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University Daily Kansan Friday. April 17. 1950
Better Record Is Tennis Team Goal
Top-ranked Lynn Sieverling
Pete Block, top somnomore
Bill Easton Builds RichTrackTradition
With the 1958 Big Eight indoor championship tucked away in his records for the eighth straight time, Coach Bill Easton is now busy with the outdoor season.
Easton, in his 12th season at Kansas, is the most successful track coach in the conference.
If his team can win the outdoor championship at Norman, Okla., in May, it can complete an eighth straight triple crown in the combined indoor—cross-country—outdoor track events in the conference. (A triple crown is won when one team wins the cross-country, indoor and outdoor titles in the same school year.)
In national competition, Easton-coached teams have finished third, second, fourth and second in the last four NCAA track and field championships, missing the team title in 1956 by only 6 7 10 points behind UCLA. This is the highest finish both in points and team standing ever recorded by a Big Eight team.
Last year, Easton's Jayhawkers finished second to Southern California in the NCAA meet at Berkeley. Calif. Kansas scored 4034 points, only eight behind the winning Trojans. Kansas edged out defending champion Villanova by 7 points. Charlie Tidwell set a new record in the 220-yard low hurdles and the Jayhawkers won two other first places in the meet.
Easton's success has become as much a part of the Kansas tradition as winning basketball teams were for "Phog" Allen. Easton has coached at least one conference champion in every event on the indoor-outdoor list.
Easton's career here has been marked by his ability to develop top distance runners. His cross-country teams have won seven consecutive cross-country conference championships. On the track, his distance runners have won more than 50 individual championships.
Before coming to Kansas, Easton was building a reputation as a distance coach. At Drake, he coached three consecutive NCAA cross-country champions.
Easton, a former Indiana University quartermiler, started his winning ways at Hammond, Ind., high school before moving up to Drake where he gained national recognition for his team's cross-country performances.
Easton has but two words for his team's success:
"We work."
Easton said he tries to get men who, first, want an education and, second, want the physical training.
He said he looks for three things in a prospect. First is to find out the educational standing of the boy. Second, Easton said, he finds out how a prospect gets along in his community. Then he looks at his athletic ability.
Champions Return
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perform in the individual events, Charlie Tidwell, Kansas' 100-yard dash ace, will compete with Dee Givens, the Sooners' top sprinter.
Last year, Tidwell took third in the event behind Givens' :09.5 clocking. The Relays record for the race is :09.4. The mark was set in 1930 by Cy Leland of Texas Christian and equalled in 1956 by Bobby Whilden of Texas.
Tidwell had qualified for the finals with a :09.5 effort—the fastest of the preliminary runs.
Orlando Hazley of Oklahoma State, who finished second in last year's 100-yard finals, is here again this year.
By Tom Clark
Lynn Sieverling, left-handed marksman, has taken the lead role on Coach Denzell Gibbens' tennis squad this spring, and is spearheading a KU drive to improve its fifth place conference berth of last season.
Coach Gibbens has the nucleus of an upcoming squad in junior lettermen, Dave Coupe and Jerry Williams, plus the necessary fourth weapon in sophomore Pete Block. Salvit Lekagul, Bill Sheldon, Jim Brownfield and Charles Studt supply the reinforcements.
The Javhawkers were hampered by foul weather at the onset of the season, but quickly rounded into true form once they 'hit' the courts three weeks ago. Pete Block was the early season sensation fighting his way to a third place berth behind Sieverling and Williams. Block, a sophomore, lacks conference experience but will be a key man in KU's present future.
Williams, Olathe junior, has all the shots, but is in the process of overcoming early season inconsistency. Coupe, Arkansas City junior, is at his best when the pressure is on. He displayed this virtue in the preliminary challenge matches.
Lekagul. Thailand import, is in his first year of varsity tennis after winding up second in the intramural tournament last fall. He lacks the "big punch," but is very consistent and methodical in returning any "blasts" his foes throw at him.
Sieverling, number one for the second season, has a hopping service plus a skillful net game to make him one of the top players in the conference. Lynn comes from the old school of die hards, with a come-from-behind victory as his trademark.
Sheldon and Studt are more aggressive players than is Brownfield, but lack his consistency. Brownfield is an opportunist at the net, capitalizing on all his foes' mistakes, but otherwise, like Lekagul, is best in the retrieving category.
Optimism prevails that, despite inexperience, the Jayhawks will attain their goal of improving last year's record. A preliminary match against Washburn next Tuesday, followed by showdown battles against Nebraska and Iowa State next weekend will provide three more targets for the KU tennis marksmen.
KU's Wes Santee Is Among The All-Time Great Milers
Wes Santee, the great KU miler of 1952-54, registered a total of 48 mile runs under 4:10 before being handed lifetime suspension by the AAU in 1956.
Santee's best mile time was a 4:00.5 in the Jerry Thompson Mile at the 1955 Texas Relays. He had lowered Bill Hulse's old American record of 4:06 three times as a collegian, clocking 4:02.4 at the 1953 Compton Invitational. 4:01.3 at the Missouri Valley AAU, and 4:00.6 at the 1954 Compton meet.
A year after graduation Santee hold title, not only to the five swiftest miles ever run by an American.
but also to 13 of the 15 fastest in American records.
Santee established a world indoor dirt-track mark of 4:04.9 in a 1954 triangular against Michigan State and Illinois at East Lansing.
He was born and raised in Ashland, just 100 miles east of Glenn Cunningham's home of Elkhart. Big Seven opposition was left in the dust of this great KU miler.
He gathered three indoor and three outdoor conference mile championships, two indoor half-mile titles, and one outdoors at that distance. He also collected two cross-country conference titles.
Denzell Gibbens, tennis coach
Ashbaugh Improving As a Sophomore
Darwin Ashbaugh is a promising Ellis sophomore who won the Big Eight freshman 60-year low hurdles last year in :07.0 and ran sixth in the highs at :07.8. Ashbaugh carries good strength and may run the 440-yard dash this spring.
Ashbaugh was the surprise Big Eight indoor broad jump champion in the absence of injured Ernie Shelby with a jump of 23 feet, $7^{1 / 2}$ inches.
While the history of Kansas track and field teams goes back to 1903, the history of the Big Eight Conference in track goes back only one year.
KU Track Teams Have Won Eight Straight Indoor Titles
Last year Oklahoma State came into the conference and the league name was changed from the Big Seven to the Big Eight.
In 1958 the Jayhawkers swamped the remainder of the conference competition to win their seventh straight indoor and outdoor conference championships under Coach Bill Easton. The Kansas runners also added the cross-country title.
Kansas received a scare last year in the indoor championships as the Nebraska Cornhuskers placed well in the preliminaries. But the depth of the Jayhawkers prevailed and Kansas ended the meet with a total of 58 5/6 points. Nebraska scored 35 1/6 points.
In the Big Eight outdoor meet last year at Columbia, the Jay-
hawkers compiled 145 $ \frac{1}{2} $ points to take the top honors once again. Nebraska gained second place for the second time but
Ernie Shelby, track captain
the Huskers were far behind with 70 points.
The Jayhawkers stepped into the spotlight again early last month as they swept to their eighth straight indoor championship.
The Jayhawkers scored 70 $ _{1/2} $ points. They were followed by Oklahoma with 30, Kansas State with 26, Colorado with 25, Missouri with 18 $ _{1/2} $ , Nebraska with 16. Oklahoma State with 13 7/12 and Iowa State with 8 7/12.
The indoor victory in Kansas City was the 23rd consecutive victory for Kansas in the combined indoor, outdoor and cross - country championships for the Jayhawkers.
Things look even brighter for Kansas on the outdoor scene with indoor stars Charlie Tidwell, Bob Covey, Clif Cushman, Bob Lida, Darwin Ashbaugh, Bill Tillman, Bob Tague, Bob Cannon, Billy Mills and Dan Ralston returning.