2B
SPORTS
---
THE UNIVERSITY HARLY KANSAN
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14,2008
quote of the dav
"It is a very good Texas team that is coming here and we are planning on having a good week of preparation and getting ready to play them. It is an opportunity for us to play a top-five team here at home and we want to play well."
— Kansas football coach Mark Mangino
fact of the day
The Kansas football team has 28 players from the state of Texas.
trivia of the day
Q: How many players on the Kansas football team are from Kansas?
A:27.
Today
KU sports this week
Women's Basketball: Sacred Heart, 7 p.m. (Lawrence)
Saturdays
Saturday Football: Texas, 11:30 a.m. (awareness)
Swimming and Diving:
Nebraska-Omaha, 2 p.m.
(Omaha, Neb.)
Volleyball: Nebraska, 7 p.m.
(Lawrence)
Cross Country; Midwest Regional Championships, TBA (Stillwater, Okla.)
Sunday
Men's Basketball: UMKC, 7:30 p.m. (Lawrence)
Chad Ford loves the Hawks
Every Kansas fan has his own story about what last year's NCAA Championship meant to him. And they're all eager to share it.
Even Chad Ford, Yeah, the guy who covers the NBA and the NBA Draft for ESPN.com and occasionally shares an opinion or two on SportsCenter — he's a Kansas fan.
Ford never attended the University — he earned degrees from George Mason and Georgetown — but grew up in Kansas City and loved Jayhawk basketball. He never stopped following the crimson and blue.
Ford, who is also a law professor at Brigham Young University Hawaii, was on campus two weeks ago to give a lecture titled "When Parties Bring Their Jump Shots
To The Table: Sports and Conflict Transformation." Of course, he also talked a little bit about last year's lavhawks.
Ford said he was such a loyal Kansas fan that every year come tournament time, held pick the Jayhawks to march through the tournament and win it all in his bracket. Seriously, every year.
As you can imagine, this didn't
ive results for a 20-year stretch. The Jayhawks always let Ford down. His bracket usually wasn't one of the more accurate ones among his ESPN colleagues.
So finally last season Kansas went to San Antonio for the Final
"Around the ESPN offices, people would say, 'Aren't you supposed to be an expert?' Ford said during the lecture. "How are the secretaries beating you?"
Four, won it all and made Ford look like the genius he is supposed to be. Right, Chad?
"This year, I saw how well UCLA was playing and ... Ford said.
He picked the Bruins to win. For the first time, Ford picked against the layhawks, Bad call, Asyou know, Kansas erased a nine-point deficit in just more than two minutes in the national championship game.
championship game.
Sharon Collins made.
Sherron Collins made an incredible steal and a three-pointer and Mario Chalmers hit The Shot.
Don't think Ford's failure to pick Kansas as the eventual national champion tempered his enthusiasm. After all, this guy is a fan.
Mario Chalmers hit the shot," Ford said. "I used a vertical jump I haven't had since high school and injured my coffee table."
"My family saw a new side of the town
Edited by Kelsey Hayes
KICK THE KANSAN: WEEKTEN
Pic. Better beat the Kansan. Get your name in the paper.
This week's games:
No. 3 Texas at Kansas
No. 10 Georgia at Auburn
No. 16 North Carolina at Maryland
Arizona at Oregon
No. 17 Brigham Young at Air Force
Vanderbilt at Kentucky
Texas A&M at Baylor
Minnesota at Wisconsin
Northwestern at Michigan
No. 24 Wake Forest at North Carolina State
Name:
E-mail:
Year in school:
Hometown:
1) Only KU students are eligible.
2) Give your name, e-mail, year in school and hometown.
3) Beat the Kansan's best prognosticator and get your name in the paper.
4) Beat all your peers and get your picture and picks in the paper next to the Kansan staff.
5) To break ties, pick the score of the designated game.
Submit your picks either to KickTheKansan@kansan.com or to the Kansan business office, located at the West side of Stauffer-Flint Hall which is between Wescoe Hall and Watson Library.
--hard times on the horizon and the eventual survival of NASCAR.
Racing teams could lose car manufacturers As carmakers face hard times in the economy,the league could see top sponsors back out
Former NASCAR champions share a laugh yesterday after a news conference in Coral Gables, Fla. The group, representing all different economic eras, reflected on how it used to be in the good old days. From left: Kurt Bussed, Ned Jarrick, Richard Pettiy, Bobby Allison and Darlur Waltrip.
BY MIKE HARRIS ASSOCIATED PRESS
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — When it comes to good times and bad in NASCAR, Richard Petty has seen it all.
Stock car's King was already part of the sport when American automakers first began spending money on the teams in the 1950s. And he has been there as a driver or team owner each time the manufacturers have pulled out or dived back in during the years since.
Now, with America facing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and the very real threat that any or all of the crumbling Big Three automakers could leave again, Petty sees both
"Back in the 70s, we depended entirely on the technology that the factories had," Petty said.
"The teams now have started hiring their own engineers and doing a bunch of stuff," he added. "So, the technology coming from the factory is nothing like it used to be. ... It would be less crippling if they leave now, except for the economy. If the factories all went home, the general public up in the grandstand probably wouldn't know the difference, if we had sponsorship for the cars."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
bleak by the day.
But the failing economy remains a huge factor, with the sponsorship outlook for midpack teams like Petty Enterprises getting more
It costs far more to race competitively these days than ever before and, earlier this year, Petty become part of a growing trend of finding well-heeled partners when he sold majority ownership in Petty Enterprises, the team started by his father more than 50 years ago, to Boston Ventures, an investment banking firm.
Even so, the signature No. 43 car fielded by the Petty team, has only partial sponsorship for 2009, and Petty does not deny the team has talked about a possible merger, similar to Wednesday's merger of Dale Earnhardt Inc., and Chip Ganassi Racing.
Everyone gets in the game at AllStars
Thursday - $4.00 Super Premiums Friday - $5.00 Long Island • $3.00 Jager Bombs Saturday - $2.00 Wells • $1.00 Jello Shots
Petty is one of several former champions brought here to celebrate Ford Championship Week, with Jimmie Johnson on the
"We talk to everybody about everything that we've been talking about and we're still standing here independent," Petty said. "But we're not wanting to take on somebody else's bad because we have enough of our own."
Despite the upbeat reason for their presence, Petty was not alone in expressing concern about the impact of the economic crisis on NASCAR.
cusp of wrapping up his record-
tying third straight Sprint Cup
title in Sunday's season-finale at
Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Three-time champion Darrell
Bring in your game ticket, get in FREE! (21 & Older) Sun 6 p.m.-2 a.m. Mon-Fri 2 p.m.-2 a.m. Sat 3 p.m.-2
Rex White, who won his only championship in 1960 — long before NASCAR was the mainstream sport it is now — said some things never change, especially for the have-not teams.
"Right now, you're not seeing the effects of the economy so much because a lot of the things that are happening right now were already budgeted and paid for. People have already bought tickets to races. It's next year when we're going to see the problems. I think when we get to Daytona (in February) and beyond, that's when we're going to see people that don't have jobs, they can't charge stuff on their credit cars. I think that's when we're going to really see a negative effect on the sport."
Waltrip, now a NASCAR analyst on Fox, said he's concerned because of how deep the relationship between the sport and the manufacturers runs.
"I don't think we really realize how much the manufacturers do for our sport," Waltrip said. "So, if the manufacturers continue to struggle and have trouble, it's got to overflow to us."
t as o s o l y b 2
1