Volume 124 Issue 145
kansan.com
Monday, April 30, 2012
COMMENTARY
He hoped he could be a student with his team in the Final Four, because that's when school pride would reach its highest.
He will walk down the hill in 13 days. He wishes it was 13 years.
The end of a wild journey
He looked up at Allen Fieldhouse, then over to Fraser Hall. Two weeks left. A long walk down a hill. And then it's over.
He swears there was something in his eye.
As he sat on the Fieldhouse grass, he realized something. His column was nearly finished, his college journey two weeks from completed.
Edited by Christine Curtin
He was born in Missouri, but taken across the border a few hours after. He never returned willingly, except to scarf down a beef sandwich from Arthur Bryant's or watch a Royal's game. As a high school senior, he hemmed and hawed about attending other schools, but he never wavered.
And after Kansas beat Ohio State, he high-fived strangers and watched Kansas fans test the hydraulics of a parked truck while B Double E, a local rap artist, rapped in his ear.
Three years came and went. Kansas had some pretty damn good basketball teams. Those teams were expected to make the Final Four. They didn't. The team in his senior year wasn't expected to do much — not enough talent, not enough experience.
He knew about the basketball. Everybody knows about the basketball, but that's because it's worth knowing about. Hakim Warrick made him cry in 2003; Mario Chalmers made him doggie with his friends in 2008.
It was a week that made him remember how much fun he's had in the last four years. He's met people he'll never forget, people he'll never remember and people he'll never remember meeting. And he's learned from all of them.
A few days ago, a senior sat on the grass outside Allen Fieldhouse and tried to figure out what to say in his final column for the Kansan.
His Final Four dreams were just about dead. But then this team did something wonderful.
He watched KU survive against Purdue in the basement of a London hotel. He watched KU beat North Carolina on an iPad next to a baggage carousel at KCI. He couldn't drive to Lawrence fast enough.
During Final Four week, he walked by the greener-than-usual grass of Fraser Hall more than he needed to. He sat in his FMS 100 class, feeling so jealous of those that have three or four more years in this wonderful place.
He ate a Wang burger at the Wheel. He ate — er, swallowed — a Smoke burger and truffle fries from The Burger Stand. He ran by Allen Fieldhouse, because there aren't many times in life that you can run past the world's basketball cathedral.
He drank cheap beer and hatched plans that only make sense after drinking cheap beer. He smiled with hundreds of people wearing crimson and blue all week long, ready to scream at televisions and Tyshawn Taylor.
SPRING FEVER
TARA RRVANT/KANSAN
SHOWING OFF SKILLS
Football players Duane Zlatnik, Dayne Crist, and Greg Brown salute the fans after finishing singing the alma mater to the students after the end of Saturday's practice game at Memorial Stadium. Coach Charlie Weis said this will be a new tradition after games in the fall.
CHRIS NEAL/KANSAN
Junior quarterback Jake Heaps gets his pass deflected by sophomore defensive tackle Pat Lewandoski during the second quarter of Saturday's game at Memorial Stadium.
MIKE VERNON mvernon@kansan.com
Quarterback Dayne Crist stepped up to the line of scrimmage and decided to alter the play call. The audible was a simple one: Sophomore running back Tony Pierson would run to the right instead of the left.
When Pierson was handed the ball, he saw a crease and took off. The second he saw the hole, he knew he was gone. 88 yards later, Pierson was in the end zone.
The game started with Dayne Crist showing the 15,000 fans in attendance why there's been so much hype surrounding him. Crist threw four consecutive passes of 10 or more yards in the game's first drive.
The speedy running back flew past the entire white team's defense to put the blue team ahead 31-0 in a game they would later win 45-0. The blue team featured a majority of the likely starters for Kansas football, and they controlled the game from start to finish.
"When I hit the hole, once I saw the green, I ran toward the goal post," Pierson said. "That's all."
He went on to throw multiple
The audible Crist called on Pierson's run wasn't a one-time thing either. Pierson said Crist makes adjustments on two of every five plays, something that the team and coach Weis trust him in doing.
"Dayne had a great day," sophomore linebacker Michael Reynolds said. "He's our captain and he knows what to do. He knows our offense. He knows how to be a general on the field."
long passes down the field, a risk that Kansas didn't take too frequently last year. Crist's longest completion on the day was a 27-yard strike to senior wide receiver Davonn Patterson.
While most eyes in Memorial Stadium focused on Crist, blue team backup quarterback and junior Jake Heaps' first throw in a Kansas uniform brought the crowd to its feet.
Heaps handed the ball off to Pierson while senior receiver Kale Pitch streaked down the field. Pierson pitched the ball back to Heaps — making the flea flicker play apparent — and Heaps threw a 46-yard strike to Pick down field. Heaps would throw a six-yard touchdown pass on the next play.
"I could've created some situations to have the game closer," Weis said. "I didn't have to call reverses and I didn't have to call flea flickers, but the fans want to have some fun, too."
"I think we've taken a bunch of steps, but we have a bunch of steps to go." Weis said. "Too many times coaches go ahead and give you some phrase 'here's exactly where we are,' trying to tell you some sugar-coated thing, but for us to be competitive on a weekly basis, we have a lot of work to do."
Weis' debut as the Jayhawks' head coach was a fairly smooth one. The team escaped the day without any injuries and the first string players showed why they've earned their spot, but the team as a whole has a ways to go.
Edited by Christine Curtin
Junior center Carolyn Davis gets taken off the court on a stretcher after injuring her knee during game against Kansas State at Bramlage Coliseum where the Jayhawks were defeated 43-47.
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Recurring ACL injuries plague team
ASHLEIGH LEE/KANSAN
KATHLEEN GIER
Coach Bonnie Henrickson has had six lousy days at Kansas. Her teams have struggled to perform consistently in conference play and for seven years had not made it to an NCAA Tournament. This is frustrating, but there has been another painful storyline: ACL injuries.
A starter for the Kansas women's basketball team has torn an ACL in three of four the last seasons.
kgier@kansan.com
"The hardest part for me is to watch those kids go down," Henrickson said. "I have had six lousy days at Kansas, when those six players got hurt."
The Jayhawks alone may seem to struggle with ACL injuries, but the reality is ACL injuries are becoming more prominent, especially in women's sports. Lorin Maletsky, an associate biomechanical engineering professor, said that women are three to seven times more likely to suffer this injury compared with men.
Maletsky works at the Experimental Joint Biomechanics Research Lab in Learned Hall. He created the Dynamic Kansas Knee Simulator and uses it to test the effect of different weight applied to human knees through regular activity.
He said one of the most difficult things about knee research is that the injury is so unpredictable.
"A lot of them you can't really tell because they are doing a stop
like they have done before or doing a turn and all of a sudden the ligament gives out," Maletsky said.
That is exactly what happened when junior forward Carolyn Davis tore hers on Feb. 12. She received a pass in the lane, jump stopped and collapsed to the ground. Junior guard Angel Goodrich put her hands on her head because she knew what happened.
Goodrich had torn her ACL
twice since coming to Kansas. Her freshman year she tore it in October doing a crossover move in practice and then she tore it again as a sophomore during a game. Of the 10 Jayhawks currently on the team, four of them have suffered this injury in their career.
Davis was on the floor for more than 10 minutes before she was wheeled off on a stretcher. When Henrickson made her way over to
"I know the pain and just hearing her holler it just hurts," Goodrich said.
She did not simply apologize for her season ending, but for the pain and frustration she had seen the team go through two years before.
Henrickson and the Jayhawks
her injured star, Davis said over and over again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't do this to the team right now."
have seen this injury a number of times, but each occasion has been different and the reaction is always the same.
"When they scream like that, you know what it is," Henrickson said.
Linda Denney, who is in charge of physical therapy at KU Med
SEE INJURIES PAGE 6B