SUPER BOWL: Patriots upset heavily favored Rams. SEE PAGE 2B SWIMMING: Seniors lead team to victory over Arkansas. SEE PAGE 6B
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1B
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2002
COMMENTARY
Jeff Denton
jdenton@kansan.com
Player intent on preparing for fulfilling final season
Professional football's sexiest stage did not hypnotize Kansas football's most seasoned veteran.
Yes, 22-year-old Harrison Hill watched New England stun St. Louis last night. But he resisted the temptations linked with Super Bowl Sunday.
No guzzling beer. No chomping chips and chasing them with salsa. No gawking at six Playmates on NBC's Fear Factor during halftime.
Well, he might have peeked at Playboy's risk-takers, but he drank Gatorade.
Hill, who was granted a rare sixth year of eligibility last month by the NCAA, rose before the sun from a deep sleep this morning. It's 5:15 a.m. It's seven months from the football season. And Hill has to go to work — conditioning begins as a 6 o'clock appetizer, pounding iron in the weight room follows as the main course and going to a sports management class in the afternoon is his dessert. This is Hill's daily meal.
He has to get ready for the season now.
"I felt that I had to have a sixth year to finish my career off the way it should be finished," said Hill, who turned down Kansas State, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Notre Dame because his heart was set on Kansas. Hill missed all but two games this year with a shattered shoulder blade.
"It would have been the worst year of my life playing for that team. We were garbage. We sucked.
"We had no discipline the past four years, going around doing whatever we want. No consequences for anything that we would do. It was a joke. But the whole attitude around the program has changed. I don't see any reason why we can't be a top-10 program in the next few seasons. It's all about the attitude. We're going to win now."
Not many people know the price Hill has paid for almost a decade — freakish dehydration that stings him every summer.
The rage blurs his vision, buckles his knees and loosens his stomach. The horror shed 30 pounds from his 178-pound frame in one game during his sophomore year in high school at Wichita Collegiate. The plague almost caused him to quit.
During two-a-day practices in 2000, Hill was spent.
"I was jacked up," Hill said. "I was so dizzy, I couldn't see. I'd just pass out. I didn't know what day it was. I would go home and throw up for three hours until the next practice. I wasn't going to sit out, but after the fifth day in a row I was like this... I just couldn't get through this crap. I couldn't play football."
So he slipped out of his pads, grabbed his keys and drove home. The infliction had become too overpowering. But after talking with his father, Hill decided to return to Lawrence.
Dehydration would not deter the dream. And 18 months after nearly quitting football, staying around for a sixth season was the only route a winner would take, he said.
He understands the stakes. No more Get-Out-of-Jail-Free cards. No sixth year tagged on to his five-year prison stint in Lawrence.
"If we don't change things to turn this program around then I didn't do my job here." Hill said.
And turning it around starts today.
Denton is a Dallas senior in journalism. Contact him at jdenton@kansan.com.
'Hawks opt for showing, not telling
By Doug Pacey Kansan sportswriter
The thing about trash-talk is it's just that — tell-
The thing about bosses is that it doesn't matter what you say, how loud you say it or how much verbal venom spews from your mouth. If you can't back up your words, everything that's been said becomes moot.
Colorado found that out the hard way Saturday.
Colorado found that After a week of saying, "Kansas will get theirs," the Buffaloes were the ones shown to the door after the No. 2 Jayhawks beat them for the 26th straight time with a 100-73 rout at Allen Fieldhouse.
"The game is to be sold, not to be told," Drew Gooden said. "You can show someone better than you can tell them."
Kansas (19-2 overall. 8-0 Big 12 Conference) led by as many as 42 points, but a lackluster final four minutes let Colorado (12-7, 3-5) narrow that margin.
It didn't matter. It was too little, too late.
Three Jayhawks — Jeff Boschee, Nick Collison and Gooden scored 20 points each. It was the first time that happened since Dec.10,1988,and it almost could've been four as Kirk Hinrich finished with 16 points.
"I've said millions of times, it's harder to guard a team when more than one guy does the scoring." coach Roy Williams said. We've got unselfish players out there that do share the basketball when they see a teammate with a better shot.
"We have the ability to score from a lot of positions, a lot of angles, a lot of ways."
Gooden worked it inside and out, making deep baseline jumpers and low-post hook shots. Collision made a season-high 10 of 17 attempts. Bosche connected on four of eight three-pointers.
"We could've had four guys with 20 points," Gooden said. "I don't know how you defend that."
Neither did Buffaloes coach Ricardo Patton.
"They have great team chemistry out there," Patton said. "The sky is the limit for this team. Their guards are so smart and tough, which makes them very difficult to guard. They have two big guys that can really run the floor and that helps them out."
After the game, Williams downplayed the trash-talking that happened last week and during the game.
"I think a lot of stuff gets blown out of proportion," he said. "Last year Nick Collision made a hard foul and in the heat of battle you react... Today, there was the same kind of foul. There were some things said and things after the game. Those kids forgot what they said after they said it."
Contact Pacey at dpacey@kansan.com. This story was edited by Kristi Henderson.
See page 6B for more men's basketball coverage.
Kansas junior guard Kirk Hinrich attempts to make a basket while being fouled by Colorado center David Harrison. The Jayhawks beat the Buffaloes 100-73 at Allen Fieldhouse Saturday afternoon.
CHRISTINA NEFF/KANSAN
Kansas to test win streak against K-State
By Doug Pacey
Kansan sportswriter
The streak.
It means different things to different people in different places.
Go to southern California and someone might mention UCLA's seven-consecutive college basketball national championships.
Kansas at Kansas State
In the Bronx you might be regaled with tales of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.
Here in Kansas — at least during basketball season
Game Time: 8 p.m.
Place: Bramlage Coliseum.
On TV: ESPN (Cable channel 48)
On Radio: 90.7 FM KJHK; 105.9 FM KLZR; 1320 AM
KLWN.
- mention the word streak, and it'll make Kansas State fans yearn for football season (where the Wildcats have a streak of their own going).
cars have a chance of their team winning. But it's basketball season, and the Jayhawks will put their 22-consecutive game win streak against K-
State (they've also won 18 in a row in Manhattan) on the line when the in-state rivals play at 8 p.m. tonight at Bramlage Coliseum, where Kansas is undefeated in 13 games.
"Every year before the game, they talk about the streak," Kirk Hinrich said. "I think the reason there is a streak is because we got ready to play, we didn't worry about the past."
But streaks don't last — that's why they're called streaks. DiMaggio didn't get a hit in the 57th game.
SEE BASKETBALL ON PAGE 6B
Track and field team looks forward to Iowa meet after latest scores
By Matt Norton
Kansan sportswriter
The Kansas track and field team will head into this weekend's Iowa State University Invitational in Ames, Iowa, riding a wave of encouraging performances from last Friday's Jayhawk Invitational held in Anschutz Sports Pavilion.
Scott Russell broke the collegiate record in the 35-pound weight throw. Russell heaved the weight 80-4 1/4, besting the existing record of 80-2. However, a broken chain link that connected the weight to the handle caused Russell's implement to be 2 mm too long for record purposes.
The senior from Windsor, Ontario said he was surprised at his mighty toss.
"With how we've been lifting this week, I wasn't expecting this," Russell said. "And I was throwing horrible in practice this week."
Assistant coach Doug Reynolds said Russell had set personal bests in the front squat three times and a best in the standard squat on Thursday.
Shameika McField and Robbie Harriford, who had competed in the 400- and 200-meter dashes last week, respectively, finished 1-2 in the 60-meter dash. McField edged ahead of her teammate with a time of 7.63 seconds. Harriford came across the line in 7.68 seconds.
Sophomore Laura Lavoie dropped down event lengths from the mile to the 800 meters and set a new personal best of 2 minutes,10.77 seconds.Lavoe finished ahead of senior Katy Eisenmenger's new best of 2:12.18.
Lavie said she would need to run 2:07.30 to ensure her place in the meet and could get it on the fast track surface in Ames.
"It would be awesome — I don't want to wait until next year." Lavioie said of qualifying for nationals.
Junior Vadim Gvozdzetski moved up the list on
SEE TRACK ON PAGE 6B
SARA SHEPHERD/KANSAN
SARA SHEPENIAM/ANASAN
Junior pole vaulter Vadim Gvozdetsky took first at the Jayhawk Invitational Friday.
His mark of 17-5 was a personal best.
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