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University Daily Kansan, October 26, 1982
Opinion
'Cat fans spoil victory
The scoreboard read K-State 38, KU 7.
But thanks to a wild horde of K-State fans, the Wildcat team has lost the prestige usually gained with victory over its intrastate rival
Members of the KU Marching Band were subjected to a fusillade of fruit, bottles, toilet paper and tennis balls every time the Wildcats scored last weekend.
Three band members were jumped by some K-State fans who tried to rip off their uniforms. Other fans stole a flag used in the half-time show and one member's hat.
That member, Eyra Webb, Kansas City, Mo., sophomore, tripped over the trailer hitch of a mobile home, and received a leg injury while chasing the person who stole the hat. She'll be walking with the aid of crutches for a while.
After the game, the KU cheerleaders, caught in the crush of fans rushing to tear down the goal posts, were too afraid to walk to the equipment truck,
and were forced to change clothes in the open.
KU Band Director Robert Foster said the band was seated in a bad place — within reach of the K-State student body.
"We were supposed to be out of range," he said.
By the middle of the first quarter, two K-State policemen were stationed near the band. Band members also erected a makeshift fortress of folding chairs to keep the crowd back.
Webb said that the crowd was "rude, childish and asinine," and that she planned to send a letter of protest to K-State President Duane Acker.
Webb should not be alone in her protest. Chancellor Gene Budig should also file a protest with K-State President Duane Acker.
And even though Foster said the police did the best they could, Acker should investigate ways of beefing up crowd control and improving the seating arrangements for the band, in order to keep the rivalry a friendly one.
Athletics search committee can learn lesson from Lessig
It's time for some serious re-evaluating.
Jim Lessig announced Thursday that he would step down as athletic director at the University to become commissioner of the Mid-American Athletic Conference.
In the five-plus months Lessig was at KU, he did, in the aervilia, a helvina job. Being athletic director is a thankless job, although it does have its perks. The flood of complaining fans, budget-weary coaches and nosy reporters could get to the best of us.
Undoubtedly, Lessig's new position is a step up, and I congratulate him and wish all the
But to say I'm disillusioned would be an
TRACEE HAMILTON
understatement. The problem is not with Lessig—it's with the committee that selected him. I think it's time for the University to re-evaluate its criteria for selecting an athletic director.
The University of Kansas is in trouble, whether you want to believe it or not. A trip to Memorial Stadium on certain Saturday afternoons will testify to that fact. Colorful renditions of the activities of various athletes and coaches dot area papers at a disturbing rate. The rumor that Kansas may be facing a probation slap from the NCAA is coming closer and closer to reality. The boom could fall any day; that's part of the NCAA's method of punishment — leaving the victim in the dark until the last possible moment, and then, wham!
Finding an AD at this point will be difficult, to say the least. Athletic administration has undergone a transition in recent years, from being a place to stick ex-coaches and alumni/desk jockeys to a position for PR-minded business leaders. The problem is that there are peacocks at football scrimmages, our extrathelic directors' loyalty to the University just hasn't been there.
Kansas is a prime example. The turnover of athletic directors on the Hill has been staggering. It's a job that really requires longevity — and it's not just a job that's hard to even (a new wrinkle less added) the students.
Bob Marcum, former AD who's now in the same position at South Carolina, once told me that turnover was the very reason he had sought McFarland. Fambrough back as head coach of the Jahawk.
Marcum said, and I agree, that it's impossible to build a solid football program when the name plate on the office door changes every few years.
Of course, he said this a few months before he dropped his own personally monogrammed bombshell — an announcement that he was leaving the University.
Marcum is a typical example of the new breed of athletic director. He was a firm supporter of the college-athletics-is-a-money-making-business theory. He accomplished exactly what he wanted at Kansas; he helped build a winning football program, saw the Jayhawks to a bowl game, and the next day, the next DAY, mind you, he split.
Well, all this is ancient history now. Lesliy will be missed by the students, who for once felt as if the AD actually knew there was life past the confines of Parrott Athletic Center. But the alums won't miss him, I'd venture to guess, he had the disconcerting habit of being honest.
You have to admire his guts in telling a Kansas City Times reporter, in a kind way, to shove off. He'd had enough of the Times' biased reporting, and he dropped the gib PR act long enough to get an interview from Represent Agent yelling at the Colorado congressman, n'tice to see that your leaders are human.
Chancellor Gene A. Budig and the search committee have a big job — they need to find an athletic director who doesn't mind a little heat in the kitchen, and one who will feel more than a monetary tie to the University. An alum would be nice. It's unair to assume that Del Shankel never be available to drophole research and come running whenever an AD turns tail and runs.
Lessig's resume service is a perfect example of the ties that bind. He did his undergraduate and graduate work at Bowling Green, worked there as everything from assistant basketball coach to head coach, returning to the conference to which Bowling Green belongs. That's love of a university.
The new AD's first responsibility should be an honest reappraisal of the problems facing the University, including the cloud of probation. There needs to be some house-cleaning in the department, and that requires a full-time athletic director.
It seems strange to me that the committee didn't do more to help Mrs. Lessig find a job in the Lawrence area, and that no one found it odd that Lessig had not purchased a home after five months in town, and that he spent most of his time shutting back to Bowling Green.
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Finally, I would hope that the University and the search committee have learned a lesson from this five-month fiasco. KU's athletic department, unfortunately, needs a firm and ever-present hand, or rein, if you will. Let's find an athletic director who will feel at home in Kansas and at the University. And let's find one who sees the University as more than a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Find one who sees KU as the best place to be.
The University Daily Kankan (US$75-6490) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Flint Hall Lawrence, Kan. 6490, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The University Daily Kankan (US$75-6490) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Flint Hall Lawrence, Kan. 6490, Subscription fees for mail are $15 for six months or £7 for a year. Douglas County students can enter the online student activity fee: PRESMASTER. Send address changes to the University Daily Kankan (US$75-6490).
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Some people'll do anything for fame
Mankind is notorious for using different methods to reach the same result.
Some people have achieved their fame by becoming great actors, but others, like me, are trying to become famous by shaving. That's right, shaving.
Considering that many of us common males and females shave regularly, this method of acquiring fame might not sound very promising, however, on one occasion I witnessed a man wearing an emblem of great magnitude.
In order to fully appreciate this milestone, it is necessary for the reader to backtrack with me to the anniversary of my 16th birthday, when I received my first electric razor.
For some unknown reason (probably heredity or my adolescent cycle), shaving didn't become a part of my life until a year later. Even then, the shaver was turned on only sporadically, and that allowed to sharer away the massive growth of peach tzus, which distributed itself in dense patches on my face.
I thought that a five o'clock shadow had something to do with ancient Egyptian sandals.
At first, shaving was a joy. I was doing what real men did. But, in time, the act became rather routine until finally, it became a genuine pain in the face. That when I decided to grow a beard.
Many famous men let their facial hairs grow long. Groucho Marx had a nice moustache, and he made people laugh. Karl Marx grew a beard, and made people in the free world laugh nervously.
And me? Well, after a long two week's growth, my beard looked horrendous. I have come to accept that there are certain biological functions beyond my control. My feeble attempt at whiskers looked like something that Genghis Khan would have mutilated.
So, possibly in order to save face, I shaved the other night. After all, there are famous men who shave all the time.
Take Ronald Reagan, for example. He presides over our whole country, and he shaves everything but the defense budget. Leonid Breznev shaves every part of his facial growth but his bushy eyebrows. (They are estimated to weigh two pounds apiece. It has been suggested that if Leonid would shave those eyebrows, it would take a load off his mind.)
HAL KLOPPER
Richard Nixon shoved every day, and he received a full pardon.
I don't mean to sound chauvinistic, but it seems that a woman doesn't get the kind of recognition a man does for shaving. The female shaver just doesn't have the fame that a clean-shaven male does unless, of course, you happen to be Renee Richards.
This shave meant a lot to me. But I didn't want to use my traditionally trusty electric razor. Oh no, I was going to stick my chin out for this one. I was using a manual razor, a story to be passed on to future generations.
I figured that if Johnny Carson can make $7 million a year for shaving, then I might be able to reach fame and glory, too.
With this in mind and on skin, I used a Gillette double-blade razor — a manual shaver — for the first time in my life.
When it comes to shaving, there are many dangers involved. I couldn't stop thinking of the scene in "Chinatown" where Jack Nicholson gets one of his nostrils sliced open with a knife.
be unable to leave yourlose that's.
Another factor to consider was that the razor belonged to my roommate, which brought up the fear of contracting athlete's face.
Frankly, I was scared — so scared that my hairs stood on end (which eventually provided for a closer shave). But I gained confidence with my new hairstyle. After the session I had finished the historic shaving process.
The accomplishment left me feeling like a new man, even more of a man. But I wasn't sure whether I really was or not, so I called KU Information.
KU Information has an answer for everything.
My roommate (the owner of the razor) once called up to ask how the candy coating was put on an M & M. I had called on a previous occasion to find out the name of the girl who lived down the hall from us.
This time, though, I asked, "Am I more of a man for shaving with a safety razor as opposed to a razor?"
The lady replied, "Not at all. No. It's dangerous as hell if you're not good at it. You take it easy, and don't cut yourself."
I was shattered. Shadoohee. Today, I'm torn between growing a beard and shaving regularly.
There is a lesson to be learned from this, Whiskers don't necessarily mean fame, and neither does a clean-shaven face. After all is said and done, I'm still the same person — with or without a beard. It's becoming obvious that a need needs to be rich before he becomes famous.
Maybe I'll buy a very expensive razor.
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Horror films have a heritage of 'schlock'
This is in response to Vince Hess's Oct. 15 review; all of the films he mentions are "school art." They exploit the terms of motiveless performance in a melodrama, mordela drama in order to manipulate audiences.
This may seem a truism, but it follows a particular logic. The films are aimed at bored, youthful audiences, and the movies give them a pleasant sensation of movement. The films also express a certain alright — that life does not merely go on, but that things are happening. And the audience is likely to feel that they may feel themselves lucky that it is not being mutilated by pitchforks and hatchets.
As for Hitchcock disapproving of these films on aesthetic grounds, I doubt it. Hitchcock was a better craftsman than those young filmmakers, but his films were just as facile and melodramatic. Hitchcock made little attempt to understand murderer in his films. For a film that would ground gripping Bates in "Psycho" (loosely based on the Ed Gein case in Wisconsin) is exploited only to shock audiences out of their anaphy. It is true that movies like "Friday the 13th" and "Last House on the Left" are more "sortid" than Hitchcock's. But this element can perhaps be ironically enhanced; realist fiction of William Faulkner or the sensational stories of James Hadley Chase.
The fallacy in all of these films is not so much what they depict, but what they do not. Homicide, for its own sake, has become an established condition in Western society since the murders of Jack the Ripper horrified the civilized world toward the end of the last century. The Ripper murdered because of alienation and hatred, not for money. And the same homicidal pattern can be applied to such otherwise disparate figures as Charles Manson, R.H. Holmes, the Tacus Ripper and the publicity-seeking Zotiae.
Lastly, Hess argued that these recent films cause us to identify with the murderer. I have to
disagree with this. In Penn's "Bonne and Clyde," we identify with the killers because they're attractive and seem purposive. In "Hallowen" and "Friday the 13th," the murderers are malevolent boygemen, perhaps the spirits of "unpopular creeps" to out get back on the fun-loving kids. And it is when the killer is more aggressive than the twisted biped boy — that the films discount the problem of senseless homicide in our century. The behavior of the killer in "Hallowen," for example, is unqualified and without perspective. And reduced to a "aop" formulation, the killer is more like a tiresome chaperone at a teen-ager's New Year's party who rings the police when the music is too loud than a man possessed by a demon that needs to be taken into account.
Dale Ewing Overland Park graduate student
K-State jokes no issue
To the Editor:
. . . And just as I was preparing to mail my letter to the editor praising this year's Kansan and its staff, along comes Lisa Gutierrez. Who is she?
Whatta shame. Gino Strippol has done such a good job with the sports page, and Tracee Hamilton (now that we've gotten her off the sports page) has given us some colorful, insightful and entertaining editorial columns this year (prompting me to put my "Tracee Hamilton/Persnickety Fan" T-shirt in mothballs).
First she tells us she hates K-State jokes, but
With all that quality in the Kansan, I suppose they needed Guitierre's columns to add a balancing touch of downright stupidity to the paper. I was had trouble all year trying to figure out what he was talking about. Oct 21 "Sio Tech jokes," "column put even Danniel's advertorial babblings to almah!
acknowledges that they are usually made in jest. She also thinks they are made out of ignorance. C'mon, Lisa, you must think we are all downright stupid if you think KU students take K-State jokes seriously. Any native Kansan going to KU has friends going to K-State and certainly knows by now that their homecoming queen quit grazing on the football field years ago. Yes, the rivalry is a serious one in athletic circles, but no one smart enough to read a newspaper is going to think less of K-State students because of a few jokes.
And just where are your loyalties, Lisa? You had so many "we's and "they's" in your column, I never did figure out what point you were trying to make about whom. First you tell us that we should try to get to know K-Staters better — they different from us. Then you tell us not to stoop to their level, then we should "play their game." or we should We make up your purple mind!
By the way, Lisa, especially get the facts straight or stay off of the sports beat. The last time K-State "kicked us in the pants" in Memorial Stadium (as you seem to recall so well) was in 1955 (K-State won 46-0). You also refer to KU for the football field. At菱field. If you'd ever been on a game, you would know that KU fans cannot even get in the place, let alone risk their lives throwing hot dogs.
Finally we come to that all-important, illustrative question, "Who cares that K-State has the best marching band in the Big Eight?" Well, Lisa, being a life-long fan of the best marching band in the Midwest, I wouldn't begin to stoop to addressing that, but will only ask that you attend a KU game sometime and really see "just who cares" and who is so proud of the band that represents its University so enthusiastically and professionally.
and speaking of "Who cares?" I was wondering when your next column would be published.
Stephen Gibbs Lawrence junior