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Section:
The University Daily Kansan
Sports
Yesterday in sports
Former Jets star Mark Gastineau was sentenced to 18 months in jail for failing to complete an anger-management course after hitting his estranged wife.
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This Day In Sports
On Sept. 13, 1997, Kansas football coach Terry Allen coached his team to Kansas' 500th victory with a 15-7 win against Missouri. This game marked Allen's first conference victory.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2000 For comments, contact Melinda Weaver or Jason Walker at 864-4858 or e-mail sports@kansan.com WWW.KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
Talented tackler at home on defense
By Bo Allegruci sports@kansan.com kansasnatswriter
On a Saturday afternoon last fall, the Southern Methodist Mustangs visited Lawrence for the fourth game of the 1999 football season and were introduced to a relatively unknown safety.
An SMU receiver caught a routine pass and turned upfield, only to meet a two-legged freight train dressed in crimson and blue.
This was the moment after which life began to change for Kansas' Carl Nesmith, who laid a mind-numbing blow on the poor SMU receiver. After being pulverized, the receiver failed through the air in one direction while the ball did the same in the other. Nesmith recovered the fumble, and the game's momentum shifted.
The Mustangs had seen enough, their collective will to win lying on the ground. John Wayne and Knute Rocke could have given them a joint halftime speech and it
wouldn't have mattered, and the Javahaws rolled to a 27-9 win.
It was official, Carl Nesmith had just become "The Butcher."
become The Butcher.
Of course, Big Blue faithful will recall
Of course, big blue other ground-shaking hits courtesy of number five, like the one on what's his-name from Missouri and the one on that one guy from Iowa State. But what most fans and the Butcher himself remember is the carnage that he produced that crisp fall afternoon against SMU.
The incident was alarming enough for
follow defensive back Quincy Roe to conjure up the intimidating nickname for Nesmith. Not bad, for a high school quarterback turned junior college wide receiver who two months before that SMU game never in his life had played a down on the defensive side of the ball. Not bad for a guy who came to Kansas not knowing if or where he was going to play for coach Terry Allen's budding football program.
Nosmith: didn't play defense until joining the 'Hawks
"When we were recruiting Carl, we saw a great athlete," Allen said. "But we weren't quite sure what all he could do. We wanted to see if he could hit, and after the first day in full pads, we saw that he certainly could."
Nesmith said his role was questionable when he first arrived at Kansas because the coaches were confused about where he should play.
Sounds like it would be easy for Nesmith to be unsure about the way the coaches were swinging him around the practice
"They had several holes to fill, and they knew that I could help fill some of them," he said. "At first, they were telling me to keep my arm warm, then they had me running pass patterns, and finally I ended up on defense."
field. But in actuality, the transition was an easy one compared with the one he had made the year before at Butler County Community College, where he went from throwing passes to catching them.
"After I started at quarterback my freshman year and didn't play that well, the coaches at Butler felt that I could help the team more as a wide receiver," Nesmith said. "And having been a quarterback all my life, that was really hard to do at first."
"I wasn't make up my mind that I would work really hard and do all that I could to learn the position."
The uncertainty left after starting at wideout on a BCCC team that won the national championship in 1998. Even back then, doubt was nothing new to Nesmith. In fact, indecision had followed him from Raines High School in Jacksonville, Fla., as if he'd packed it in his suitcase with the
See BUTCHER on page 6A
Team breaks,record beats Colorado for first time in 13 years
'Hawks out-dig Buffaloes for victory
By Sarah Warren sports@kansan.com Kansan sportwriter
The match went into five games after the Buffaloes claimed the first and fourth game, but fell to the Jayhawks in the second and third. The fifth game is played in a rally
It took a lot of self confidence and a little help from the volleyball gods, but the Kansas volleyball team defeated Colorado last night after a two-and-a-half-hour block-and-dig marathon.
The 8th game is format, where the team that gets the kill gets the point, regardless of who is serving.
The 'Hawks pulled out the fifth game, 16-14. after Colorado's setter, Elizabeth Gower, found herself caught in the net and pinned with a technical violation, giving Kansas the winning point.
the opportunity to break it tonight."
the opportunity to break it complete.
The team had premium stats in an area that Bechard had been asking his team to focus on all season — digging, Kansas out-dug Colorado 88-79. Sixteen of those came from an unusual source — senior middle blocker Danielle Geronymo, who at 6 foot 2 is a more likely candidate to be policing the net.
"I just love to dig." Geronymo said.
"I wasn't good at it when I started playing, and I work hard for the ones I get."
'On the offensive end of things, the 'Hawks had four players numbering in double digits in kills — Geronomyo, as well as outside hitters Sarah Rome, freshman, and Nancy Bell and Amy Myatt, seniors. Myatt and Bell finished first and second in
"That rally scoring gets tough on the nerves, but we pulled it out. But, like I told the girls before that (fifth) game, all you have to do is believe in yourself."
Ray Bechard
Volleyball Coach
Derek Prater
"That rally scoring gets tough on the nerves, but we pulled it out," said coach Ray Bechard. "But, like I told the girls before that (fifth) game, all you have to do is believe in yourself."
being believers not only allowed Kansas to come away with a win, it allowed the team to break records. Kansas is 9-0 for the first time in history and has defeated Colorado for the first time since 1987.
"We talked about tying the record (at 8-0)." Bechard said, "but we got
that department with 22 and 18 kills, respectively. With those numbers, the Hawks out-killed the Buffaloes 78-73, dropping Colorado to 3-4. "It's a conference game against a very good team," Bechard said. "We earn our living off of what we do in the conference."
Sports Columnist
Bell said she hoped that in defeating
Colorado, the Big 12 Conference teams would view the 'Hawks as a serious challenge, rather than a speed bump in conference play.
"I think people (in the conference) don't expect us to win," Bell said. "We want to tell people, 'Don't underestimate us. We can win, we're good. Don't count us out.'"
The Jayhawks continue their conference play when they meet No. 19 Texas A&M, 4-3, at 6 p.m. Friday in College Station, Texas.
- Edited by Kimberly Thompson
Colorado hitter, Josse Roberge, Quebec junior, barely gets a hit by Amy Myatt, Iowa City, Iowa, senior, at yesterday's game. The Jayhawks will go on to play at Texas A&M on Friday. Photo by Caryl Julian/KANSAN.
Long-awaited victory leaves Jayhawks smiling
Kansas volleyball coach Ray Bechard addresses Amy Myatt, Iowa City, Iowa, senior, and Molly LaMere, Papillon, Neb., junior, between games. The volleyball team deated Colorado last night, winning three of the five games played. Photo by Craig Bennett/KANSAN
sports@kansan.com
Kansas' last win against Colorado came in 1987 when it beat the Buffalooes 3-1 in Lawrence. Equally amazing about the victory was that Kansas had not managed to win more than one game against Colorado since that victory.
First, the Jayhawk set a record for the best start in a season by improving their already perfect record to 9-0. They tied the record for consecutive wins to begin a season — previously set by the 1990 team — in the Jayhawk Classic Saturday against the University of Mississippi.
After the match, senior outside hitter Nancy Bell said her face was getting tired from all the smiling she was doing.
By Zac Hunter
sports@kansan.com
Kansas sportswriter
For the Kansas volleyball team, the victory against Colorado yesterday was twice as sweet.
Second, the 'Hawks managed to beat the Buffaloes, which hasn't happened since the Reagan administration.
"I'm just so happy," Bell said. Bell is one of four seniors who had been beaten 3-0 in their six previous matches against Colorado but were overjoyed to get their win during the last chance on their home floor.
"I'm just so happy." Bell said.
"I's a really great feeling," Bell said. "I'm really proud to be on this team, and I'm really proud of my teammates."
Senior middle blocker Danielle Geronymo also was overwhelmed by the victory.
"I don't have the words to describe how happy I am," she said. "It's like winning the KU tournament all over again."
It was not just the victory against Colorado that gave the 'Hawks such great feelings after the match. It was the way they won it.
The match came down to rally play in the fifth and a deciding game, a game that Kansas won 16-14 on a net violation. Colorado
The violation brought the Jayhawk players off the bench and into a giant hug in the middle of the floor before they shook the hands of the team that had manhandled them for so many years.
Colorado now leads the all-time series 26-3, but the Kansas players said they didn't care about aggregate totals. They only care that they won last night.
Now the 'Hawks have a chance to turn last night's win win into momentum for a run that has them facing two teams that have treated them much like Colorado has in the past.
Kansas plays Texas A&M tomorrow and Nebraska on Wednesday, Sept. 20. The two teams combined are 72-1 against the Jayhawks.
- Edited by Warisa Chulindra
Knight needs several key qualities to be great
The jerk finally got what he deserved.
I'm not alone either.
Here's one for you vocabulary buffs: schadenfreude. It means pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. I'm not ashamed to say that I got a healthy dose of it when Indiana officials finally stood up to Knight.
I'm sure that's what a lot of us thought upon hearing that Bobby Knight got canned. And it felt good.
This is, after all, the man who told Connie Chung that if a woman is being raped she should try to lay back and enjoy the ride. This is the man who physically assaulted his own staff. This is the man who refused to apologize to those he offended.
And this is the man who believes he is an authority on manners.
But while many of us revile this man and are happy to see him go, our very own Roy Williams is saddened by it.
I'm here to tell you that's just a load of crap.
"People can say he's had 100 chances, but I think he should have 100 more," Williams told the Laurence Journal-World. "The great things he has done completely outnumber the other things he gets criticized for."
This is the paradox of Bobby Knight. People who are close to him will tell you that he's a very generous and kind man when you get to know him. He's just a very intense person who sometimes loses his temper, they say. He's not really a jerk.
We all have friends or family who we swear really are good people — they just occasionally do mean things. "You have to get to know the 'real' sound-so," we say. The fact is that these people are jerks.
If they are mean and disrespectful to others, they are jerks. If they lose their tempers and assault others and never apologize, they are jerks. Even if they do a lot of nice things for the people they like, they still are jerks.
And, like Knight's defenders, we make excuses for them.
And all the excuses that people make for Knight? They may have some validity, but they don't change the fact that he is a jerk.
Knight defenders point to his excellent record of graduating players. He's a teacher, they say, and he instills discipline and respect in these impressionable young men.
But lesson No.1 is loyalty. Knight requires loyalty and demands that he be in control of every relationship. And we've seen what happens to those who breach his perception of loyalty. Even a Hoosier hero and Knight product such as Steve Alford can fall from the General's good graces.
Alford, now the coach at Iowa, was rebuffed in his attempt to reconcile with Knight after he apparently "betrayed" Knight by revealing too much about the Indiana program in his book.
Knight does do great things for people, but only those who will deal with him entirely on his own terms. To truly be as "great" as his fans insist that he is, Knight would have to develop characteristics in which he is severely lacking: empathy, forgiveness and patience. In short, he needs to learn to let others have some control.
The only thing at which he is truly great is that which he can completely control; his coaching.
Unfortunately, that's why we can expect to see more of this jerk soon.
Prater is a Lawrence graduate student in journalism.