THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Sports
Quarterback
Brian Bethek took the snaps as the No. 1 quarterback as football practice began last week. Bethek faces challenges from four other quarterbacks in one of the toughest races for a position on the team. Kansas, which was 2-7 and sixth in the Big Eight conference last season, opens its schedule Sept. 9 against Texas A&M.
Tough home schedule will greet Javhawks in refurbished stadium
By LEON UNRUH
Sports Editor
Memorial Stadium has been replanted with Astroturf, repainted and rededicated to the proposition that the Jayhawks usually win at home.
KU probably will need the odds of that in 10-12 since 1974 — if it is going to be a bacon fry
"We could have the most improved team in the country and not know it," football coach Travis Mackey said.
The preseason polls, which Moore says he doesn't believe even when they say nice things about KU, have not been very complimentary this time. Several, including Playboy magazine's, have picked KU as the Oklahoma State and ahead of Kansas State.
KU FINISHED sixth in the conference last year with a 14-1 league record, 3-7-1
Moore, who had a glorious first year and put together the only back-to-back winning teams in the last decade, insists that there is no unusual athletic department pressure to produce another winner. His contract has several years to run.
"I think most of the pressure I feel is from myself, from within," said Moore, who is married.
He and his coaches have done what they could to rebuild the team after a dismal campaign. Although the squad was hit hard by the rule allowing only four years of eligibility, a winter of recruiting has brought some sharp freshmen and juco transfers to Lawrence. At least five recruits are from Arkansas. They include Joe McCrane (200), who was the state's best recruit and that was everybody's high school Alaskanmerger.
KU ALSO GOT two of Kansas' best players. Roger Foote, who played quarterback and defensive back for Peabody, was the most-sought Kansas pre player. Joining him will be Todd Berthi, a 21b All-American linebacker from Dodge City.
John Hadd, a Jayhawk who spent 16 years as a pre quarterback, returned to guide the quarterbacks. He replaced Gary Rutledge, and left after the wishbone and left after the season ended.
The coaches have filed away the wishbone and replaced it this spring with a coalition offense that does everything but glow in the dark.
Volleyball coach eager to play after strong recruiting season
By NANCY DRESSLER
Associate Sports Editor
A chance to take advantage of his first earnest recruiting efforts has Bob Stancill, KU's volleyball coach, excited and optimistic about the coming season.
Stancliff enters his third season at the Jayhawk helm and for the first time, he can talk about new players before the season actually begins.
When he became coach in August 1976, recruiting for that season had ended. The next year, he said, was spent trying to figure out how to reach prospective players and overcome a lot of traveling money that hindered him from seeing them in action.
"We lost two years to everyone else," she said. "We lost time first Ive really worked with recruits."
THE RESULTS should be worthwhile as the high school standouts have joined the Javelin team.
Two freshman that could see action right away are April Beaver, a member of last year's Missouri state champion Raytown South High School team, and Shelly Fox, the most valuable prep player in Colorado last season.
At 5-10, Beaver should give the Jayhawks another spiker to join junior return June 3.
Beaver's presence could make KU's new 6-2 offense much more effective, Stancliff said. The offense ideally uses six hitters durandrata, with three hitters always at the net.
"We needed another strong hitter to play across from June," he said. "He wavered in the back, but we knew he was ready."
Sophonore Diane Schroeder returns for the Jayhawk, Junior Jill Larson and sophomore Becky Griffith are expected to battle for an open starting position.
"SHE (FOX) is a tremendous back-back player. She came down to audition and even though she was the smallest player at 54, she won me over with her aggressiveness."
She'll be an asset both at the net and as a back line player.
Other newcomers are two former Lewis-
rence high school standouts, Jou Hunter舒
and Karen Georgeson, both freshman.
Jou Hunter舒 went to Gallagaul,
Neb. also has been signed.
Fox probably will join senior Karen
Epperson to compose the two sets in the
book.
**FOOTBALL**—A tough schedule could mean a long, hard season for the Jayhawks. When it comes to player depth, don't make any bets on KU. With Jayhawk quarterbacks under the direction of assistant coach John Hadd, the team will unveil a new multiple option defense that displaces the discarded wishbone. Student tickets will go on sale Tuesday in Allen Field House. A complete Big 8 schedule shows when conference games begin. See stories, pages six and seven.
The abundance of youth won't be new.
Last season's aquad had nine freshen var-
tuals.
- WOMEN'S BASKETBALL—Returning veterans and top recruits promise to give KU its greatest depth in several seasons. Lynette Wooden, an All-American after her freshman season, rejoins the Jayhawks after competing abroad this summer with a 12-member U.S. squad. See stories, pages eight and nine.
DESPITE THAT SEEMING handicap, Stancill said he expected the Jayhawks to be an improved team from the squad that lost the conference championship last season for the
- MEMORIAL STADIUM - A refurbished stadium will great spectators at the season for a projected $1.1 million, or cost of $1.8 million, on an schedule for a projected $3.1 completion. See story, page 16.
As a result, KU suffered from a lack of height. The team posted a 38-24-4 match play record that included a third-placed third place and a fourth-second place finish in the regional tournament.
Inside:
Gaining a berth in the national tournament by virtue of a higher regional finish and regaining the top place in the state conference are our goals for this year's team. StCLaird said.
*GYMNASTICS* - Recruits could give the women their best team ever, says coach Ken Snow. The Jayhawks finished with a 6-4 record last season. Incoming freshmen and third-rounders will be in line to make it.
*BASEALLY* The Jayhawks return all but four players from last year's squad that set a record for most victories in a season by a KU team. It hit and run strategy will again
Another bright spot will be the return of Tina Wilson. Wilson, a 6+4 junior, started as a backup before signing.
"If the majority of our players come back, we'll be more experienced," he said.
"IF WE develop another hitter to play opposite June, that will be a key to our team."
"I don't think there's any one weakness."
And since the load could rest on the young member it could rest down to the rekindling of active neurons.
The wishbone was junked halfway through last year when it became obvious that KU's herd of quarterbacks couldn't run and throw well enough. The new combination of veer, play-action, spit and IIB led the U.S. to a big victory, like OU's Thomas Lott to make it click.
KU 15 HOPPING that the passing game will improve. The Jayhawks were the least productive throwing team in the conference, but their game game compared to the top, K-State's 158.
"There's nothing to go on unless you see them play." Stancill explained. "Now we have girls here that I have gone out and seen in action."
"Hopefully, we can take what we did, polish it and come up with a few things to do."
"We didn't work on a lot of formations,
but I think we did establish a good foundation."
The 'Hawks hired a weight coach, whose job will be to keep the players' muscles wilted after the preseason weight-lifting programs are over. He was hired—certainly said—after the spring when he was canceled because of severe injuries to Iroglers.
That red-cross boyjeman could be the Jayhawks' biggest handicap. Moore will find out soon how well the players have covered from last spring and this summer.
Osborn separated a shoulder and offensive guard Ed Bruce broke a foot. Running back Brad Wormack, an Arkansas signee, unprotected by the state's high school all-star name.
"We've just had a rash of things this summer." Moore said. "We have our fingers crossed that they'll all come back healthy."
Dennis Balagna, the conference newcomer of the year in 1975, died in a construction accident in June in Topeka. He died to move into the starting offensive line.
Bud Moore
THEY'RE HOPPING that the defense will remain the guee that held the Jayhawks
As for the weights program, Moore said,
"I'll be a while before you see a lot of
differences."
FOR EXAMPLE, defensive tackle-turned offensive guard Franklin King had knee surgery. Running back Mike Hippagas suffered tracutus rib—the second time he's
During the summer, noseguard Fred
"I'd like for it to be that way," he said, because I think defense in the key to a win is using your teammates.
Because of the offense's propensity to cough up the ball, the defense got a lot of experience, but that may not make up for all its youth. They have a base to build from: in 1977, KU was last in the conference in total and second to last in preventing penalties.
Bob Marcum, KU athletic director
Staff photo by ALAN ZLOTKY
Marcum pleased with job as KU athletic director
By LEON UNRUH
Sports Editor
Bob Marcum says he's never worked in
place he didn't like. But then, he has tried
it.
"I've never had a bad job," he says. "Some people might have looked at some of us like we were stupid."
It might be hard to convince Marcum, a businessman with an athletic bent, that he didn't find a good job as successor to Clyde Walker, director of athletics.
WALKER, WHO resigned May 24,
returned to his home state as athletic
director at the University of North Carolina-
Charlotte.
Chancellor Archie R. Dykes announced July 29 that the job would be offered to Marcum, 41, then the associate athletic director in the university. Marcum took it two days later.
Other candidates interviewed by KU's search committee were Doug Messer, assistant athletic director and then acting athletic director; John Novotny, director of the Williams Fund program, which provides scholarships for athletes, and Charles Thornton, assistant athletic director at the University of Alabama.
WALKER HAD left for Marcum a refurbished stadium, a dispute with the women's athletic department over funding for a new track and field ticket prices and student seating. He also
left a reputation for turning a profit for the department.
Marcum applauds the $1.8 million work on the stadium, which he says will please alumni and students and will make it easier to recruit Moore. Moore to recruit better athletes.
"The renovation of the stadium is just super," says Marcum, who led construction on the 50,000-seat stadium at Iowa State. And as for the sguilable over tickets, "The only thing I know is that we have a loan and will have to pay for it."
He doesn't expect the conflicts of the Walker administration to rub on him.
And, he doesn't want any trouble with the students. He says he'll meet them on their
HE WON'T say whether he'll make any changes in the Willama Fund scholarship program that provides money to the women's athletic program for the next five years.
During his first days in Lawrence, he strolled over the campus, meeting officials and students. He wears a shirt and displays a less-imposing attitude than Walker did. He talks about all the reviewing of material to do and seele left to meet.
"FM BOB MARCUM," he says, "I really believe that I represent KU first and the athletic department second. But we're high-profile people and there's no way to get
around it. The sports page is printed every day.
*Any time you're in a high-profile position, you're going to get the pluses and
He acknowledges that it may be hard to keep domains within the department's network.
"Let's face it. The problem of intercollegiate athletics is the same as many other things: it's finances, how it's going to be naid for."
THE STADIUM renovations forced a $1.05 increase in single game general admission tickets and a $3 rise in student season tickets.
"In the Big B, it's not that old. But in other conferences, they've been using it for years," he says of the surcharge method of stadium financing.
Marcum got his start as a three-sport letterman in a Huntington, WVa., high school. He played one year of football at Marshall University, turning down scholarship offers from West Virginia and Ohio State. Knee surgery ended his career.
He got his bachelor of arts degree in education from Marshall in 1959.
"I've been involved in the grassroots, all the way through football," he says. "My first coaching job was at a big high school with a faculty of 11."
HE LATER coached at Canton, Ohio, and
See MARCUM page 5