University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, August 22, 1990
5
KU defensive tackle helps bust fugitive
The Associated Press
Not until the fugitive broke Lance Flachsbarth's wristwatch did Flachsbath, leading tackler for the sheriff's department in Fort Myers, Fla., get mad.
Not until the fight was over and officers found a loaded gun among the fugitives's possessions did the barrel-loaded sniper die.
As a coach looks on, junior defensive lineman Lance Flachsbarth goes against an offensive lineman
"After that, it took me a couple of minutes to really calm down." Flachsbarth said.
The incident occurred last month on a Fort Myers street when a suspected thief knocked an armed officer to the ground.
Flashbath, an intern for the Lee County sheriff's office, was standing behind the officer, unarmed in street clothes. The fugitive was powerfully at 6-foot-1, 210 pounds, and was wanted in two states.
The man started forward. Then he flew backward as a 270-pound football player made a picture-perfect tackle, the legs-churning, head-buried-in-the-chest kind of hit Vince Lombardi loved.
The ensuing fight was over quickly.
Then, while Lee County deputies hauled the man away, officers found a pistol, loaded and ready to fire, in a bag
"I was really shocked," Flachsbarth said. "I was a little shook up."
But he was not nearly as discomfited as the suspected thief, who made the mistake of thinking the big guy had been watching him.
"I don't think he had any idea I was with the officer," Flachsbaird said.
Flashbarth is a fourth-year junior who started 10 games for the Jayhawks last year on defense. Teammate Marino Vidiolio, who hopes to go into police work, got a job with the department with the help of his family. So Flashbarth, who said he had no interest in police work and really did not like cops much, decided to join him.
"I thought it would be boring, but it turned to be one of the best experiences I ever had," Flachshorn said. "I felt like I'm going through my teenage years."
As an unarmed interm, he was supposed to stay in the car in times of danger. He was traveling with an armed officer one afternoon when a call came that a man was triving to sell what was thought to be stolen jewelry.
telling us what was through to be a phone call.
"We didn't know it, but we had a hot one," Flachsbarth said. "The officer, Robin Aversa, was questioning him. He told us the jewelry belonged to his mother."
But that argument failed when Aversa pulled a 1967 high school class ring out of the bag.
"He made a break for the door and hit her, like a defensive lineman would put a hit on an offensive player."
'We didn't know it, but we had a hot one. The officer, Robin Aversa, was questioning the guy. He told us the jewelry belonged to his mother.'
Lance Flachsbarth Kansas defensive tackle
her. I was standing there in street clothes. He was real surprised when I hit him right square in the chest, made a good wrap-up, and drove him right into the wall. Coach would have been proud."
There was nobly around, however, to whistle the play dead. The fugitive was facing a long jail term if he did not succeed.
"He bit me and I let go of him," Flachsbarth said. "When I felt his teeth close down, I pulled my arm out and I thought, 'This guy is going to do anything he can to get away.'"
But the next thing Fluschbär knew, the wristwatch his girlfriend had given him last Christmas lay broken on
Now, it was personal.
"I was really upset," Flachsbarth said. "I stepped back for a second. He started to come back at me again. I told him, 'You're going to lose,' I didn't think he could whip me. He came again, and I got him down. After he broke my watch I was really upset. He put up a good fight, but I just kind of swarmed him."
The officer gamely got to her feet and suffered her only injury, a deep bruise on the back, when she tried to help.
"While I was slamming this guy's back against a wall, it turned out she had jumped on his back." Flachsbarth said. "I couldn't figure out why what happened to him. But it turned out she was taking all the blows."
Flachsbarth returned to Kansas with a much different attitude toward the police.
"A lot of people think police officers are the bad guys," he said. "I used to think that, but they don't want to hassle you. If you're going to push it to the point where they have to act, then they're going to act. They're there serve, and people have to realize that. Every day they do this line. People aren't always grateful for what they do."
But not everyone is ungrateful. As officers hauled the man away, the owner of the jewelry store heard Flachsbarty yell, "You broke my watch. I can't believe you broke my watch."
one walked up to Flachsbarth for what you did, "She said, 'I'm awfully grateful for what you did,' he replied. 'I'll never forget.'"
Switzer cites drug allegations in ending OU career
The Associated Press
OAKLahoma CITY — Barry Switzer says in his autobiography that he resigned as Oklahoma football coach after a meeting at which he was accused of being around drugs and assaulting college football, including the Spoons.
In "Bootlegger the Boy," Swiss writes that he stepped down six days after meeting with former interim president David Swank and other
school officials. Excerpts from the book, which is scheduled to reach stores in September, were printed Saturday in the Daily Oklahoman.
Switzer writes that at the meeting in June 1989, Swank told him he had information that Switer had been in a Las Vegas hotel room in 1983 where cocaine was used, that he had bet on games and manipulated the drug testing of Sooner players. Some of the information came from the U.S.
attorney's office in Oklahoma City, Swank told Switzer.
The former coach writes that none of the allegations were true, but he realized after the meeting that his career at Oklahoma was over.
"The publicity from my coming out with my side of the story would doom me." Switzer writes.
Switzer suggests that Swank may have made up the allegations. He also claims that getting him to resign
was one of Swank's top priorities after being named interim president. Swark declined comment.
Switzer's resignation on June 19, 1989, came after Oklahoma was placed on NCAA probation and only months after his players were involved in a rape, a cocaine sale and a shooting.
One of those arrested and sent to prison was quarterback Charles Thompson, who Switzer says tested
positive for cocaine use (twice during 1988 and spent the summer prior to the '88 season in a rehabilitation center.
In the book, written by Switzer and Bud Shrake with a forward by Penn State coach Paterno, the 16-year head coach discusses several topics including his own early days and the former players and assistant coaches.
Switzer says a former university
president told him it a meeting in 1984 that "If you win the national championship, the Regents won't ice snow when if we catch you smoking dope."
That comment, an athletic department official told Switzerland, was proof that administrators "expect us to pay lip service to all the high-sound-rooms," down to is money and winning, and they really control everything."
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