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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Dec. 17, 1963
Dodgers, Liston Victories Top Sports Scene
Bv Terry Ostmever
In the world of sports, 1963 was a year of surprises, individual achievements and national disappointments as well as victories. It wasn't a year much different from others in sports, but as always, it was exciting for many.
The top sports story of the year was also the biggest surprise when Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the World Series in four straight games from the favored New York Yankees. It was a fitting climax for the scrapy Dodgers and baseball's best pitcher.
Close behind the Dodger sweep was the continued reign of grimacing Sonny Liston as boxing's
heavyweight champion. Listen, whose disposition scares more opponents than his fighting, duplicated his 1962 first-round knock-out of hapless Floyd Patterson this June and the promoters are droling over the prospects of Sonny taking on talkative Cassius Clay.
TWO WELL KNOWN figures on the football scene salvaged their reputations in 1963's No. 3 story, Wally Butts, former coach and athletic director at the University of Georgia, and Paul "Bear" Eryant, coach at the University of Alabama, both of whom are accustomed to victory, found the courtroom and a jury to be no tougher than Ole Miss.
Paul Hornung, the "Golden Boy"
of professional football and the Green Bay Packers, wasn't so fortunate. In the year's fourth best story, Hornung was suspended for the 1963 season by National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle for betting on his own team. The suspension was the worst of punishments, but it wasn't a total loss for the high-scoring halfback—Green Bay won the championship during his gambling days.
Sports history was made at the Indianapolis "500" motor car race this year when a low-slung racer called the Lotus-Ford roared past the conventional Offenhauser roadsters to a second place finish. The rear-engine, V-8-powered car will mean a new era in American racing.
The fifth best sports story came in September, when Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals retired from baseball. In more than 20 years, The Man set more records than any other player in National League history.
STORY NO. 9 is remembered for its human tragedy as well as achievement. Throughout most of the track season either Brian Sternberg or John Pennell raised the world pole vaulting record almost every weekend, with Sternberg winning a match between the two. Then, Sternberg was injured while exercising on a trampoline
and now is paralyzed from the neck down. Near the end of the summer, Pennell became the first man to vault 17 feet.
Rounding out the top 10 sports stories is the United States men's track team's surprisingly slim victory over the Russians in the two nations' annual meet. Combining this with the Russian women's victory over the U.S. gals, the Soviet team earned an overall victory.
In all, perhaps the most gratifying story was the response to a repeated plea from the late President. In American sports in 1863, more persons than ever before in history either participated on the field or attended sporting events.
Swimmers Better Hopes
By Roy Miller (Sports Editor)
Dick Reamon, KU's swimming coach, compared his team's and the Air Force Academy's strength before the teams met in a dual meet at Colorado Springs last Saturday.
"On paper, it looked like Air Force might win by nine points," Reamon said. "They're a pretty good team."
The Jayhawkers, defeating Colorado in a dual meet the preceding day, beat the Falcons 58-37.
"I've never seen a bunch of guys fire up and win a dual meet like they did." Reamon said of this team's showing against the Falcons. "I saw its equal two years ago in the conference meet."
REAMON WAS referring to the Big Eight swim meet in which KU placed second with only eight team members. Reamon, now in his second year as KU's swimming coach, was a member of that team.
Reamon thinks the opening victories last weekend will give the team momentum.
The next KU swimming competition will be here against Iowa State, January 13.
NINE OF THE 14 are sophomores.
The KU coach feels the team's greatest asset is its depth. The 14 team members represent a considerably larger team than in years past.
NINE OF THE 14 are sophomores.
“Our sophomores have to come through real well, and I think they will,” Reamon said.
KU first place winners in the meet with Colorado:
"We have an individual leader in each event."
400-yard medley relay, Jim Basile, Pete Stebbins, Jack Allen, Bill Johnson; 200-yard freestyle, Mike Calwell; 50-yard freestyle, Dick Bisbee; 200-yard individual medley, Mike Downey; diving, Ron Marsh;
200-yard butterfly, Stebbins; 100- yard freestyle, Calwell; 200- yard backstroke, Johnson; 500-yard freestyle, Bisbee, and 200-yard breaststroke, Basile.
KU first place winners against the Air Force Academy:
400-yard medley relay, Johnson
Basile, Downey, Bill Mils; 200-yard
freestyle, Calwell; 200-yard butterfly,
Downey; 200-yard backstroke,
Johnson; 500-yard freestyle, Calwell;
200-yard breaststroke, Jim Basile,
and 440-yard freestyle relay,
Bisbee, Steve Brooks, Mills, Calwell.
KU Bowlers Score High
KU moved into first place in the Kansas-Nebraska Conference of the National Intercollegiate Bowling Association last weekend, scoring 10% of 12 possible points in a meet here. "This is some of the best bowling I've ever seen," Coach Bascom Fearing said of the Jay-hawkers' performance in the meet.
Going into the meet, KU was tied with Nebraska. The Huskers finished last in the meet which also included Wichita and Kansas State universities.
KU rolled a nine-game series of 9,004 pins for an average of more than 200 a game.
Don Kahl was the top KU bowler with a 219 average. He had three game series of 640, 695 and 643. Bill Ryan had a 206 average on three-game series of 600, 692 and 670.
May the Students, Faculty, and Staff of Kansas University have a very Merry Christmas.
Margaret's Cafe
See you next year. Happy New Year!
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1102 W. 23rd
VI 3-9663
Team efforts marked stories six and seven. In basketball Loyola of Chicago ignored the odds and upset invincible Cincinnati in the NCAA finals. The University of Illinois football team climbed from last place in the Big Ten conference to first in 1963, a No. 3 national ranking and a berth in the Rose Bowl game on New Year's Day.
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