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Monday, November 9, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
SportsMonday
Fambrough says football and politics are a lot alike
By ELAINE SUNG
Special to the Kansan
Don Fambrough sat under his KU Hall of Fame portrait at home, talking about Kansas football, although he has not been to a Kansas football game since 1982.
He keeps up with the team by watching tapes of the games at home.
"Someday, I'll start going back. But as an ex-coach, I feel the memories and it still hurts," he said.
"I wouldn't take anything for the years I spent coaching football. There were some games I'd like to do over. There were some good times, and then some bad times, but I wouldn't trade it," he said.
On his right hand is a 1981 Hall of Fame Bowl ring, on his left, a 1948 Orange Bowl ring. But he ignored the past, and spoke mainly of the current KU football program, jabbing the air with his forefinger as he emphasized each point.
"I will die believing that someday we'll have a good football program at KU. I always felt that it can be done.
"It's going to take total commitment from the top to the bottom. The administration has to stand behind the coach, I don't think we have that commitment right now. It's not complete.
"It's tough coaching at KU. When you have the reputation and the history behind you, it makes it easy. And a coach can't do it alone, and they can't keep changing coaches, which is the easy way out, but it won't solve the problem."
Fambrough, 65, said he did not try to give advice to Coach Bob Valesente and said he understood what Valesente was going through.
He said he had been there before, having been the only man to return to his parents.
Fambrough, a KU graduate, got his first head coach training at Kansas in 1971. He resigned with a year left on his contract in 1974 after the
Jayhawks had their third 4-7 season in four years. He said he knew his contract would not be renewed.
He returned in 1979 after his predecessor, Bud Moore, was fired in 1978. Fambrough was fired in 1982, ending his coaching career.
He then turned his attention to politics, working for the last four years as a field representative for Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole.
Fambrough travels throughout Kansas, attending functions and meeting with various groups on behalf of Dole.
The transition from coaching college football to politics is not as strange as some people think, Fambrough said.
"In both jobs, it pretty much boils down to working with people. I'm not too much involved with politics, just the government part," he said. "I had to make a decision whether to stay in coaching, and I thought I'd try something different."
Fambrough said he planned on retiring sometime next year. He said he would not be working on Dole's 1988 presidential campaign as an employee, but he wasn't anticipating going back to coaching football either.
"Football is my life. I always looked forward to working on the field and in the office, coaching was so much fun," he said. "I'll always miss it, but I don't think anything like another coaching job will happen."
Coaching is what Fambrough has been doing since he played in the 1948 Orange Bowl game, Kansas' first bowl game. He was assistant coach for 19 years at KU, and left only for a three-year stint as assistant coach at East Texas State and one year at Wichita State.
The Jayhawks finished 4-7 in Fam-
brough's first two seasons as coach,
but in 1973, he led them to a 7-4
season and a Liberty Bowl appeara-
tion.
After resigning his coaching posi
tion in 1974, Fambrough stayed on at the University as assistant director of the Williams Fund. When Coach Bud Moore was fired in 1978, administrators called Fambrough, who was on the selection committee, and asked him if he wanted the job.
"I thought about it for 10 seconds and that was it," he said. "I guess I didn't have coaching out of my system.
"I thought my coaching days were over the first time. I sure didn't anticipate going back to coaching for a second time."
But in 1979 Fambrough did go back, this time for another four years.
The Jayhawks had a 3-8 record in 1979 and 5-2 in 1980. Things turned around in 1981, when Fambrough led the team to a Hall of Fame Bowl appearance that capped off a 8-4 regular season.
In 1982, however, the team finished 2-7-2, and Fambrough was fired in a departure marked by a cloud of controversy when the NCAA announced it would begin investigations at KU for alleged recruiting violations.
Fambrough said he did not want to talk about the situation, but Frank Seurer, who played under Fambrough for three years at KU and is now a quarterback with the Kansas City Chiefs, defended him.
"I think the controversy shocked a lot of people, but it had nothing to do with him." Seurer said. "When he got fired, we were supposed to do well that season, but I think he got the brunt end of it. It wasn't his fault."
Seurer said he remembered that FKK had him calm down and gerd feel comfortable.
"He finds a way to bring out the best in you. He doesn't try to control you, and he showed you respect," he said.
Fambrough respects not only the players he coached, but the entire football program as well.
Don Fambrough, Kansas football coach from 1971 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1982, has not been to a Kansas football game since he coached his last game in 1982. He still maintains an interest in the Jayhawks and watches the games on video tape at home.
Ex-football coach says success costs
Staff writer
By ROBERT WHITMAN
Bud Moore, Kansas football coach from 1975 to 1978, now owns a wholesale beer distributorship in Pensacola, Fla.
"I'm not a miracle worker," Moore said at the time.
Based on his first 16 games as the Jayhawk football coach, Moore could have been perceived as just that — a miracle worker, who came to Kansas after three years as an assistant coach. "Bear" Bryant at Alabama. Moore was 11-5 in that span, which reached four games into the 1976 season.
Moore, who said that he still follows the KU football team through scores in the newspaper and that he wished the football program well, was named Big Eight Conference coach of the year following the 1975 season. He led the Jayhawks to a 7-4 record and Sun Bowl berth. He was runner-up to Woody Hayes for the national coach-of-the-year award given by the American Football Writers Association.
But his last three years were marked with diminishing success. After a 6-5 season in 1976, Moore's teams were 4-17-1 combined in 1977 and 1978.
Today, Moore owns Gator Distributors, a wholesale beer distributorship in Pensacola, Fla., a city of about 60,000 at the western tip of the Florida panhandle.
Moore said he had owned the company for eight years. He said he had a farm in Walton County, about 75 miles from Pensacola, where he raised Tennessee Walking Horses and bird dogs.
Moore said he attended many Alabama football games and contributed money to the school's athletic program. He said financial support and patience were the keys to building a good football program.
"That's about all you can do nowadays," Moore said, citing NCAA regulations. "I just try and give the coaches moral support as well as financial support."
Moore played for Bryant at Alabama from 1958-1960. Coaching was the only work Moore did after graduating from Alabama in 1961 with a bachelor's degree in physical education.
winning football programs as a player and coach, Moore said, "I got a group of people (at Kansas) who had never had a winner, and at the same time, they were telling me how to be a winner. The major problem is they wanted immediate success for nothing, and it doesn't happen that way.
Citing the fact that he had been in
Moore installed the wishbone offense with Nolan Cromwell at quarterback. Cromwell, who Moore said was the "finest athlete I ever coached, without question." rushed for a
He was hired as Kansas football coach on Dec. 17, 1974, two weeks after Don Fambrough resigned in the wake of a 4-7 season.
Kansas opened the 1976 season with four victories over non-conference foes Oregon State, Washington State, Kentucky and Wisconsin.
school-record 294 yards against Oregon State, the Jayhawks' third game of the year.
Kansas won only two of its last seven games in 1976. Cromwell was injured in the sixth game of the season, against Oklahoma.
"The biggest problem with KU is that the people were spoiled by our early success," Moore said. "Kansas has never been able to put their money where their mouth is. Until they do, they'll be mediocre in football."
Gottfried flew away and left KU grounded
Staff writer
By MIKE CONSIDINE
Kansas football under Mike Gottfred conjures images of the "Kansas Air Force" and a 1984 victory over Oklahoma. His most notable achievement, however, may have been that his teams were consistently competitive.
Gottfried, 42, became Kansas' 33rd football coach Dec. 27, 1982. He left to assume the same position at the University of Pittsburgh after the 1985 season. In between, he compiled a 15-18 record and was voted The Associated Press Big Eight Conference Coach of the Year in 1984.
"His teams were consistent," senior tackle Jim Davis said. "His players respected him, and he was a good motivator."
Under Gottfried, Pittsburgh was 5-51 last season and is currently 6-3. He has also coached at Cincinnati and Murray State and has a lifetime record of 60-45-3.
"Mike is an excellent football coach in all facets of the game."
Gottfried could not be reached for comment.
Valezene was hired from the Baltimore Colts to serve as offensive coordinator and was Gottfried's chief assistant in 1844 and 1855. Valezene also had worked with Gottfried at Cincinnati a decade earlier.
Gotfried's first team at KU finished 4-1 overall, and 2-5 in the Big Eight for sixth place. The 1983 team defeated highly regarded Southern
Cal 26-20 and demolished Kansas State 31-3.
"He was in the process of building a program and obviously made a lot of progress," said Valesente. "He brought in an awful lot of junior college players and had a lot of undergraduates coming through the ranks. One of the biggest ingredients was Mike Norseth."
With junior college transfer Norseth at quarterback and a fleet of talented receivers, the offense became known as the Kansas Air Force. The 1984 team posted a 5-6-1 overall record and cracked the first division of the Big Eight with a 4-3 mark.
The Jayhawks, who finished fourth in the league, stunned second-ranked Oklahoma 28-11 Oct. 27. It was the first Kansas victory over the Sooners in nine years.
The Kansas Air Force became the Bomb Squad in 1896.
Eight players were found academically ineligible before the opening game, but Kansas opened the season with a 3-0 record and was ranked 20th by United Press International. The Jayhawks' only non-conference loss was to fourth-ranked Florida State.
"We had one of the top offenses in the nation," Davis said. "Then all of a sudden we had a lot of injuries and things started going downhill."
Gottfried's last team finished 6-6 overall and sixth in the league.
He left for Pittsburgh in the midst of the 1966 recruiting season.
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