NSAN
2008
SPORTS
D PRESS
dnes-
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BIG 12 GETS NEW PLAY CLOCK
Ron Prince also discusses his team's ranking in Playboy Magazine. BIG 12 FOOTBALL PREVIEW | 6B
KICK THE KANSAN
Get your picks and picture in the paper by guessing who wins upcoming games.
MAKE YOUR PICKS | 2B
ed to leave. Ed for people
THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 2008
WWW.KANSAN.COM
PAGE1B
COMMENTARY
Fantasy football: the stuff of memories
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Nearly every family has them: heirlooms, traditions, coming of age moments. A father gives his son his lucky fishing pole or a watch his great grandfather passed down.
One such moment transpired this summer when my dad relinquished the reins of Frank's Fantasy Football League to me. You'd be hard pressed to find a prouder pigskin prognosticator in Lawrence.
Growing up, I knew each year when football season was near by the sight of my house packed in the basement, garage and living room with fire-hazard amounts of friends and family.
And just as often as I was in awe of my dad achieving fantasy football glory, it was my mom who was in the middle of the wickedness, meticulously crafting a team that would put grown men to shame a few months later.
Rustling pages of their Fantasy Football Index and hurling insults, praise and beer cans after each draft pick, my dad and his friends made the annual draft became a spectacle in itself.
More than 20 years old, the FFFL is actually young considering fantasy football has been around for nearly 50 years.
Amidst the smell of homemade chili that permeated the house, my little brother Kevin and I took cover and hunkered down to watch the crazies in action.
So why does it still have that aura of a growing phenomena?
For one, lazy sportswriters and editors who cannot think of anything fresh to run in periods of relative sporting inactivity like to write "trend stories" or features on what they perceive to be an up-and-coming entity in sports.
So each year we are likely to see "fresh" takes on fantasy football's meteoric rise in popularity. Maybe headers along the lines of "Groups of Friends Gathering for Fantasy Drafts in Every State."
Stop the presses.
Truth is, fantasy football has grown substantially every year of its exis-
SEE COMMENTARY ON PAGE 6A
Game Canada
Kansas travels north for a three-game exhibition in Ottawa, Canada
BY CASE KEEFER ckeefer@kansan.com
Cole Aldrich grew up about six hours south of Canada in Bloomington, Minn.
He traveled to northern Minnesota a few times over the years and came as close as 15 minutes away from the Canadian border. But he never ventured across it. He never had any reason to.
That's going to change this weekend when the sophomore center and his teammates travel to Ottawa, Ontario, to play three exhibition games against Canadian universities. Kansas will play against
McCill University and Carleton University on Saturday and the University of Ottawa on Sunday.
SEECANADA ON PAGE 6A
Sophhore punter Alonso Rojas practices punting during open practice Aug. 15 at Memorial Stadium. Rojas transferred to Kansas from Bowling Green and could see time as a place kicker this season.
Jon Goering/KANSAN
FOOTBALL
Rojas seizes opportunity to help team Punter might also share place-kicking duties with Grady Fowler
BY B.J. RAINS rains@loewe.com
rains@kansan.com
As a freshman at Kilian High School in Miami, Fla., seven years ago, Alonso Rojas joined the football team to fulfill a lifelong dream. He wasn't sure what position to play, but he just knew that he wanted to play football
Rojas was taking reps at linebacker one day when the coaching staff told the team that they needed a kicker. As someone who said he would always do whatever he needed to do to help the team win, Rojas knew he might be a decent candidate for the job.
my coach, looking for him a kicker, and I told him that I played soccer," Rojas said. "That's basically how I got into it."
"My coach was looking for a
Rojas became the team's kicker and punter and never looked back, becoming www.scout.com's top rated prep punter by the time he graduated in 2006. Rojas played a year at Bowling Green as a true freshman in the fall of 2006 and averaged 35.6 yards per punt on 56 attempts. He also attempted three extra points, hitting two of them and kicked off four times. But following the season he decided to transfer, saying on Tuesday that he didn't want to discuss the reasons for his decision.
Rojas
After sitting out a year in 2007 and working on his punting at clinics and camps
I you got one guit quit and one guy ineligible, that's one way to separate yourself." Mangino said of Rojas and juco transfer Grady Fowler, who have now become the top two kicking candidates. "Sounds like a plan to me."
As of now, Fowler will handle the kicking duties and Rojas
around the country, Rojas signed with Kansas to replace Kyle Tucker as the team's punter this year. He had planned to just punt, but after two kickers left the program during training camp, he began taking reps at his old position of kicker as well.
As of now, For the kicking du will handle kickoffs and punts, but
"If wed had had Alonso take every rep from the beginning of camp, he'd be the guy lock, stock and robe" Mangino said of Roia's
Mangino made it clear that Rojas' kicking abilities will keep him in the mix.
"My coach was looking for a kicker, and I told him that I played soccer. That's basically how I got into it."
The 6-3, 220-pound Rojas cautioned that he had plenty of time in practice to work on both kicking and punting and that neither
chances at place-kicker. "But we have other responsibilities. He's gonna punt. He's gonna be the kickoff guy. He's new here. He's never played a game for us here at Kansas so we didn't want to load him down."
ALONSO ROJAS
Punter
Rojas has a stronger leg than Fowler, as evidenced by his duty as the kickoff man, meaning a situation could arise where
aspect of his game should struggle because of the added workload. Fowler struggled early in camp but won the praise and confidence of Mangino and the coaching staff with his ability to bounce back.
"He could have gotten down and felt bad for himself, but he didn't," Mangino said. "And that's the thing that jumps out to us coaches. Every day he kept coming back and working on his fundamentals, and the next thing you know, he's kicking the ball pretty well."
Fowler would handle the short kicks and Rojas, who said his ange was anywhere from 40 to 50 yards, could be called upon for the longer ones.
"I'm just looking forward to helping the team out as much as I can." Rosjas said. "Whether it be with field goals, kickoffs or
punts, my job is to do what the coaches ask of me to do, and that's what I'm planning on doing."
Because after all, Roias is doing what he wanted to do his whole life: He's playing football.
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Edited by Scott Toland