Page 16
University Daily Kansan, April 15, 1983
KU hitting warms up for series
The KU baseball team is on a streak. Not exactly a string of successive wins, but almost as welcome, a string of games not canceled by the weather.
The Jayhawks have managed to squeeze in five games already this week, and will play two double-headers against Nebraska this weekend. Saturday's games will begin at moon at aat Field, Field, and Sunday's at 12:30 p.m.
ALONG WITH THE weather, Jayhawk bats are warming up, especially Mark Gile's. Gile, a second baseman transplanted to shortstop this season, was named Big Eight Player of the Week for the week ending April 11.
Gle hit seven-for-nine with three doubles and a home run in the Missouri series last week, raising his batting average to 26.5 for the team with eight doubles and 21 hits.
Gile's isn't the only hot bat on the team. In the second game of Wednesday's double-header with William Jewell College, four Jayhawks hit home runs in the first two innings, giving the 'Hawks a solid lead before the game was called because of rain midway through the fifth innings. KU won, 9-5.
KEVIN BASCUE DROVE in three runs with his sixth home run of the season, Joel Gibson and Joe Heeney their third home runs, and first baseman Phil Doherty his first of the season.
sensor.
KU lost the first game, 8-6, despite a two-run run home off the bat of Nick Zvich.
Weekend foe Nebraska, which was 28-2 as of the first of the week, is in second place in the Big Eight behind Oklahoma, which is 22-12 for the season, but 6-2 in conference play. KU tags in behind fifth with a 3-4 conference record and a 10-11 record going into tomorrow's games.
But at this point in the season, especially this particularly wet and cold season, the league standings aren't so important, because last week the Big Eight coaches voted to expand the post-season tournament which decides the championship to include all seven conference teams.
BECAUSE OF THIS change, the season standings will be used to seed the teams in the tournament, rather than eliminate those not in the top four as is the standard practice.
"It's an emergency situation, for one year only, simply because of the weather," said Steve Hatchell, assistant Big Eight commissioner.
Pattin will start sophomore John Heeney and junior southpaw Dennis Coplen in the Saturday games, and has not yet decided on starting pitchers for Sunday.
Player signs intent letter
Evette Ott, a 5-7 guard from Flint Northern High in Flint, Mich., signed a national letter of intent yesterday with Kansas, head women's basketball coach Marian Washington has announced.
Ott, a member of the Associated Press and the United Press International All-Michigan team this year, is the Jahayhacks' third signee. Toni Webb, a 5-8 All-New York guard fromalfaheim,toffoli from Lincoln High in East St. Louis High, signed letters of intent on Wednesday.
IN ADDITION TO being named to the all-state team, Ott was named to the Class A first team by the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. She led Flint Northern to a 25-3 record this year and a runner-up finish in the state championship. Before this season, Flint Northern had won four consecutive state titles.
Ott averaged 15.1 points, 6.3 assists and 5.5 steals per game this past season.
Owens recalls the best of KU basketball
Owens, former KU basketball coach, called the best kind of press conference Wednesday night — a few members of the area media sat around Owens' living room eating, drinking and swapping stories of the golden days of KU basketball — days during Owens' last 23 years.
Ted Owens didn't seem like a man who'd been fired.
I WAS STUDYING for a test when Owens called, and I never thought twice about laying my book down and heading out into the cold night. I didn't take a notebook or a pen — I didn't go to ask questions. I just wanted to listen.
Nearly everyone sounded the same theme at the basketball banquet last week — Ted Owens is a class act. That hasn't changed since the firing. In fact, the firing simply accentuates the obvious. Owens exhibits little bitterness, although certainly it must be there. And he is able to laugh at his situation — a sense of humor rarely found among the unemployed.
He's started watching soap operas in his spare time — "Days of Our Lives," he said. One writer asked whether he'd seen any of the NCAA tournament. Yes, he replied, he'd had some free time around then.
BUT HE HAD HIS serious moments.
too. He said that several well-known, established coaches had said to him that his firing was a message to younger coaches to do whatever it takes to win. And he's afraid that's true.
Obviously, he said, he'd like to stay in coaching. The desire to win the big one is still there, he admitted. But he's considering a wide range of career
possibilities, including business ventures and television, possibly even broadcasting.
I've always been a big Rick Suttle fan, so I had to laugh when Owens said he had sold the idea of Suttle's coming off the bench by building up the role of Super Sub.
As the evening wore on, notebooks closed and old stories were dusted off. It was evident from watching Owens that he belongs in coaching, and that he misses it.
AS HIS WIFE, MICHELLE, walked the floor with $2\frac{1}{2}$-month-old Taylor, Owens humorously recounted his best and worst times with the many players — and reporters — over the years.
The coaches told Rick that when he got off the bench to report to the scorers' table, the Field House would go wild. "Nothing could have persuaded him to start after that," Owens said.
OWENS ALSO SAID that KU'S hallowed basketball tradition, so touted by alums, really had little effect on recruiting today. "What matters is what you've done the last few seasons," he said.
So many of my childhood memories are linked to Owens and that hallowed tradition. I've never told him this, but when I was a kid my folks brought me to a KU game and let me get autographs afterward. I got Owens' signature, but many of the players — Roger Morningstar, Suttle, Danny Knight — were so tall, and I was so short, that none of them saw我.
Danny Knight, the late brother of Kelly Knight, saw my dilemma and led me to every player, requesting that each sign my program. I remember that it was Dale Greeniee's birthday, and he had a cake. And I remember thinking there wasn't a nicer guy on
OH. OWEN'S HAD his darker side, as we all do. When I started working on the Kansan, I heard nothing but horror stories about him. He's moody, mean; he hates student reporters. My first interview with him was the day that the Kansan broke the door and locked the hocker and left. We both got off on the wrong foot. He yelled. I quailed, but held my ground.
Earth than Danny Knight. Danny is dead now, and Owens nearly cried at this year's banquet when he introduced Mr. and Mrs. Knight.
That was the only time he and I ever had a "communication" problem. I think he was impressed by the fact that I didn't turn tail and run when he let me talk, because that showed that Ross's untimely departure had put a lot of pressure on him.
AND THAT'S ONE OF the amazing facets of Ted Wens' career at Kansas. Very few officials in this state, and I'm including the chancellor and the governor, are subject to such constant scrutiny and vicious criticism as are football and basketball coaches. The program is not only focused on and indeed all major college sports
- and indeed his huge,
  - became such big business, it's
  perhaps a feat that Owens lasted
  years as KU's head man.
Injury-plagued KU jumper sails this season
Rv ROR LUDER
Sports Writer
Warren Wiloite's track career at the University of Kansas has been a long series of ups and downs.
The Winslow, Ariz., senior has been plagued the last three seasons with injuries, but when he's healthy, Wilbite has potential to impress the jumpers in the country.
Wilhoite is now free of all ailments and has quickly established himself as the hottest performer on the Jayhawk track team.
And last weekend at the Texas
Relays in Austin, Texas, he continued
TWO WEEKENDS ago, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Games in Palo Alto, Calif., Wilhoite improved his best mark to 26/3%; again winning the event over many of the country's finest jumpers. It was the first time Wilhoite had been over the 26-foot barrier.
Last month, after returning from his fourth stress fracture in three years, Wilhoite won his first Big Eight Conference title by finishing fourth in the NCAA National Indoor Championships. He earned his third All-American certificate and set a personal best outdoors record by jumping $25-10\frac{1}{2}$ and winning the long jump at the Dominic's Pizza Relays.
his hot streak and again jumped over the 26-foot barrier to win with a leap of $ 28-2\frac{1}{2} $
"That jump didn't seem any different from any of my 25-foot jumps." Wilhoite said, "but I knew it was 26 feet when I hit."
WILHOTHE SAID that even though he had been close to the 26-foot mark many times, he did not think he had had a mental barrier about the distance.
this is the first outdoor season in three years that I've been injury free, so I don't think it was mental as much as physical," he said.
Wilhoite has certainly had more than his share of injuries since coming to KU in the fall of 1979.
A 25-2/4 long jumper in high school, he found immediate success as a Jayhawk.
He came back strongly in his junior season to place an impressive second in
He took fourth place at the NCAA Indoor Championships and earned All-American status as a freshman. But on this jump, Wilhite also broke a bone in his left ankle and was out for the entire outdoor season.
HIS SOPHOMORE year was even worse. To add to his ankle problems, which were slow in healing, Wilhoite suffered from severe back spasms. He was out of competition the entire year.
the national indoor meet with a then personal best indoor leap of 25 $^{8/4}$.
But injury haunted Wilhoite once again. This time he suffered from a hairline stress fracture in his right arm, which missed most of the outdoor campaign.
THEN LAST FALL in a freak accident. Wiloteh again broke his left ankle while lifting weights. It looked like the season might have to be scrapped.
But he was able to work himself back in shape in time for the Big Eight indoor and quickly showed the rest of the conference what it had been missing, jumping an indoor best of 25-8 to take his first league title.
Now, Wilhoite is completely healthy and on a roll, winning three of his last four meets and setting personal bests nearly every time he steps on the runway. He hopes his injury hex is over.
"I hope I can avoid further injury," he said. "I've always said that if I can stay free from injuries, there's no reason why I shouldn't have a great year."
WILHOITE, A SOLID 6-1,
170-pounder, said his next immediate goal was a 27-foot jump, but his ultimate aim was for a top three finish at the Athletics Congress Championships in June.
"I really want to do well at the TAC meet so that I can compete overseas this summer," he said. "After that, the NCAA comes next and then Big Eight."
"I have as good a chance as anyone to win nationals, but you never know who could come out of the woodwork and suprise anybody. Whoever's good on the day of the meet is the one who usually wins."
"My attitude has definitely been better this year. In the past, if I didn't win, I'd get really down on myself. But now I just do the best I can and if I don't do well, I know there's always tomorrow."
A BETTER ATTITUDE and more extensive weight training are the two elements which have helped him the most this year, he said.
WILHITE ALSO said he has his eye on the 1984 Olympic Games, to be held in Los Angeles, as a long-term goal. Again, he stressed that consistency and being the best prepared on the day of the trials as the key to making the Olympic team.
"I think I have a good chance at the Olympics. Next year, I won't be competing for KU, so I'll be able to prepare more carefully and get my body ready. In the past, it's usually taken a jump around 26-8 to qualify."
Although jumping presently tops Wilhoite's priority list, he realizes that
"I DON'T KNOW whether I'll be jumping or not. If I just barely miss out on the '84 Olympics, I might try for 1988, but if I stop feeling the competitive desire, I'll stop. You can only stay in sports for so many years and then you have to get on with life."
his track career is only temporary. He will receive his bachelor's degree in radio-TV-film in December and said he was looking forward to starting his career soon.
Warren Wilhoite
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