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SPORTS
21
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2003
Smashing service
Zach Straus/Kansan
Garret Gates, Kansas City, Kan., resident, serves to Scott Elwell, Lawrence freshman, during a tennis game outside of Robinson Center. Gates and Elwell played yesterday afternoon.
WILLIAMS FUND
Fans upset with fee; graduate files lawsuit
By Saju Ng'alla
snglaa@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Loyalty motivated the Williams Fund to force 121 season-ticket holders to pay $5,000 or risk losing their premium seats loyalty to the student athletes at the University of Kansas.
Jay Hinrichs, director of the Williams Fund, made those statements. He is credited with creating the plan to bring members who had let their donations slip over the years up to par and recruit new members.
The plan has generated ill will toward the Williams Fund, especially from KU basketball fans who have supported the program since the early days of Allen Fieldhouse, when the Athletics Department struggled to fill the building.
The plan has also generated a lawsuit.
Hinrichs would not comment directly on the Athletics Department's loyalty to the fans. He said his loyalty was to the student athletes who benefit from the scholarships the fund generates.
"My job here is to raise $5.5 million dollars for the student athletes to make sure that their academic needs are provided for," Hinrichs said.
The Williams Fund is not named after former men's basketball coach Roy Williams. It was founded by Odd Williams in 1949 as the Outland Club. It was renamed for the Williams family in 1973. The fund holds money from private donors for athletic scholarships.
Allen Fieldhouse has 6,000 premium seats with a market value of $10,000 each. Hinrichs said.
"All we are doing is asking people to pay 50 percent of the market value of those seats," Hinrichs said. If they are unable to make the payment, the Williams Fund will offer ticket holders less-preferable seats in the Fieldhouse, he said.
"It is important to note that nobody is losing their seats here. We are not throwing anybody out of Allen Fieldhouse and nor are we going to move anybody way back into the roof," Hinrichs said.
Hinrichs, who worked with the Kansas City Royals for 17 years, said the season-ticket holders would still be given preferred seating, they just wouldn't be premium seats.
That option is not good enough, said Brock Snyder, a Topeka lawyer and 1957 KU graduate.
Snyder, who has been a ticket holder for more than 40 years, received a letter from the Williams Fund asking him to call the office concerning his account. When he called, Snyder was told he had fallen behind on his donations and he would have to pay $5,000 to keep his seat.
"And that was my warning," Snyder said. "I was given no choice and no one attempted to do anything reasonable."
Snyder challenged the plan in a lawsuit.
Snyder said he was not a member of the Williams Fund and was not required to make donations.
SEE TICKETS ON PAGE 22
ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT
Associate athletics director leaves Kansas, seeks new career
The Associated Press
LAWRENCE — Associate athletics director Janelle Martin has become the latest high-ranking figure in the University of Kansas Athletics Department to leave.
The Jayhawks announced yesterday that Martin, the associate athletics director for compliance and senior women's administrator, took administrative leave Sunday and plans to resign Sept.30.
The department has been in flux since
April, when Al Bohl, former athletics director, was fired and Roy Williams, former men's basketball coach, left for North Carolina in the same week. A. Drue Jennings filled in as interim athletics director until Lew Perkins left Connecticut to join
the Jayhawks on June 10.
"Martin) indicated that the arrival of a new athletics director presented her with the opportunity to explore a new direction with her career," the University said in a release.