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Wednesday, August 20, 1975
University Daily Kansan
Foosball thrills, skills are addictive to fans
By JAIN PENNER
Kenyan Staff Reporter
A few years ago, if you wanted to play football, you need 22 players, a pigskin ball and a large playing field. Today, all you need is a quarter.
The popularity of coin-operated games has increased tremendously in the past few years, and one of the most popular of these is the notorious foosball table.
It is an awesome device, with eight shiny steel poles. Mounted on the poles are wires that connect the feet to a rubber tipped feet and insane, ghoulish grins fixed on their faces. Under the fluorescent lights of tavern game rooms, the money-hungry silver coin slots glamour
There, in the back rooms of bars, men become boys, arguing over who blew the last shot or whose quarter is up next. From the minute they insert a coin and the nine of a die into the back pocket, one of the goalies fails to touch that final shot, they lose all touch with reality.
“It’s more than a game. It’s almost addictive,” and Pete Shilsa, Mission Mission junior. “You’re convinced you can win one. You’re convinced you can quarter in even when you lose keeping.”
SIKs said he began playing football a few years ago and played at least one game whenever he went drinking if his girlfriend would let him.
The foul language unleashed against a college football team that fails to score from the 2-yard line can't rival the biosphemus of a superior infectious player who misses a shot.
Foosball can be played one against one, with each player controlling all four handles on his side, or two against two, with one playing defense and one playing offense.
Often, a team of two players sticks together, practicing every day and building up a reputation for being able to "hold the table" against all would-be challengers. For example, a student would make the University of Kansas and Kansas State look like the best of friends.
Mark Silks, Prairie Village junior, said that he and his cousin Pete, often played as a team, trading positions so they could develop both offensive and defensive skills.
All the fanaticism that accompanies football accompanies foosball as well. Each summer, Elitch Gardens, an amusement park, hosts a football tournament with a $35,000 purse.
The tournament are elaborate affairs
to draw big crowds, putting those who
attend in the spotlight.
People pay $2.50 each to enter the gently decorated pavilion, complete with wield-to-wall mirrors, Olympia beer tiffany lamps and 500 pro foosball tables, with their rows of grimming goons waiting to respond to a touch of the handle.
One national team of taverns sponsors a tournament every year. Each chain
member holds a tournament to determine the champion for that city. The city champions then compete and the national champions compete in competitions in the chain and take on challengers.
The fanaticism and loyal devotion of some football players actually make Purple Pride look lavender and Big Red look hot pink.
As the game gains popularity, you see more and more of a new breed of woman—the football wow. You can always spot her in a crowded bar. She's the one who enters the front door, clutching a birdfriend or a dark corner booth and share a pitcher of beer.
Her hopes are shattered when her escort hands her a dollar, parks her on a bar stool, races to the football table while wildly spitting and pockets and puts a quarter up on every table.
Two hours and ten beers later, she's still sitting on the bar stool, watching the look of grim determination on his face as he stops, sprays some silicon spray on the iron rods to make them slide easier, then continues his game.
"just one more, honey," he promises. "I almost won that, honey."
Pete Silks and his girlfriend's objections forcing left alone for two hours had sharply increased.
Not all football players said they were booked, however.
"I used to enjoy football, but it got old," said Steve Leonard, Garden City junior. "Now I play pinball because there are not enough softball or football tables are essentially the same."
Other players said they played football to keep them occupied, not because they had a lot of friends.
"Like to play football because it gives me an excuse to raise hell and be loud," said Pri Robinson, Johnson City, Tenn., senior. "I think we should just be sure there and drink something."
"I like to play so I don't have to talk to ugly girls in basketball said Danny Ray Doyle."
Newman said he was embarrassed when he played girls who were better than he weared.
There is no way to use a fossoball addict, pinball wizard or air hockey freak. The withdrawal symptoms are too great. Perhaps some strange and supernatural power draws the avid 25-cent-game fan to the table.
New game tables keep cropping up everywhere. Catalogs now advertise new games, including a $75 gift, a at low, low price of $75. Air hockey tables, which sell for up to $100, pinball machines priceed at about $800, and shuffle tables, which cost at about $3,500, are also popular merchandise.
Perhaps football shouldn't be scouted at and dismissed so quickly by nondevotes, however. After all, who else but a football can spend four hours and $25 worth of work on a game and still go home with a smile on his face because of that great last shot?
Did you know that there are no cottontail makes in Kansas, or that Kansas was under water at one time? These facts have not changed since 1906. I am a tour of the Museum of Natural History.
By MARCY CAMPBELL
Kansas Staff Reporter
There are five museums on campus that provide a multitude of information to students. These are the Botany Herbarium, Snow Anthropology Museum, Museum of Invertebrate Paleontology, Museum of Archaeology and History. Together, they form the Systematic Museums of the University of Kansas.
"MOST STUDENTS DON'T know these museums even exist," Philip S. Humphrey, director of the Museum of Natural History, said. "We're not just a dusty old museum."
Humphrey said each museum was a resource available to the student.
11 a.m.-11 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday
11 a.m.-11 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday
11 a.m.-Midnight Friday-Saturday
The Botany Herbarium, which is on West Campus at 2045 Ave. A, contains over 200,000 live plant specimens, primarily United States. Students can visit it anytime.
11 a.m.-Midnight Friday-Saturday
The Entomological Museum, 310 Snow Hall, has educational insect exhibits. The collections aren't open to the public, but members of the staff are available to give programs about insects to students from area schools.
11 a.m.-10 a.m. Sunday—Closed Monday
842-9455
807 Vermont
Natural history no dusty subject
Edward and Naomi Rosto invite you to stop in soon.
THE MUSEUM OF INVERTEBRATE Paleontology, in Lindley Hall, is primarily a research facility, housing fossils of animals that lived millions of years. Tours for small groups can be arranged.
The Museum of Anthropology, located in Blake Annex A, contains the laboratories for the department of anthropology. Guided tours can be set up for grade school through
also contains an exhibit of northeastern Kansas mammals.
high school students. Exhibits from the department of anthropology are located on the fifth floor of the Museum of Natural Historv.
Exhibited on the sixth floor are live snakes of Kansas. The exhibit contains rat snakes, poisonous snakes such as rat-tailsmakes, bull snakes, milk snakes, king snakes, sea snakes and water snakes. When the snakes lay eggs or bear live young, these are also exhibited.
THE SIXTH FLOOR features a hive of live bees, which is a favorite of young gardeners. The tunnel is a transparent tunnel running to the outside. Observers can see the bees returning with pollen and working to produce honey in the hive. They can be on sale in the museum rift shop soon.
The Museum of Natural History is in invycoed Thecyre Hall, named after the late Lewis Lindsay Dyssey, professor of systematic zoology and curator of the collection of mammals, birds and fish. There are more than four and a half million specimens.
It is divided into five major sections: fish, birds, mammals, fossils, and amphibians.
OF THE 80,000 SQUARE feet of floor space in the museum, 30,000 are for public use, including exhibits and classrooms. The museum is used for collections, offices and lab space.
"The Museum of Natural History is the
front door of the university," Humphrey said.
Between 75,000 and 100,000 visitors come to the museum a year. They represent every state and two-thirds to three-fourths of the population. A survey taken by the museum last year.
THE THIRD FLOOR contains a display of fossilized sharks, bony fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds on the north side, and mammalian fossils on the south side. Especially popular with Kansans are the large aquatic frogs (Aquatic Ferns), Cretaceous period, including mosaurs (large aquatic reptiles), sharks, crocodiles and a giant squid.
"The Museum of Natural History is a resource to the academic enterprise of the University, especially to students," Humphrey said.
The fourth floor features a panorama of North American plants and animals. The exhibit shows the life forms characteristic of various habitats on the continent.
THE LOUNGE AREA of the fourth floor
LOOKING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT in a quiet, secluded bar? We've got it. Enjoy our hide-a-way and a cold refreshing Bud-on-tap.
the Lounge
SOUTHWEST END OF HILLCREST BOWL
9th & Iowa 843-9812
Open Daily 10 a.m. - Midnight, except Sunday