PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MAY 17,1946
A lad who only a few short months ago was downing 15 eggnogs daily because he was so underweight today is the most bombastic tennis player in the Big Six.
He is Roy Shoaf, Topeka, who paced Kansas to its first conference net championship since 1937 with a near perfect individual season. The Jayhawkers need only to bump off Nebraska, whom they already have blasted once, Saturday at Lincoln, to close an undefeated season.
A large chunk of the credit should go to Shoaf, now a 200-pounder who lashes the ball with all the gentleness of a Ted Williams. Playing No. 1 all season, Big Roy has chopped down eight consecutive opponents and dropped only one set in 18, spearheading the Mt. Oread foursome to seven wins and two ties. He and his doubles partner, Bob Groom, also are undefeated.
Manning grabbed the middle set, 9-7, after Shoaf took the first one by the same count. The big Topekan roared out of a 0-4 deficit in the third stanza to knot the count at 5-5 before rain halted the rally.
That's the kind of a player Shoaf has been all spring. He and Groom have swept from behind four times this season to pull out doubles tiffs that were needed for K.U. victory. Shoak doesn't let things bother him. Against Manning he bagged five games in a drizzle that turned K.U.'s cement courts into a slippery dance floor.
Roy dropped his first singles set of the season in last Friday's dank dreariness to Rip Manning, clever Missourian, who played the dark-haired blaster to a tie although Kansas was clinching the title with a freak. 1-0 triumph.
Shoaf lost the avoirdupois while serving a hitch in a German prison at Barth. He was captured by the Nazis, when shot down on a B-17 bombing mission just five miles from Allied lines. The ship which Shoaf piloted was hit over Berlin and managed to limp almost back to friendly ground when the last engine puffed out. That was November '44.
Roy doesn't care to talk much about German prison life. "It was simply that nobody got enough to eat," he explains. "They didn't treat us too badly."
When he was picked out of prison camp at the war's end, Shoaf wasn't in good shape. He had wasted from 200 pounds to 128. In addition he was troubled with continual chest pains. Army doctors prescribed tennis as a cure for the latter. Swinging a raquet would loosen his chest and rebuild sagging muscles, they said. This wasn't a difficult routine for the former flier. He picked up a raquet at every opportunity in addition to gulping down the dozen or so daily egg-nogs.
Shaof's victory over Washburn's Johnny Christner, the little left-hander who has long been in the king row of Topeka, raquet-wielders, when the two met this month in a Jayhawker-Ichabod dual, was the signal for a lot of lifted eyebrows in this territory.
The towering Jayhawkhe—he is 6-feet 4-inches—was just another tennis player in the weater of talent at Topeka high. He wasn't too high ranked in city play. But today it's a different story. Shoaf surprised Christner, 7-5, 7-5, and it was no accident.
Of Shofa, his coach says: "He is without doubt the best player in the Big Six. He chills 'em with that backhand."
The husky bomber loves to take 'em on his off-side and is just as sharp down the line as he is cross-court. In addition he owns a booming serve that has produced 155 aces this spring.
Roy entered K.U. in the fall of 1940, but by the time he became a sophomore in 1942, war had lifted tennis off the Big Six sports calendar. He went into the army air corps in August '42, gaining the rank of first lieutenant. Now he is a pre-medic and a straight A student.
Track, Tennis, Golf Team Members Look For Season Laurels At Lincoln
Kansas' track, tennis, and golf teams are in Linecoln today and Saturday for the annual Big Six championship battles for spring sports. The Jayhawkers already have clinched the Big Six tennis title, and they hope to score upsets to win the track and golf pennants.
The Jayhawker netmen play Nebraska tomorrow, and a victory will give the Kansans an undefeated season. Kansas won the title by beating Missouri in an abbreviated match last week. but they haven't let up and are out to
but they haven't let up and are out to defeat the cornhuskers tomorrow.
defeat the Cornhuskers tomorrow.
The Jayhawker tracksters are scheduled to battle the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Missouri Tigers, and Oklahoma Sooners for the outdoor track and field championship. The closest meet in the Big Six history has been forecast.
The Jayhawkers will be weak in the dashes and hurdles, but they hope to overcome this with additional strength in the middle distance races. Johnny Jackson has not been defeated in the 440 this year, and Wallace Desterhaft has run close seconds to Jackson in the past two dual meets.
Kansas will pin its hopes for the title on the weight men, Charlie Black, Leroy Robison, and Karl Ebel. If these three ace performers can pick up 20-25 points in the field events, Kansas will be hard to beat. Black, who has been high scorer in the past two dual meets, may repeat in this capacity at Lincoln.
Harold Hinchee and Andy Lunsford present a real challenge to other 880-yard run contestants. Both are slated to give Dean Kratz, Nebraska's defending champion, a battle for top honors in this event.
Harold Moore will bear most of the burden in the distance races for Kansas. He will run the mile and two-mile races. If Moore can come through, the Jayhawkers should build up a big enough margin in the middle distance $d$ distance, and field events to take the championship.
The Jayhawker linkmen also will compete in the annual Big Six golf tournament. Oklahoma is heavily favored to win, but the Jayhawkers would like to take second place in the final conference standings. Missouri, Kansas State, and Kansas will battle for the runner-up spot to the Sooners.
The Jayhawkers won four and lost five matches this season against Big Six schools, but they hope to do better with that experience under their belts.
Upsets Mark I-M Cage Play
Upets were in order Thursday in intramural softball when Delta Tau Delta defeated Old Timers, Phi Gamma Delta took Sigma Chi, and Beta Theta Pi won over PT-9. Other victors were Pki Kappa Psi, Phi Delta Theta, V-12 (B), and PT-7 in a postponed contest.
The Old Timer team fell to Delta Tau Delta, 3-1, when Dryden cleaned the bases with a home run. The Old Timers' defeat knocked them from undisputed second place to a tie for that position.
Phi Gamma Delta defeated Sigma Chi in a surprise win by a score of 6-5, aided by the spotless pitching by Hartigan.
The score was 6-5 for Beta Theta Pi over PT-9. Neither team was more than one run ahead at any time during the game.
V-12 (B) defeated Sigma Alpha Epsilon by a score of 5-3. The navy team came from behind in the fifth inning to take the lead.
Phi Delta Theta shut-out Tau Kanna Ensillon for an 8-0 victory
The PT-7 and Alpha Kappa Psi game, postponed from Wednesday, turned out a PT-7 victory, with a shut-out score of 6-0.
Games scheduled for Monday are
Ships Company vs. Delta Upsilon,
Sigma Nu vs. Sigma Phi Epsilon,
Sigma Alpha Epsilon vs. Jaycees,
V-12 (B) vs. Alpha Tau Omega,
PT-9 vs. Pi Kappa Alpha, and
Alpha Kappa Psi vs. Beta Theta Pi.
Wednesday the schedule is V-12 (A) vs.
PT-7 and Carruth vs. Pi Kappa.
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Miller, A. D. Pi's Go To I-M Semi-finals
Miller hall swamped Alpha Omicron Pi, 16-1, and Alpha Delta Pi defeated Kappa Alpha Theta, 6-2 in Thursday women's intramural softball tournament games.
Miller's Rothenberger and Green hold the losing team to one score with little trouble. Battery for Alpha Omicron Pi was Voth and Burtscher. Alpha Delta Pi's victory, with Land pitching to Anderson, over the Theta's, whose battery was Fadler and Francisco, entitles them to play in the semi-finals.
Other entries in the semi-finals are Watkins hall and Miller hall. A play off between Corbin hall and Chi Omega will determine the other team. Championship games will be played next week.
Dog Forfeits $1,200 Left By Mistress
Philadelphia. (UP) — An aging Boston Terrier named Boots has walked out on a $1,200 trust fund which would have kept him in bones for the rest of his life.
Boots received his legacy in June 1944, when his doting mistress, an 81-year-old widow, died.
For some time, Boots lived the life of the rich, but apparently he wasn't happy. Early last year, the nine-year-old Terrier just up and left home where he had been in the care of his mistress' aunt and principle legatee of the estate. He never returned.
So Orphans Court Judge Grover C. Ladner ended the trust fund and declared Boots had forfeited his inheritance.
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