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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2011
TACKLING ADVERSITY
COMMENTARY Missouri botches departure
Senior linebacker Steven Johnson slams Iowa State's jeff Woody in a tackle in the second half of last Saturday's game at Jack Trece Stadium. Johnson contributed five tackles in the Jawahaws 10-13 defeat. Kansas is now 2-7 for the season and 6-0 in Big 12 play.
CHRIS BRONSON/KANSAN
One petty tweet sent out by Kansas' official twitter account on Nov. 6 seemed to be as good an epitaph as any for the now-deceased Border War, aged 120 years.
"Missouri forfeits a century-old rivalry. We win."
The so-called celebration was delayed several times before it officially began, apropos given Missouri's delayed reaction time over these last few weeks. When the party eventually got underway, Missouri's chancellor Brady Deaton made the official announcement that the Tigers were joining the SEC. The fight song and
But there was no mourning in Columbia, Mo., that evening. There was no funeral for the rivalry that has captured the imagination of the Midwest for more than a century.
Instead, the brass at Missouri decided a celebration was in order. The powers that gathered to announce the Tigers' marriage to the Southeastern Conference, and in a spectacular combination of awkwardness and pandering, everyone involved managed to embarrass themselves on a grand scale.
FROM WALK-ON TO LEADER
MIKE VERNON
mvernon@kansan.com
As a walk-on linebacker living in Oliver Hall his freshman and sophomore years, Steven Johnson used to tell people that he was going to play Varsity football for the University of Kansas. Some of those people would laugh at him while others would wish him luck. But none of them would have believed where Johnson would end up with just one game remaining in his career at Memorial Stadium — leading the Big 12 conference in tackles.
When Johnson first moved into his dorm freshman year, he was just a normal student at the University. A resident of Oliver Hall because of his walk-on status, Johnson never received the special amenities and recognition that athletes at Kansas so often receive.
240-pound kid into a 237-pound piece of muscle. He worked hard through the ranks and earned himself a scholarship his junior year. Johnson has been recognized frequently by his teammates for his work ethic, and his defensive coordinator, Vic Shealy, said that Johnson watches as much film as anyone else on the team.
And Johnson has done just that,
going from what he says was a fat
But the lack of credit never stopped Johnson from striving toward his goals. In fact, living in a dorm his first two years, as opposed to Jayhawker Towers where most student athletes live, transformed Johnson into the person and football player he is today.
"For my four years here, I've learned a lot," Johnson said. "I've learned how to continue to fight when things look bad. I've learned to stay humble and motivated when things are really good. There's always going to be a winner and loser and the only thing you can do on Saturdays is go out and give it your all."
Johnson's 95 tackles this season puts him as the 10th leading tackler in the country and his performance this season has caught the attention of NFL scouts.
"They always say things about Steve where you can tell there is a little bit of a 'wow' factor," Shealy said of NFL scout's response after watchin Johnson.
"He wants to win so bad," junior cornerback Tyler Patmon said. "He's going to take responsibility for everything."
Shealy said it's Johnson's speed, as well as his physicality, that has become a draw for NFL scouts — an impressive feat for a player that did not have a football scholarship just three years ago.
While Johnson is an impressive player on the field, his demeanor off the field is what has truly caught attention of his teammates and coaches. Shealy said after the team's 42-0 loss to Texas, in which Johnson had a team-high 15 tackles, Johnson approached Shealy and told him that the team's loss was his fault.
And it's happened more than once.
Shealy said even when Johnson has not vocally taken the blame for a
loss, he can see it in Johnson's eyes that he feels like he let the team down.
His coach, Turner Gill, said that a player's development like Johnson's, both on and off the field, is what makes coaching exciting.
"You get to see guys develop in a short period of time and how much he's grown as a person," Gill said. "I think he will definitely have an opportunity at the next level if he continues to do what he's been doing here the last three games."
With Senior Day approaching and Johnson's collegiate career coming to an end, his future and whether or not he can continue to play football is in question.
Yet no one outside the Johnson camp would have believed he would be where he is today; at the top of the Big 12 in tackles and on the cusp
of continuing his football career after college. But Johnson's father, also named Steven, did. Johnson said his father told the chubby high schooler on his first visit to Kansas that he would lead the Big 12 in tackles, among other achievements.
"it was just like, 'I hope so," Johnson said. "I knew it was going to take a lot of work."
And in Johnson's first Division I practice, he was halfway run over by running back Angus Quigley. But Johnson said that he didn't completely run him over and that's when he knew that he had a chance to do something special, if he worked for it.
"I was just like, 'I can play with these guys,' Johnson said. "From then on, there was no looking back."
Edited by Lindsey Deiter
confetti should have started right then, but Deaton continued for several more minutes, soothing everyone with his increasingly cracking voice.
"Mike Alden and I have been committed to joining the best of Missouri Athletics with the best of our athletics programs from the very beginning, when we began working together," Deaton said.
It appears Missouri Department of Redundancy Department will be a great fit in the SEC. He continued.
"...with a spirit of inclusivity as we explore each other's cultures and diversity of people," Deaton said.
Yes, because when I think of embracing diversity, I think of the south.
"We're not abandoning our past at all. In fact, we're expansion upon it." Deaton said.
Hmm, maybe Missouri is a great fit in the south after all.
Athletic director Mike Alden made his way to the podium, and he spoke of the athletic
department's responsibility to reflect well on the university.
Somewhere, Quin Snyder, Mike Anderson and Frank Hathi are all nodding their heads.
"We certainly not the most important thing by any stretch of the imagination," Alden said. "We just happen to be like the front porch. We've very visible."
The SEC representatives didn't exactly represent themselves very well, either.
"You could win the SEC next year in any one of the 20 sports you compete in," said Bernie Machen, president of the University of Florida. "We believe in full integration from day one." That might seem obvious, but it's nice to know the conference doesn't have an "Alabama always wins" clause.
The celebration ended with Mike Slive, the commissioner of the SEC, struggling to name-drop local Columbia establishments. He then presented Deaton with an invisible helmet. I wish I was making this all up.
Perhaps the biggest news to come out of the celebration is that Missouri, soon to be the third-most western school in the SEC, will be a part of the SEC East. That is perhaps the best illustration of the overlying theme over these last few years: none of this realignment drama makes any sense. At its core, it's all about the money and television contracts. But on Sunday, the talking heads were only interested in talking about diversity, academics and Shakespeare's Pizza.
Missouri is fickle. If the Tigers had their way, they would have had the same celebration one year before for entry into the Big Ten. Instead of clumsily fumbling through a party they threw for themselves, the Tigers should have just released a pithy tweet of their own:
"Missouri profits in a century-old conference. We win."
Edited by Jayson Jenks