SPORTS UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, October 2,1992
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Holly McQueen / KANSAN
Senior Ty Saxby (front) and sophomore Krissy Carpenter worked on their batting Thursday afternoon during softball practice at Jayhawk Field.
Softball team hits the road for Big Eight Fall Festival
Coach expects pitching, defense to carry Jayhawks in conference-like competition
By Kristl Fogler
Kansan sportswriter
The Kansas softball team will compete this weekend in the Big Eight Fall Festival in Independence, Mo. The Jahyahws will play Nebraska and Missouri tomorrow and Iowa State and Oklahoma State on Sunday.
Coach Kalum Haack said the tournament would provide the first tough competition for the 'Hawks, who are 6-0.
"I'm expecting the competition to be a lot better and us to be challenged a lot more." Haack said. "We haven't had a good test because we haven't had any pressure put on us. This will be a pretty good test for the fall."
Haack said this weekend would be a chance to introduce the team's new players to Big Eight play. He expected perennial powers Oklahoma State and Missouri to give Kansas stiff competition.
He said the young team would need to look to its returning players for leadership and pull together if the Jayhawks wanted to do well this season.
"We're not near where we need or want to be," Haack said. "Each day the weather is a bit cooler."
long way to go. I don't want to be playin
our best ball right now"
Haack said pitching and defense had been the team's strengths this season. Five of Kansas' six games have been shutouts, and only three runs have been scored against the Jayhawks all season.
Junior Stephanii Williams, a second team All-American last year, pitched a perfect game against Northern Iowa earlier this season. Freshman Beth Robinson pitched a no-hitter against Pittsburgh State. Neither player has given up an earned run this season.
Williams said her pitching had improved from last year.
Softball is a pitcher's game, Williams said, especially because of NCAA regulations which focus on the game being pitcher and batter oriented.
"I'm a lot smarter this year than last year," she said. "I learned a lot from last year. Hopefully I'll put that into use."
"Pitching will always be an important part of the game," Williams said, agreeing with Haack's confidence in Kansas' pitching game. "There are a lot of teams where pitching isn't dominant, and the rest of the team picks
up the slack."
Williams said this weekend's tournament would be a learning experience for the team.
"We should do well, we beaten all the teams before - last year," she said.
"Newcomers will learn a lot from the tournament."
Junior Shanna Cole agreed.
"We've got a lot of young people who this weekend will be good for," Cole said. "The Big Eight is real competitive and intense."
Cole, batting a team-high 583, said she thought the Jayhawks could go undefeated in the tournament.
"To do that we have to play mistake-free," she said. "It would be good for our confidence. But it's like the coach said, 'Winning this weekend doesn't mean in this spring, and losing this weekend don't mean we'll lose this spring.'"
She said the Jayhawks had been working on playing as a team and have used the fall season to develop continuity.
"It's only our third weekend of play," Cole said. "We've made mistakes. That's what the fall's for, to see what you need to work at."
3,000 hits later, Brett ponders plans for retiring from Royals
The Jayhawks will finish their fall season on Oct. 11, when they play Johnson County Community College and the Washburn Ichabods at Jayhawk Field.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — George Brett almost called it quits more than 100 hits shy of the milestone.
The Associated Press
Now that the Kansas City Royals' star has his 3,000 hits, the big question is how much longer he'll play.
"I don't know," Brett, 39, said after he got four hits in his first four at-bats against the California Angels on Wednesday night to become the 18th major leaguer to reach the 3,000-hit plateau. "I want to enjoy this for a while and go back to Kansas City."
Was he concerned that fans in Kansas City, Mo., where the Royals play on the final weekend of the season, didn't get to cheer the milestone at a home game?
"If the people there are upset that I
He'll take whatever bows are appropriate this weekend, but it won't get out of hand, Brett said. And regardless of fan reaction, there will be no farewell tour next season.
"I'm not going to play the game and make a circle out of it," he said. "It's been too good a game to make a mockery of. I'm going to play as long as I feel I can contribute and help the team win."
got the hit out here, then they're not really true fans," he said after arriving yesterday at Anaheim Stadium. "And obviously, the 19,000 people here last night didn't feel like I cheated them."
Discouraged earlier this season when he was hitting 150 and the Royals lost 16 of their first 17 games, Brett considered retiring right then and there. But Kansas City manager Hal
McRae, among others, talked him out of it.
"I know I'm not the player I was five years ago or 10 years ago," Brett said, "I still think I can help this team win some games, and I still think I can play better than most players. But at the same time, I don't want to go out there and embarrass myself. And once I feel that I'm embarrassing myself, then it's time to quit."
The Royals have a $2.5 million option on Brett's contract for next season, with $1 million buyout, but they haven't indicated their plans.
"I've always said I'm not going to play the game of baseball for money," Brett said. "I've always said I'm not going to play the game of baseball if I don't have fun."
Magic signs record $14.6 million deal
The Associated Press
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Magic Johnson signed a $14.6 million, one-year contract extension with the Los Angeles Lakers yesterday, the largest single-season salary in team sports.
A source, speaking on the condition that he not be identified, said the deal guaranteed Johnson $19.6 million through the end of the 1994-95 season. Johnson, who on Tuesday announced he was returning following a one-year layoff, already was under contract for this season and 1993-94 at $2.5 million per year.
The Lakers released a statement yesterday announcing the extension but gave no details of the dollar amount.
Johnson, 33, retired on Nov. 7, 1991, after he was informed he was HIV positive, but came back to play for the gold medal-winning U.S. basketball team at the Barcelona Olympics.
His one-year salary in 1994-95 surpasses the $9.4 million average that Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks would earn under an extension he signed last November for the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons.
Ewing's extension, when added to his current contract, guaranteed him
$33 million during six years, or an average of $5.5 million per year. Shaquille O'Neal, this year's No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, signed with the Orlando Magic for $40 million during seven years, or an average of $5.7 million per year.
Johnson would average about $6.5 million a year.
Ryne Sandberg of the Chicago Cubs has the largest contract in baseball at $28.4 million for four years, an average of $7.1 per year.
NBA rules do not allow a contract extension if the existing contract goes through a person's 35th year unless there are two years left on the current deal. A third year can always be added.
Johnson expects to play 50-60 games this season, but his future beyond that is uncertain. He announced his return to the Lakers nearly 11 months after abruptly retiring because he had contracted the virus that causes AIDS.
"This extension is something that (Lakers owner) Dr. Jerry) Buss said he would do long ago, but Earvin didn't want to announce it until after he made his decision whether or not to play." Lakers general manage
Jerry West said in the statement, "The extension has nothing to do with Tuesday's announcement and is something that we were going to do even if he didn't come back to play. It's just another example why Dr. Buss is the best owner in professional sports."
Johnson said he would be examined often by doctors who admit they don't know what the grind of professional basketball would do to a man with Johnson's medical condition.
“It's time to go back to work. It's time to have some fun,” Johnson said when he announced his return. “I think the positives outweigh all the risks. That's not saying there are no risks because life itself is a risk. But being out there, I won't be worried about that. If I was concerned about that, I'd still be retired.”
Johnson stunned the nation and basketball fans worldwide when he revealed his illness, apparently ending a 12-year NBA career that included five championships with the Lakers.
Johnson is the NBA's career leader in assists with 9,921 and was the league's MVP in 1887, 1898 and 1900.
NCAA sticks Syracuse with two-year probation
The Associated Press
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Syracuse University's basketball program, a perennial powerhouse, was placed on a two-year probation by the NCAA yesterday and banned from postseason play for the 1992-93 season because of widespread recruiting violations.
In its 24-page ruling, the NCAA Committee on Infractions put Syracuse's athletic program on two years' probation for violations in men's and women's basketball, football, wrestling and men's lacrosse.
Other sanctions against the basketball program included a reduction in scholarships, reductions of off-campus recruiting visits by coaches and expense-paid visits by recruits to Syracuse.
There were repeated and conscious efforts by representatives of the university's athletic interests to gain recruiting and competitive advantages for the men's basketball program, the committee determined.
However, the committee stopped short of banning Syracuse from television appearances and declined to impose other sanctions against the school, citing the university's cooperation with the probe.
No penalties were assessed against football and women's basketball because of the limited nature of the infractions by those programs.
The wrestling and lacrosse programs each face a reduction in the number of scholarships awarded by the school because both programs
exceeded their financial aid limits for several years.
The university admitted a lack of institutional control over the disbursement of financial aid by the men's basketball program and lacrosse and wrestling programs.
Syracuse acknowledged at least 15 rules violations involving its men's basketball program following a year-long investigation. The violations were first brought to light by *The Syracuse Post-Standard* in an investigative series published in December 1990.
Among the violations, which the university termed minor, it was reported that boosters gave players cash, free meals, legal advice and other benefits.
The Big Eight Conference made scheduling changes in the past week that included moving the Kansas-Missouri game, a 101-year old tradition.
Tim Allen, associate commissioner of the conference, said that a scheduling change for 1993 and 1994 was requested by three Big Eight schools.
The Kansas-Missouri football game, traditionally the last game of the season for both teams, will be the first conference game in 1993 and 1994.
Big Eight changes schedule
He would not say which three made the requests but did say what each institution wanted.
By David Bartkowski
Kansan sportswriter
Season-ending KU-Missouri football game moved to beginning of conference matchups
Allen said another school wanted relief from playing two tough opponents in a row.
The third school requested that all Big Eight teams play one home and one away game in their last two conference games, he said.
Allen said moving the Kansas-Missouri game to the beginning of the conference schedule also might help improve attendance at the game.
"There's achance for better weather in October than late November," he said. "And there's the potential for
"One of the institutions played Oklahoma, Colorado and Nebraska back-to-back for several years in a row," he said. "They wanted relief from that."
better team records early in the season."
But Kansas and Missouri did not specifically request that their game be moved to the front of the schedule, Allen said.
He said the conference now was making its schedules two years in advance instead of the normal five because of the changing strengths of conference opponents.
Allen said the complaints he received from conference schools about scheduling did not bother him personally because he wanted all the schools to have strong programs, a factor that might lead to more schedule complaints.
"My ultimate goal would be that everyone one of them would complain," he said.
Runners optimistic about invitational meet
By David Bartkoski Kansan sportswriter
Kansan sportswriter
The Kansas men's and women's cross country teams hit the trail at 7 a.m. today to participate in the Nike Invitational in Minneapolis tomorrow.
Coach Gary Schwartz said that tomorrow's meet would serve as an evaluation of the team's progress.
"I'm interested to see how our people will react to the race," he said. "I'll be looking at who's going to emerge as the leaders on our team. It will be good to see how everything shapes up in terms of the first runner to the last."
Schwartz said Kansas did not have a specific team plan to score points at the meet.
"in here is a strategy, it' s to get four runners as close to the lead runner as possible," he said. "Then you need to have the lead runner do as well as possible."
Senior Julia Saul, the women's team captain, won the Jayhawk Invitational Sept. 12 in Lawrence and placed third at the Minnesota Invitational last year.
She said other teams at the meet might have a different idea than they did last year about the Kansas women's squad, which finished second at Minnesota in 1991.
"We showed a lot of people last year that we had talent on this team," she said. "There are going to be a lot of teams at the meet , and people will know that Kansas is one of them."
Kansas is sending eight eighth and nine men to the race in accordance with Big Eight travel regulations, Schwartz
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Danaen stoll schau
Kansan staff photo
The men's squad will feature seniors Ladd McClain, Jason Teal and Alec Bolten. All three missed the Jayhawk Invitational because of injury or illness.
Members of the Kansas Women's cross country team train for this weekend's Nike invitational in Minneapolis.
Junior Bobby Palmer, who finished fourth on the team and 21st overall in the Jayhawk Invitational, also will run tomorrow.
Palmer predicted that members of the men's team would do well in Minnesota.
"I think we're hot," he said. "We'll probably finish close together."