SPORTS
4
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TEAM STARTS PRACTICE TODAY
Freshmen will likely make their debuts in two exhibition games. MEN'S BASKETBALL | 5B
WWW.KANSAN.COM
KICKER MOVES ON FROM TEAM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21. 2008
Projected starting kicker Stephen Hoge has left the Kansas football team. FOOTBALL | 6B
COMMENTARY
PAGE1B
Season will likely bring surprises
The first day of classes falls in the heart of one the most dangerous times of the year.
Aside from the freshman crazies waking naked and penniless in the front lawn with their first college experience under their belts, we are in the midst of a full leading up to the kickoff of the 2008 football season.
We can watch and read about as much practice as wed like and devour every last drop of coachspeak Mark Mangino can serve up.
Much of what has been written up to now has been reflections on the University's sports renaissance that was 2007. Everything else has been speculation and foreshadowing the year ahead with questions.
Can they do it again? All we can do is speculate, predict and anticipate this rare and beautiful season upon us. The Jayhawks enter next Saturday's opener against Florida International as the reigning Orange Bowl champs and ranked 13th in the USA Today coaches poll - underrated or overrated, depending on whom you ask.
Me? I think this paper has addressed the issue enough. My directive is to provide proper perspective leading up to the Aug. 30 tailgating party/aggradated assault that will be the Florida International game.
The same hacks that have pegged the Jayhawks to be raped and pillaged this year were caught with their pants down last season when Todd Reesing engaged in an arms race with Chase Daniel deserving of CNN coverage. But that's all right fellas, Jimmy Clausen and our boys at Notre Dame will turn it around this year. Pete Carroll could drive a semi into a USC practice and the mangleed All-Americans that survive would still be worthy of a top 3 spot.
Best she-runner up for the third straight year. Whoa, way to make a first impression, Stephen. You've veered hopelessly off track and may have scared a few of our softer-hearted readers off already.
But I truly mean well this week. This is a long-term relationship we're starting and by God I am going to sustain it.
That is precisely why we need the right mindset in the next nine days. The hype of this college pigskin season ahead of us is reaching its peak and could shatter our skulls if we let it.
There isn't much to divert our attention and keep our fragile minds occupied in the coming days. All we have by means of University sports is tomorrow's women's soccer tilt against Purdue at 5 p.m.
After Sunday we won't even have the Olympics. This is why I urge you to take any prognostications with a grain of salt. Or a glass of Kentucky Deluxe for that matter
Look, I'm guilty of annually dropping eight bucks for a college football preview rag and a fantasy football forecast published three months before the season.
That and devouring every bit of football media leading up to the season are natural media that can be expected once you've whipped yourself into a frenzy during the college sports drought that is the months of May, June, July and August.
But there is a reason many of these rags are thrown away by midseason.
Last year's USA Today Coaches Poll had 10 preseason Top-25 teams finish the season unranked and 10 teams that were unranked in the preseason finish in the Top-25 — including No. 5 Missouri and No. 7 Kansas, two teams that an entire nation of college football experts severely failed to evaluate.
Additionally, four preseason Top-10 teams — the teams supposedly with the best shot at the BCS crown — slid at least six spots, including Florida falling 13 spots and Michigan and Wisconsin sliding 14 places.
Fearless forecasters? Maybe. But also reckle, careless and often thoughtless.
All we have to speculate now is whether the Jayhawks will pound the Golden Panthers by 40 or 50 points next Saturday. Last season's tally was 55-3 and I'm betting on more of the same. But that is if you bet on such a diversion, which is an entirely different story and supposedly illegal around these parts.
Edited by Scott Toland
FOOTBALL
Redshirt quarterback moves to tight end position
BY B.J. RAINS
rains@kansan.com
A. J. Steward wears a different color jersey in practice these days. Gone is the red.
no contact jersey that quarterbacks wear. Now, Steward's no. 11 jersey is white—he's now fair game for tacklers.
"The guys will try to test me," Steward said. "They think I'm just a soft quarterback. I want to try and let them know
Steward
that's not what I am."
Steward, a redshirt freshman who sports a tattoo of his hometown St. Louis on his left arm, has made the switch from quarterback to tight end and has been taking a lot of the snaps with the first team offense. He was slowed by a bruised shoulder last week at the open practice but is figured to be in the mix for playing time when the season opened next Saturday against Florida International.
"I'm picking everything up pretty good. Everything is pretty much just second nature, just learning the blocking schemes and everything." Steward said.
"The toughest thing has been getting that
physical mentality, coming from being a quarterback. You have to kind of get a meanness about yourself."
At 6 feet 4 and 228 pounds, his body seems more suited for a tight end than a quarterback. And with the departure of Derek Fine, a fourth-round draft pick by the Buffalo Bills, the Jayhawks are looking for a new tight end. Sophomore Bradley Dedeaux and true freshman Nick Plato are competing for playing time as well.
"He's doing well," Mangino said of Steward. "He's learning on the run but he absorbs things. He's a tenacious competitor. He doesn't take crap from anyone out there. He's a competitive guy."
Steward was named All-Metro as a quarterback during his senior year at Riverview Gardens when he had 33 touchdowns (22 passing, 11 rushing) and passed and rushed for more than 1,000 yards each. As a defensive back, he was named to the All-State First Team after intercepting seven passes.
Also, he was named All-Conference in both baseball and basketball and was an honorable mention All-State basketball selection as well.
OLYMPICS
Mangino and offensive coordinator Ed Warinner met with Steward during the
SEE STEWARD ON PAGE 6B
A RUN TO REMEMBER
Former Jayhawk Billy Mills won the impossible gold in the 10-k race in 1964.
BY MARK DENT
mdent@kansan.com
It was late Sunday night in Beijing, and the men's 10-k race was about to start on the track. His race.
The man chosen by the gods sat in the stands of the Bird's Nest like any other spectator, his wife of more than 40 years, Pat, beside him.
Hours earlier, a freak of nature named Usain Bolt slept in, ate chicken nuggets, watched TV and ate more chicken nuggets. Then he won the 100-meter dash. Before that, Michael Phelps pumped his arms for one more stroke in the 100-meter butterfly and tapped the wall one-hundredth of a second before the seemingly frozen-in-time Milorad Cavic.
Other moments: Shawn Johnson balanced on the narrow suede beam like a tight rope walker and finally won her gold medal. And Jason Lezak made the French relay team look like a bunch of cream puffs.
Those have been the stories of these Olympics. Thirteen days in, just three left, and they've captivated continents. Billy Mills, the chosen one who watched the 10-k on Sunday from the bleachers, ran the same race faster than any American previously had a generation ago. His tale is like any good family tradition. It will never be forgotten.
The 1964 Tokyo Olympics belonged to him. Mills, a former KU All-American, a Lakota Sioux who lost both his parents at an early age, an unknown distance runner who matched up with four gold medallists at the starting line of the 10-k, unexpectedly did something no American man had ever done and has never done since.
Billy Mills is featured on a poster depicting the 1964 10-k Olympic race. Mills came from third in the last seconds of the race to beat Australian 10-k world record-holder Ron Clarke and Tunisian Mohammed Gammoudi.
He won that race. And he continues making magic today.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPENCER RESEARCH LIBRARY
--electricity, and the life expectancy is about 30 years lower than the national average.
Bob Timmons tells you he's sorry. He doesn't mean to blur his words. It's just that he gets a little emotional when he talks about Billy Mills.
Timmons, a championship KU track and cross-country coach, never coached Mills. He knows him well though. Knows about the poverty, knows about the discrimination, knows how Mills worked as hard as anyone Timmons has ever met.
Mills grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota About half of all people there lived under the poverty line. To this day, some people on the reservation lack running water and
"For him to achieve such a high level"
"Timmons said, 'it's almost impossible.'"
Mills could tell you about this. Cancer took his mother away from him when he was eight. In the following months, his
Hed read Mills stories about athletes: those who jumped, those who ran, those who competed at the Olympics. One of the
father comforted him by embedding the Olympic dream into his spirit.
articles said the Olympians were chosen by the gods.
That's what Mills wanted. He wanted
SEE MILLS ON PAGE 5B
Freshman basketball player faces battery charges
BY CASE KEEFER ckeefer@kansan.com
Markieff Morris, a freshman forward,
received a notice to appear in court this weekend after he allegedly fired an Airsoft rifle BB gun at the laywahower Towers.
The KU Public Safety Office filed an offense report Saturday night
Morris
after a 47-year old woman from Mequon. Wis., was hit in the arm with a BB near the building. Police confiscated an Airsoft rifle and a bag of BBs at the scene.
Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director, said the athletics department wouldn't comment on the incident.
"KU's housing office is gathering facts about the incident," Marchiony said. "Until that process is complete, we can't say anything."
The police report also indicated that Morris was suspected of being intoxic
The twins and Kansas officials have
cated at the time of the incident. Morris' Lawrence Municipal Court date is set for Sept. 10, when he will face battery charges.
"Until that is complete, we would ask people not to jump to conclusions," Marchiony said.
Markieff and his twin brother, Marcus, arrived on campus this summer in late June and took classes during the second session of summer school. The NCAA, however, has not cleared the Morris twins to play in the upcoming basketball season.
remained adamant that the duo will qualify academically in time to play in the upcoming season. At the end of July Marcus said he and his brother were "very close" to being cleared.
Markieff becomes the second Jayhawk with a looming court case. Junior point guard Sherron Collins will face a civil lawsuit in April 2009 for allegations of sexual assault made by a former Jayhawker Towers employee.
—Edited by Jennifer Torline