk onto a pool deck and feel the exhilaration and the love I once felt. There's no way I'll ever get into Robinson pool at KU again. There's no way. Not ever."
Complaints against Kempf
Gary Kempf has been the coach of the women's swimming and diving team for 24 years and the men's coach for 18 years. He has coached 18 Big Eight conference championships, won Big 12 women's coach of the year in 1999, won six conference coach of the year awards, was named NCAA Women's Coach of the Year in 1983 and was inducted into the Kansas Athletics Hall of Fame last year. Nevertheless, swimmers, coaches and athletes' parents have called for Kempf's dismissal citing Kempf for psychological abuse, inducing unhealthy eating behavior and
breaking NCAA training rules.
Kemp said he was aware of the complaints against him and that they were being handled within the athletics department. However, as a coach, he was accustomed to the differing opinions of his athletes.
"I don't want it to become a personal thing." Kempf said. "When you coach as many as I've coached, some are going to like it, some never do and we're dealing with a lot of opinion. It's a difficult situation right now because there are a lot of things that have a confidential approach."
Bob Frederick, athletics director, said that he was
aware of allegations against Kempf and that they were being handled within the athletics department.
*We spend a lot of time taking about our research teaching students and occupations with dignity and respect. It’s a big league here with迪克森和瑞斯.* **When it is big league here with迪克森和瑞斯.**
Kempt women's swimming coach for 24 years
"There was no stability in the coaching staff. There was no trust. It was like being in prison. Out of concern for saving my career and my sanity, I had to get out."
doesn't happen, we try to address those issues and when there have been claims that that wasn't the case, we've tried to address those issues."
Tyler Painter
In this, what was to be his senior year, Tyler Painter left the Kansas swimming program in search of a better place to prepare for the 2000 Olympic Trials. Painter, formerly ranked 16th in the world in the 1,500-meter freestyle, three-time NCAA qualifier and three-time All-American, said he couldn't take swimming for Kemft anymore.
Painter, former Kansas distance standout, said he saw Kempf drive athletes to tears on the pool deck and in Kempf's office. Although Painter said he never was directly a victim because he consistently performed well, Kempf's coaching was the predominant reason why he left
Former Kansas swimmer
"I left because there's a problem at KU." Painter said. "There was no stability in the coaching staff. There was no trust. It was like being in prison. Out of concern for saving my career and my sanity. I had to get out. It wasn't KU; it was the coaching and the direction the program was headed."
Painter now lives and swims at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Painter now lives and swims at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. "I didn't like how he treated people," Palnter said of Kempt. "People would swim bad, and he wouldn't talk to them. We didn’t try hard enough. It wasn’t constructive criticism he gave us. I never once saw him talk to someone after a race critiquing their strokes. He’d question people's heart, and it's not always about that."
See EXODUS on page 6A
KU Alumni Association to lobby state for funds
By Clay McCuistion
Kansan staff writer
The KU Alumni Association's Jayhawks for Higher Education Committee is starting its annual lobbying of Kansas government.
About 150 University of Kansas graduates packed the Adams Alumni Center Saturday afternoon to learn about the requests the Kansas Board of Regents are making to Gov. Bill Graves and the Kansas Legislature. These alumni are now starting to lobby the governor, trying to increase the budget for higher education in the state.
"The Legislature just accepts higher education as sort of a step-child," said Fred Williams, president of the alumni association. "For KU to remain a university of distinction, it takes these funding elements to retain and attract quality professors and educators."
An 8.5 percent salary increase for faculty and unclassified staff. The University's faculty salaries are 88 percent of its peer institutions. The Regents cited that in 1980 the number was 97 percent.
The main legislative requests by the Regents are:
A $1 per credit hour fee increase to help provide funds for library purchases. The Regents also are requesting the Legislature match this increase.
A 3.5 percent increase in other operating expenses.
The faculty of distinction program, designed to create legislative matching funds for private gifts of $500,000 or more to create distinguished or
teaching professorships or other rewards for faculty.
After the governor makes his budget recommendations in January, the alumni's advocacy efforts will shift to the state Legislature.
Williams said he hoped legislators would make the commitment to provide more funds for higher education in the state.
"Leadership has to make it a priority," he said. "We're experiencing great economic times in the state of Kansas, and I think the legislature needs to look at the formula of tax cuts they've made."
In its last session, the legislature promised at 3.5 percent faculty pay increase for college faculty in the state. Gov. Graves' September announcement of a $44.3 million budget cut effective this fiscal year has put such promises in question.
Kim Wilcox, executive director of the Board of Regents, said the state's budget difficulties made the upcoming legislative session uncertain.
"Clearly, the challenge is the budget situation in the state," he said. "We have to stay optimistic. We have very legitimate needs."
This year's Alumni Association lobbying effort is led by project chairmen Fred Williams; Bernard E. Nordling, a 1949 School of Law graduate; and Daniel L. Watkins, a 1975 School of Law graduate. All reside in Lawrence.
"The future is uncertain," he said. "The entire system hasn't been funded."
Chancellor Robert Hemenway said the University was in an anxious period.
Edited by Matt James
Street clogged near west Lawrence bus stop
By Derek Prater
Neighbors want more KU on Wheels routes
Kansan staff writer
As residential development in Lawrence has spread westward, so have KU students.
Getting those students to campus is causing problems, some Lawrence residents sav.
In order to catch the KU on Wheels bus, some students who live in apartment complexes west of Kasold Drive park along West 22nd street east of Kasold. A bus stops every 30 minutes at West 22nd and Heatherwood Drive.
Residents in the neighborhood say the amount of students parking there clogs the street,blocks mailboxes and creates a dangerous traffic situation.
"I think the biggest problem with it is that it isn't just one or two cars," said Diana Bretz, who lives at 3208 W. 22nd St. "Our street fills up solid."
Bretz said residents of the neighborhood didn't blame students; they blamed
KU on Wheels.
Julie Matchett, another resident of West 22nd, said that because KU on Wheels sold passes to students who lived in apartment complexes west of Kasold, it should pick those students up where they live.
Amber White, a Hutchinson senior who sometimes parks on West 22nd to catch the bus, said it would be nice if the buses stopped at other apartment complexes west of Kasold.
"It's bad for the people who live out west, and I know that the people who live here don't like it," she said.
Holly Krebs, KU on Wheels coordinator, said adding new routes just wasn't realistic.
"It's not financially feasible for us to run an additional bus route out west," she said.
KU on Wheels has tried to help eliminate the parking problem on 22nd, Krebs said.
"No parking" signs are expected to go up on 22nd within the next couple of weeks because of an ordinance passed by the city commission Nov. 9.
Krebs said she attended a meeting of the Traffic Safety Commission to support the neighborhood in its efforts to eliminate parking on the street.
But what Krebs called a nice compromise, Bretz called the only choice available to the residents.
Bretz said that the problem would not go away and that neighbors would prefer not to have the no parking signs.
"The problem is just going to move down the street," she said. "I don't know what the solution is, but I wish KU on Wheels could sit down and come up with one."
Krebs said KU on Wheels created the park-and-ride option and has been promoting it to service students who lived out west.
Park-and-ride passes are an additional $10 on the $110 annual bus pass fee. Students can park at the Lied Center parking lots and catch the bus there.
Krebs said that this year about 450 out of 500 park-and-ride passes were sold. She said it was possible that the program would be expanded in the future.
Whether the no parking and park and ride programs will ease the problems on West 22nd remains to be seen, but Matchett said residents were really just hoping for one thing.
"Id just like for it to quiet down," she said.
Edited by Matt James
Diverse panel debates merits of science in Kansas
By Katie Hollar
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
It is not about science vs. religion.
It is not about science vs. religion Rather, said Mark Discher, professor of philosophy and religion at Ottawa University, the conflict surrounding the Kansas Board of Education's evolution ruling is about science vs. literal six-day Creationism.
And it is about a philosophical materialism vs. religion.
Last night, a panel of nine debated "The New Science in Kansas Schools" to an audience of about 300 for two hours at the
Scott Hill, board member, said he stood behind the board's decision.
Two Board of Education members, two ministers, two professors and three different organizations' representatives expressed their conflicting views first in a four-minute speech, then in a three-minute response, and finally, in a question-and-answer session.
Kansas Union Ballroom. The panel debated evolution, creationism, the board's decision and even the conflict itself.
"Did the board make the right decision politically, ethically, morally? I'm here tonight to say 'Yes, we did,'" he said.
Hill said his constituents directed and channeled his voting in favor of the decision.
Another board member, Bill Wagnon, disagreed, characterizing the act as embarrassing, unnecessary and reckless.
"Children who go through this system under these standards will be disadvantaged," Wagnon said.
The other panelists' statements ranged from fundamentally religious to textbook scientific — and everywhere in between.
CH
See EVOLUTION on page 3A
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