VOLUME 120 ISSUE 29
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Lifting of national championship banner to air live on ESPN
BY B.J. RAINS
rains@kansan.com
16,300 fans at Allen Fieldhouse for the Jayhawks' Nov. 18 game against Florida Gulf Coast won't be the only witnesses to the raising of the 2008 National Championship Banner into the rafters.
The banner will be lifted live on ESPN during a special live broadcast of ESPN College GameDay airing from Chapel Hill, N.C., before North Carolina hosts Kentucky later that night.
"It's going to be really exciting," sophomore center Cole Aldrich said. "It's going to be a special night."
A temporary commemorative banner will be raised during Late Night in the Phog on Oct.17 and will remain in the south rafters of the fieldhouse all season.
The official banner — which will look identical to the four national championship banners and will read "National Champions 2008" — will be raised alongside those banners in the north end of the fieldhouse during a pregame ceremony
before the Jayhawks host Florida Gulf Coast in the second game of the CBE Classic.
"Even seeing the temporary banner go up at Late Night is going to be sweet," Aldrich said. "I mean, that's one of the reasons why I came here, to help Kansas win a national title. We had a great year last year. It was the most fun I've ever played basketball. Seeing the banner go up is going to be special."
ESPN is airing a special on Nov. 18, showing 23 consecutive hours of live
college basketball games, starting with Memphis hosting UMass at 11 p.m. In all the ESPN family of networks will televise 14 games, including one women's game, Iowa at Kansas, which will be at 1 p.m.
"ESPN was planning that special day, and we told them what our plan was and they were all for it," Associate Athletics Director Jim Marchiony said. "It will be at some point during the show, we don't have that worked out yet."
Aldrich and the Jayhawks hope this won't be the only national championship
banner they see raised during their time at Kansas.
"Coach Self told us at the ring ceremony that once you win one, you get greedy and want to get another one," Aldrich said. "Once you get that second one, you're going to want a third. Once you reach that top pinnacle in sports, you always want to get back, and that's what we're trying to do."
LAWRENCE
- Edited by Mary Sorrick
Extinguishing Gaslight's last flame
Closing of bar opens window into 1960s student counterculture
**Students protest on Oread Avenue near the original Gaslight Tavern on July 18, 1970, against the police shooting of Rick Dowdell, a black former KU freshman who police shot in what many believed to be a racial hate crime. Racial hostility in Lawrence sparked violence as daily sniper attacks and fire bombings became common. City commissioners declared a state of emergency after Nick Rice, a KU freshman, died as student protestors clashed with police.**
*Free from Scaribold said in a 1969 inter-article that Dowdell pulled a gun and fired*
BY ANDY GREENHAW agreenhaw@kansan.com
The owners of The Gaslight Tavern announced last week that it would shut down within the next two months, punctuating the last remnant of the 1960s Hippie Haven.
Melanie Coen, the tavern's manager, said the owner had been working another job and felt it was the right time to close the bar.
Contributed photo by Spencer Research Library
"It was never meant to be a place of great profit," Coen said. "The Gaslight for him was more a labor of love."
Jeff Fortier, the bar's owner, now works on a regional and national scale as a music promoter, and "his plate is full with that," Coen said. Fortier was unavailable for an interview.
The Gaslight Tavern opened at its current location, 317 N. 2nd Street, in 2001. Coen said the owners named it after the original Gaslight Tavern that existed where the top level of the Kansas Union parking garage is today.
The original Gaslight Tavern — along with the Rock Chalk Café, which later became the Crossing was the cornerstone of student counterculture in the '60s and '70s. According to a University Daily Kansan article from July 21, 1970, the area was "popularly known as Hippie Haven."
The owners, Coen said, opened the new tavern as a testament to the original Gaslight Tavern.
The Gaslight Tavern was at the epicenter of one of the most chaotic racial disputes in the history of Lawrence in 1970. The state of Kansas tried to close it down for alleged drug trafficking in 1971. It was burned to the ground in an unexplained fire in 1974.
"It was a very important time in history when college students were very active politically," Coen said.
THE GASLIGHT'S ROOTS
The original Gaslight Tavern was owned by John and Sarah Fowler. Reginald Scarbrough, a KU student from Topeka, bought the tavern in October 1969. He managed the bar while taking six credit hours at the University, according to a Kansan article from Oct. 8, 1969.
"We are planning to employ girls this year, and we are going to give away more
Wayne Sailor, a professor who attended the University in the late '60s, ran an underground newspaper called "The Reconstruction Press." He said the Gaslight Tavern and the Rock Chalk Café were the hangout spots for hippies and radicals. The hippies, he said, "smoked dope, grew long hair and wore flip-flop sandals." The radicals, he said, organized demonstrations that protested racial discrimination and the Vietnam War. Sailor said he considered himself a radical.
LAWRENCE STATE OF EMERGENCY
According to a Kansan article from July 21, 1970, a Lawrence police officer shot and killed Rick Dowdell, a black former KU freshman, as he fled down an alley on June 16, 1970. William Garrett, the patrolman who shot Dowdell, said in the
Racial hostility in Lawrence reached a boiling point that pushed the city to the brink of civil war in the summer of 1970.
article that Dowdell pulled a gun and fired at police but many students at the time, including Sailor, thought the police shooting was a racist hate crime.
Sailor said the shooting occurred at a time when racial tensions ran deep in Lawrence. The Black Power movement and the Black Panther party, Sailor said, were extremely prevalent in the Lawrence area and Kansas City at that time.
"When Dowdell was shot, it really sparked an outrage," Sailor said. "It turned peaceful demonstrations into violent demonstrations."
Lawrence erupted into a guerilla war zone for days as sniper attacks on police cars and random fire bombings became a common occurrence. The night after the incident, police officers responded to a shooting at 10th and Pennsylvania streets where they found themselves in a heated gun battle against 45 armed African Americans, according to This Week in KU History. Unknown militants firebombed several buildings, including District Court Judge Frank Gray's house.
Julianne Kueffer/KANSAN
The Gaslight Tavern, 317 N. 2nd St., will close sometime within the next two months. The bar was named after the original Gaslight Tavern, which was located where the top level of the Kansas Union parking garage is today.
Back in the Hippie Haven, Student protesters and police officers clashed on July 21, five days after the Dowdell shooting. According to This Week in KU History, student protesters burned trash in the
streets and firebombed a building known as "The White House" at 1225 Oread Ave. They also started several other fires,
SEE GASLIGHT ON PAGE 6A
ELECTION
Where students' votes could count more
A Web site called CountMore.org helps out-of-state college students determine if their vote would be more important in
their home state. Countmore org, partly created by Topeka native Matt Lerner, also provides information about how students
can register to vote and when registrations are due in their home or school state.
FULL STORY PAGE 3A
index
Classifieds...3B
Crossword...4A
Horoscopes...4A
Families enjoy music festival
Opinion...5A
Sports...1B
Sudoku...4A
enjoyed a variety of music performed by residents and music majors at the University.
CAMPUS
Students and their families attended the Stouffer Family Music Festival on Saturday. Students and their families who are residents of Stouffer Place Apartments
All contents, unless stated otherwise; © 2008 The University Daily Kansan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
FULL STORY PAGE 3A
SPRINGSTEEN TO ROCK OUT
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