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Wednesday, December 8.1971
SLAUGHTER: Non-monetary gifts?
STINSON: I don't know what you're referring to because I don't know of any. Oh, if a man gave me two golf balls, because they have a Jayhawk on the side of the golf tee. You can play golf team to utilize in the spring, or that I might buy some personally and give out as gifts, but other than that, there are no . . . You might be referring to the car arrangement. We class those as gifts. We gave them to someone who turned back. The car arrangement was originated in about 1967 because it got to the point in our recruiting procedures that when a coach used his own car to go see a prospect, it cost us about ten cents a mile. When we turned ten cents a mile every time a coach made a trip to see a prospective student athlete.
SLAUGHTER: Of course that was in the back of my mind. Are there other types of gifts like this? Are other non-monetary gifts made to the corporation?
STINSON: Not to my knowledge. Oh, I get a turkey probably once a year around Christmas time from a couple of individuals because we're nice to them. Yet this same individual gives us 500 dollars each year for the scholarship fund or for the grant in aid fund and he receives priority in seating and parking, which is the only thing we can give—so they meet me with a turkey. To my knowingly, unless there's something I'm missing, there are no other types of gifts.
University Daily Kansan
SLAUGHTER: I understand in this car situation that these dealers were given some sort of preference as far as tickets.
STINSON: We treat them just like we treat. We treat the car dealers just like we treat. We treat the car dealers 500 dollars a year to the grant in aid fund. We feel the car arrangement is saving us that much money, and more, from an insurance feature which we'd otherwise have to drive.
STINSON: I can't in my wildest dreams perceive of it. It has never been under the table. Now, whether the license plates were on your car or not, you know, knowledge. I don't know. And obviously from the article the dealer plates weren't supposed to be on there. Well, we changed the dealer plates. The dealers received notice to change them, so we changed
SLAUGHTER: Do you see any reason why someone's perceived this as some kind of insult?
SLAUGHTER: An article in Sports Illustrated last year about the high expense of college athletics said that $5,000 an year was spent on tape for wrapped knickles at this University. Is that true, and if so, do you think that an exorbitant amount of money to be spending on one item such as that?
STINSON: No, because all you have to do is watch it day after day and see how much tape is put on athletes. I'm not sure why that's important, but certainly assume that it would be about that. It might even be more. I do know that in our account for physicians, hospital
supplies, and medical supplies, the figure varies a great deal depending on how many knee operations you might have and how many kids get involved in injuries or accidents in an athletic event. But it will run 20 to 23,000 dollars each year. Probably more than that, counting all sports together.
SLAUGHTER: Do you think that the criticism the department gets as being very free-wheeling with its money stems from the fears that may seem exorbitant to some?
SLAUGHTER: In the Kansan editorial, Dave Batel wrote he called the athletic corporation a closed corporation. Is that a fair assessment, or unfair?
STINSON: Possibly. But on what basis are they making the judgement? We don't waste tape and we use it for a purpose, you see. So it may seem exorbitant to them, but again it is not a wasteful expenditure. It's a health type of expenditure and again it is in existence, the money wouldn't be spent because we wouldn't be there to spend it.
STINSON: Well, I don't think David
about it? Now is this really his opinion?
Can you tell me why that better than I did.
I don't know.
SLAUGHTER: Do you feel as though it's a general rule that people don't make an effort to come to you first as the source, sav. in the Sam Goldberg situation or.
STINSON: Well, let me explain the Sam Goldberg situation. You see, we had a court case and the judiciary cautioned us to not talk about it outside. So all we were doing was abiding by the judiciary and the other side obviously didn't. So all the charges that they made, and this is atypical, they didn't care what the judiciary said. We were abiding by the judiciary and we needed for us to do that. That's why we kept our mouth quiet for so long. We were just following the rules.
SLAUGHTER: How do you think the
black athlete at the University of Kansas?
STINSON: Well, I think it relates very well. We certainly have a good number of black athletes, and very good black athletes participating for us. To my
'We have never been, in any manner, or could be called a closed corporation.-
knows the meaning of a closed corporation. He may. But a closed corporation is one where all the stock is held by one stockholder or two or three and there’s no opportunity to purchase any other stock. And I’m sure he’s using it in that reference. He is in error in making him take the stock, and you can’t make any manner, or could be called, a closed corporation. I see that someone is digging for information to be used I’m on the defensive, because you realize what they’re going to try to utilize for. This young man that came to see me already had all the license numbers and so forth. If you don’t want to put off comment reason I shut off comment was because I didn’t want to ruin our car arrangement and have it cost us a lot more money. I don’t choose to put the car dealers’ pictures in the thank you in our football program like a lot of schools do, because once you do that, then every other person has to do the same. So you get a car for a year.” The car dealers are harassed so much by, “Give us a car to use the same way,” I didn’t want to get into that. So that’s when I shut off comment, and they take it as trying to cover up or be secretive. That wasn’t at all. I just didn’t want to kill our car arrangement and there’s more money for our recruiting efforts, you see. That was my sole reason for it.
STINSON: Oh, I'm certain they don't understand all of our problems except, Tom, I might say, "If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen." I enjoy what they say about their kitchen, there's criticism or not, I'll probably listen to it. But that doesn't mean I'm going to change anything that I'm doing or the way of operation, as long as I feel that I'm right. The fact that I receive criticism or that I might feel that they are being unfair should tell me why I realize those things are facts of life and anybody in this position is going to receive that kind of criticism. Well, that doesn't bother me one way or the other. People should find out more facts before expressing themselves or writing about them. Sometimes people do anything about that. Sometimes I can't do anything about that, so I just let it go. There's no use trying to explain it, or try to get around it. Those same people will quickly grab onto something else. Most of the time, people who don't want to understand that type of criticism they're doing it for a purpose most of the time.
SLAUGHTER: Do you feel as though you've generally been treated unfairly by people who call you defensive and unfair? Do you think they're being unfair?
SLAUGHER: You do you think that is?
STINSON: I don't know. I really don't.
Why do you think this letter came out or this editorial came out without them really knowing, or without David ever trying to get abold of men, or ever visiting with me
knowledge, if you're pointing towards a problem, all I've instructed our coaches to do is be fair and don't stereotype anybody we have. I don't think we have any problems.
SLAUGHTER: A professor of sociology at the University who has spent some time studying what he calls the sociology of race, and a teacher at the University of Kansas are starters or they're not here at all—meaning that the department is afraid to take a chance on a black athlete. You don't want second chances. Do you think that's a fair assumption?
STINSON: No, I do not. No I do not. I think I may know why you are talking about as far as the sociology professor. I hadn't heard that sort of statement. I think, I believe if he looked at our overall sports picture, I think he's probably wrong. It makes any difference on the field of play what make him is. It makes difference on the field. This year year, we had black athletes who were second string, maybe third string. Every coach is going to play the kid that's going to do the best job, and win for him. There no decision making in any manner in their recruiting or in anything else. They try to take the kid into coming to the University of Kansas only say that is a great error on the part of the individual of which you're talking about.
STINSON: I sure hope, and believe, it is. I hope it is. I can't speak for the other parts of the country, in my opinion, it is of no consequence. It better be no consequence. It better be.
SLAUGHTER: More on a general level,
you actually believe that skin color is of
your own.
STINSON: Let me finish something else.
In our grant in aid program I don't even know how many black athletes we have. It used to be, you know, at one point you couldn't keep records. Now it appears that we have to keep records for the human race. We don't want to know how many athletic athletes we have. But I don't have a count. I don't know. I do know that we're providing, through grants in aid, an education for a lot of poverty kids, whether they're black, or white, or what they are. I do know there are a great number of black athletes that we have under our auspices. If we receive any support from the grant, it's certainly infused. The grant in a program's positive effect is of providing many kids with educational opportunities that wouldn't otherwise have them.
SLAUGHTER: Do you . . .
SLAUGHTER: If you have two athletes of equal ability, and one of them comes from low income background, does the other come from high income, even any sort of a policy along that line?
STINSON: No. I think in time it will. You've probably seen in the paper the question about the need basis for arriving at a grant in aid. It's because of the expense in intercollegiate athletics. I think it's coming.
Kansan Staff Photos by Hank Young
SLAUGHTER: Do you think it's a sound idea?
STINSON: Yes, I do. It has some built in problems that I don't know how you solve. We have always said and will always say, that out on the football field—and I speak football so much because I was a football player at high school. You can make any difference what color you are. It doesn't make any difference what your dad or did. You're all alike. It's your own talent and ability that gets you by and causes you to play. Then all of a sudden you're an athlete and pay younger students around and say, "Well, just a minute. Because your dad is well off, you can't have it, or as much." Now I say that because you find more and more of a girl playing basketball and paying the price, sacrifice yourself to participate on the football field. I know because I was a banker's son. It is not often that you'll find the kid who parents have a lot of money who says, "Okay, I'll go on the court and practice all those things and get and get to play." When you utilize this need basis, some of them will say, "Well, my dad has to pay for most of it anyway." I just find an easier way to go through school and won't go out an unwilling manner. I think, I don't know how you solve it.
STINSON: On the basis of what I said, it would tend to. Now, I hope I'm wrong. Because in theory the need basis is that you will do anything that way because of the costs involved. But I don't know what it will do on that basis. I really don't know. I certainly hope that the kid will still want to play and participate and take an active part in the game of
SLAUGHTER: Is that making athletics, in particular a class-structured sport?
SLAUGHTER: Do you think there's any truth to the old saw that athletes at a major university are professional athletes first and students second?
STINSON: I'm convinced that it is attitude of the individual player. If, in his mind, he is here strictly to play football, just barely to stay eligible, get through and hope that he will play some professional football, then I would class him as a coach. But what if he's regardless of what happens to him after school, he's here and tries hard and strives and gets his degree, even though he might play professional football, then I say he's not. That argument has been brought up in regard to a grant in aid, you see. But you look at the number of professional football players that we have, and how many do we need to be able to do well most. I'm just pulling a figure out of the hat. But you realize that most of the kids are not going to be professional athletes. It just doesn't happen.
SLAUGHTER: To your knowledge, are athletes on University of Kansas teams ever given medication or drugs of any sort and can continue with an injury during a game?
STNSON: Not to my knowledge. Not to my knowledge. That isn't to say that, well, we have a team physician, and whatever is done, is done by the physician. He has instructions to do nothing that would health of a young man participating.
STINSON: None, None.
SLAUGHTER: Are athletes at the
tournament? No, they are not.
Modification at all prior to games.
LAUIGHTER: You think the use by athletes of certain drugs to facilitate the building of their muscles and adding more muscle problem as far as drug usage is concerned?
STINSON: Yes I do. We are highly opposed to it and we will do our best to prevent them from happening, but we won't prescribe it. You're talking about antibiotic steroids. I think they're bad because they don't know the effect of it. If some doctors have prescribed them.
SLAUGHTER: Do you know of any athletics at the University that use a track and field device?
STINSON; Thathave, yes, I do.
SLAUGHTER: Are there any currently?
STINSON: I don't believe so.
SLAUGHTER: Is there any sort of a department policy relating to athletes that have been arrested for criminal charges?
STUNSON: Is there any policy?
SLAUGHTER; Yes as far as expulsion from the program.
STINSON: We have taken the policy that the University takes in that what a young man does outside has nothing to do with his education. He can be hired as him as a student, then we certainly will
have had some pretty bad backgrounds. Atlietis is what saved them. So I think those are things we look at with a long, long eye before we make that final judgment. Whether other people might "oh, well, they want to win with him."
SLAUGHTER: ONE last question. What do you see at the future of big time music?
STINSON: I see it getting stronger. I see it staying healthy. I see it being kept in its proper perspective. By that I mean the tail doesn't wag the dog. But I also see it as
... I think it all boils down to winning Not that the end justifies the means, but winning in the proper way.'
retain him a participant. How does that affect the other team members that he is playing with? That is something that we don't know. But it is different from that standpoint. It may ruin the whole morale of the basketball team, or the football team and if it did that, I think we'd probably drop him from the team.
SLAUGHTER: If we really believe, though, that there is more to athletics than just winning or losing—isn't it a comment on the expedition of winning if you keep an athlete who has, in a number of instances, proved his dishonesty?
STINSON: It might appear so. Would it be any more pleasant for people's consumption to eliminate him completely and make him a little less frequently if you happen to look at a young man's background. Obviously, in the particular case, you're referring to, a better man than the judge, decided he was not an appropriate kid for many kids participating in athletics that
doing everything in our power to win. And to win I speak of that somewhat philosophically. I would certainly hope our society, or academic communities or whole outlook retains a desire to win in the end. But if we lose it, we're in real difficulty.
SLAUGHTER: Is that what it all comes down to in the end, the ability to win?
STINSON: I think, with our basic heritage, with our basic competitive discipline, that winning down to winning, NM that the end justifies the means, but winning in the proper way. I believe so. I personally will maintain the philosophy that if a young man goes out of here and wants to win in the sense being an amateur community, or wherever it might be, that is a form of winning. I think if we lose the competitive desire, or actual competition in that sense, then I think our particular change. And I don't want to see that change.