University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, November 18, 1987
Sports
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Top recruit chooses MU over Kansas
By DARRIN STINEMAN
After failing to sign any high school basketball prospects during the first six days of the early period for signing national letters of intent, Kansas needed something good to happen yesterday, the final day of the period.
Instead, something terrible happened.
Anthony Peeler, the nation's top off-guard according to Van Coleman's Recruiter's Cage Newsletter, will conference foe Missouri ower Eagans.
Peeler, a 6-foot-4 senior at Paseo High School in Kansas City, Mo., had harried his choices to Missouri, Kansas and Maryland before signing the letter yesterday morning before an assembly at his school.
The signing was particularly painful for Kansas, because conches Larry Brown and Alvin Gentry had spoken with Peeler Sunday. Peeler said he planned to sign with Kansas, Gentry said.
"I'm crushed," Gentry said. "It's a situation where we've been watching him since he was a ninth-grader. I thought he really liked our program and our style of play.
"Like we say in recruiting, unless you have a guy's national letter of intent signed and in your hand, you don't have him. There are no absolutes."
Peeler, who averaged 23 points and 14 rebounds a game as a junior, said last week he wanted to stay close to home so that his parents could see him play. Although Columbia is about three times farther from Kansas City than Lawrence, apparently Peeler doesn't mind the extra drive.
Kansas has had trouble this fall attracting players from across the country, but losing someone who lives less than an hour away was a big blow to this year's recruiting. Gentry said.
"It's upstating when you have a kid like Anthony Peeler that you don't end up signing," he said. "You really feel that if you're going to have the
type of program you want to have, you've got to be able to get the kids in your area."
Losing Peeler was the third major setback for Kansas during the early signing period. Two players who had shown interest in Kansas, Chucky Sproiling and Derrick Daniels, signed with other teams last Wednesday, the first day of the period. Sproiling, who is rated as the country's No. 5 off-board by Coleman's publication, signed with St. John's, and Daniels, rated as the No. 6 point guard, signed with Houston.
At a press conference last week, Brown said some prospects Kansas was looking at were being told by competing coaches that Brown was leaving Kansas, which he vehemently denied. Gentry said that may have swayed Peeler away from Kansas.
Despite the lack of success so far for Kansas this recruiting season, Gentry said he wasn't panicking.
said. "We're going to have a successful season, and we will be very visible with national TV exposure. The program is going to survive, and I think we will always have a good program here."
"I think there are still enough good players out there that we can still build a team," he said.
While Kansas is struggling to stay alive in the recruiting wars, other states, such as Georgetown, Syracuse and Kentucky, are making a killing.
Alonzo Mourning, a 6-foot-10 center who is considered by most basketball publications as the nation's top overall prospect, committed to Georgetown on Monday. Kentucky has commitments from Shawn Kemp, rated best power forward, and Chris Mills, rated as the No. 2 quick forward.
Syracuse has commitments from a bevy of high school talent. The Orangemen have signed five recruits in the early period, most recently Tony Scott, a 6-8 forward from Rochester, N.Y. They were expected to sign Richard Manning, a 6-10 center from North Highlands, Calif.
Blue Jays' Bell named American League MVP
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — George Bell of the Toronto Blue Jays became the first member of a Canadian team to win the American League Most Valuable Player award yesterday, beating Alan Trammell of the Detroit Tigers.
Bell, also the first Dominican to be named MVP, beat the Tigers' shortstop by 21 points, getting 323 points to Trammell's 311 in voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
For winning, Bell will receive a $50,000 bonus from the Blue Jays. The outfielder's base salary for 1987 was $1,285,000.
Two association members in each of the 14 AL cities were eligible to vote. Bell received 16 first-place votes and Trammell 12.
Minnesota outfielder Kirby Puckett was third in the voting with 201 points, followed by Boston's Dwight Evans and Milwaukee's Paul Moli-
tor.
Before Bell's victory, former Montreal Expos outfielder Andre Dawson came the closest as a member of a Canadian-based team to win MVP honors when he won the distant second to Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1981 voting.
"I'm very happy," Bell said by telephone from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. "Because when you win the MVP, everything shows that you've worked hard. That you're a winner. It's one of the greatest things that's happen to me in the last three years."
Bell's outstanding season was somewhat tarnished by a damaging slump in the final weeks of the season and Detroit for first place in the AL East.
Bell struggled through a 2-for-26 finish as the Tigers swiped the blue
See BELL, p. 14, col. 1
Colorado sophomore halfback J.J. Flannigan, rated one of the nation's top ten backs his senior year of high school and touted as a possible Heisman Trophy candidate, is the type of athlete Colorado has been able to attract since its resurgence under Coach Bill McCartney.
Buffalo football coach finds friends after bringing success to program
By CRAIG ANDERSON
Colorado football coach Bill McCARTney has seen the ups and downs of the Buffalo program, and he's realized he has many more friends and supporters when his teams are winning.
"It's amazing how many people came out of the woodwork when we started winning some games," he said. "People I had never seen before were suddenly big supporters of Colorado football."
When McCartney took over the Colorado football program in 1982, the only thing big about it was its problems. Former coach Chuck Fairbairns had left the team mired in academic problems and under NCAA probation.
When McCartney inherited the Buffalo program, one of his first actions was to increase the academic support system for athletes. During Fairbanks' three-year stay at Boulder, he had only one academic adviser to counsel the entire team. Since then, McCartney has increased the academic counseling staff to seven full-time personnel.
"Colorado is a very tough school academically," he said. "I knew if we couldn't keep working with the athletes, we would always have eligibility problem."
Colorado may have improved the academic aspect of its football program almost immediately, but success on the field was a little harder to find. McCartney's first three teams had records of 2-8-1, 4-7 and 1-10.
"There was a lot of frustration involved in those first three years," he said. "I know that the administration at CU reviewed my contract, but I never was approached about being fired. I don't know that I felt an more pressure than I usually did because I was concentrating so much on building the program."
victories as he would have liked in those three bleak years, but he was building the foundation of the future successful program. Colorado had only 73 scholarship players in McCartney's first year at Boulder.
Despite the low number of players, McCartney redshifted all but three of the members of the first freshman class he recruited. McCartney figured that was the only way progress could be made.
"The way the NCAA rules are now, there is no shortcut to building up to the 95 scholarship level," he said. "It just takes time, and redshirting was the best way to build up."
In 1983, many of the freshmen that had redshirted the season before were thrust into extensive playing time. McCartney said the young players weren't ready for prime time, but he played them partly because he didn't have many upperclassmen and partly because he wanted to give them experience for future years.
McCartney didn't get as many
Colorado's breakthrough season came in 1985. McCartney's fourth year at the school. The Buffaloes recorded a 7-5 record and went to the Freedom Bowl, losing 20-17 to Washington.
Last season, Colorado finished with a 6-1 record and lost to Baylor 21-9 in the Bluebonnet Bowl. The game marked the first time in 14 years that the Buffaloes had gone to bowl games in two consecutive seasons.
Even though Colorado had registered some success in the win-loss column, the effects were more far-reaching than that. The Buffaloes' attendance at Folsom Field increased from an average of 38,300 in 1984 to 44,600 in 1986. This season, Colorado is averaging 43,337 a game.
"Attendance jumped as soon as we had winning seasons," McCarthy said. "There's no question that people support a winner."
This season, Colorado has continued its winning ways. The Buffaloes currently have a 6-12 record and are among the candidates being considered to play in the All-American Bowl. McCartney said he and his coaching staff would have to work hard to continue any consistency they had gained in the past few years.
McCartney said the academic standards and recruiting at Colorado were difficult. Colorado has a reputation as one of the top academic institutions in the Big Eight Conference. And because of the sparse population of the state of Colorado, McCartney and his staff have to look elsewhere to sign many of their freshmen recruits.
Colorado recruits the states of Texas and California heavily. With the resources Colorado has, he will have to choose to his recruits carefully.
"There is no curriculum at this university to nurture students along," he said. "We have a unique problem here. We have to be absolutely convinced that the kids we recruit are achievers. We can't afford to have any mistakes."
McCartney said the distance involved when recruiting in Texas and California had its big disadvantages.
"We're going against 1,000 miles of unfamiliarity," he said. "When we go into a kid's house they usually don't know much about the Colorado football program. It's an obstacle we have to overcome."
In the past couple of years, the Buffaloes have done well to attract some of the most highly regarded high school players in the country. The recent winning records and bowl bids have made it easier for McCartney to recruit top athletes.
Starting freshman tight end George Hemingway was named a second-team high school All-
Bird exits game with ankle injury
See BUFFALOES, p. 14, col. 1
The Associated Press
RICHFIELD, Ohio — Boston Celtics superstar Larry Baird limped off the court with injuries to both ankles in the second quarter of an NBA game against the Cleveland Cavaliers last night.
The extent of the injuries will not be known until today.
The Celtics already are playing without forward Kevin McHale and center Bill Walton, both on the injury list with foot problems.
Bird, a three-time NBA Most Valuable Player, tested the ankles in the first 24 seconds of the third quarter, then left the game for good. He finished with 14 points, 18 under his average as the Celtics lost for the first time in seven games. 109-88.
Basketball prospect won't sign today, coach says
Bv a Kansan reporter
Kareemaa Williams of Wichita Southeast High School, one of the top 10 female basketball prospects in the nation, apparently will not sign a national letter of intent today, the last day of the early signing period.
Wichita Southeast girls' basketball coach Doug Kinley said, "Anything can happen, but I don't believe she will sign during the early signing period. I had a conversation with her (yesterday) on the subject. She is a 17-year-old girl, and it is a woman's preoperative to change her mind."
Williams is being recruited by Williams, according to the Midwest/National Girls' Basketball Newsletter. Williams was at Wichita Spectacular last week.
He said that Williams, a 6-foot forward, was considering Kansas along with Clemson, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. He said Williams had not made her official visit to Kansas and had visited only Clemson.
However, Kinley said Williams had made numerous unofficial visits to Kansas. He said she had attended summer basketball camps conducted by Kansas women's basketball coach Marian Washington at Allen Field House and had played as a member of the Wichita Southeast team that won the last two Kansas 6A state championships, played at the field house.
Cross country team looking ahead
By MIKE CONSIDINE
Staff writer
The 1987 cross country season ended early for the Kansas men's and women's teams, but optimism for next year is high with the majority of both squads returning.
The men placed fifth in last Saturday's National Collegiate Athletic Association District V meet and were well out of contention for one of the district's two national-qualifying bids.
Although Watche and Heffernan will return, Timmons will not. The
"I'm really pleased for them, but the same time I'm disappointed that Craig Watcke and Steve Heffernan didn't qualify," Coach Bob Timmons said. "But the team is young and they're all back, so we'll have a good nucleus for next year."
meet was the last of his 22-year career as men's cross county coach at Kansas.
"Right now, it's just hard to realize the season has ended," Timmons said.
The Jayhawks were aiming for a Big Eight Conference title and qualifying for the NCAA meet, but lacked the depth to compete with conference champion Iowa State and district champion Colorado.
Individually, Watkee missed qualifying for the national meet by 3.7 seconds. Oklahoma's Noel Berkeley passed him at the end of the race and grabbed the final qualifying spot.
"He was always close," Watcke said. "On the final hall, he was sitting right behind me."
Watke placed fifth in the district and 11th in the conference. Heffernan
was ninth in both meets.
"I think we had a good season, considering that we were a young group." Heffernan said. "We lost some key people (injured junior Mike Spielman and freshman Matt Peterson) who would have helped along the way."
Three key injuries prevented the women from sending a team to district competition. Their year ended in solid form played in the Big Eight Conference meet.
The team began the year with the minimum seven members. The top runner, freshman Susan MacLean, never recovered from a mid-October quadricep injury. Sophomore Terri Grzybowski and freshman Tina Saulsbury were also hampered by injuries.
Ohio State draws criticism over firing of football coach
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — One day after he was fired as Ohio State's football coach, Earle Bruce said yesterday that he had been supported and had no plans to change profession.
"I'm a coach. I'm a daggone fine football coach. And I love to coach," he said. "I'm going to coach someplace . . . I want to coach for five, six, eight more years. And I think I've got it in me because I love to coach. I love the on-the-field coaching, and I don't mind the other things that go with it."
Bruce, 56, was fired Monday by Ohio State President Edward Jennings after three consecutive losses that dropped his team's record to 5-4.1 The school's athletic director said he'd be on the losing end.
“There’s no question we had a winning program for a number of years under Coach Bruce’s leadership, and that this is not a win-lose type of situation.” Jennings said. “This was a judgmental call that it was best to make a change at this stage.”
Jennings, who found himself at the center of the controversy over Bruce's dismissal and Bay's departure, refused to discuss his reasons.
Bruce, who compiled an 80-26-1 record in nine seasons, continued preparations for
Saturday's season-ending game at Michigan. He said he remained mystified by the week's events.
"When I came to Ohio State, I knew how Woody Hayes was treated here," Bruce said on the weekly Big Ten coaches teleconference. "Everyone thinks he was treated great. But I was here when he had the bad seasons. I saw what happened to him. I saw the team go down and hit it around the stadium, and I saw them hanging in him effigy at the pep rallies for homecoming. I saw all the things that happened to Coach Hayes."
Despite that, Bruce said he took the job in
1979 because he loved the school and trusted and believed in the men for whom he worked. But he said that was shadowed by his firing on Monday afternoon.
"They can (fire me)." Bruce said, "but the only thing I would say is, the way it's been done, the way it's been handled. . . it’s not the way Ohio State has done things. I’ve always thought that we were a class operation."
Michigan coach Bo Schembeckler said, "As a guy who worries about where we are going (in college athletics), this doesn't give us any confidence that all athletics are not because of athletic directors
and coaches. Some are because of administrators who really don't know what it's all about."
Carl Miller, president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, said in a statement, "While the current scene in college athletics is geared to programs increasing their integrity instead of a 'win-at-all-costs philosophy', it is rather dismaying to see a clean program like that at Ohio State, headed by Rick Bay and Earle Bruce, cut off like this. Many people don't realize that the day of the dynasties in college football are over."