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Friday, October 15, 1976
University Daily Kansan
Comment on Athletics
Opinions on this page reflect the view of only the writer.
Jocks have more fun
Admit it, all you pseudo-intellectuals and academicians. If you only had the chance, you'd love to be a football hero.
Jocks are loads of fun to put down, of course, and there is nothing like the sight of a "student athlete" in an Economics 768 class to set the average B or better student manufacturing snide comments. But, in their innermost heart of hearts, most Summerfield and Meriti would trade places with Nolan Cromwell.
(Yeh, I can see it now. Bates at the 20
touchdown!
His fourth of the game.
THE WORLD of sports, from a distance, at least, seems so much simpler and more fundamental than the real world. The goods and bads and rights and wrongs are clear and distinct.
And in sports, the ego-gratification is almost instantaneous. Cromwell scores a TD, and the crowd cheers. The pro scouts scribble little pluses in their notebooks. But when the University's star biochemistry student makes a discovery, there are no cheers. He will probably get his discovery published and advance his career, but it just isn't the same thing.
Logic tells the intellectual that his accomplishments are worth more than Cromwell's. His emotions, however, tell him something different. Sports, like high school, is one of those things an American never outgrows.
NO ONE knows how many Americans turn to the newspaper's sports page probably a plurality; possibly a majority. And it has been that way for decades.
Some have speculated that sports is a substitute for substance hunting or for
war. It is the modern-day, sabre-footed tiger for the modern-day cave man.
Some have said sports provides an organized framework in which to train one's body, and others have said sports provide an organized, formalized, complex and sublusive world.
OTHERS HAVE said sports is nothing
altronge parties.
Sports is all of those things and more. It is also one of the few segments of modern society in which there are still no heroes, in which there would be no heroes in the 1970's.
Politics is too corrupt, too dirty, too practical to provide us with heroes. Jimmy Carter and President Ford aren't heroes.
The movies are full of disaster and brawl, art. Is Bruce the shark a beaver? Quaint?
Science is too impersonal and technological to provide heroes. Viking II isn't a hero and neither is Sperry Rand.
BUT IN sports, despite the attempts of the team owners and some greedy players, there are still heroes. These heroes are individuals. They have individual faces and names and the individual performances they make matter.
In the fall of 1976, that is saying something.
Sports give the players a chance to be given and to make a difference. They give them a chance to succeed.
Editorial Editor
Modern sports may well be overemphasized, but it is no accident that college and professional athletics are drawn into many commercial businesses. By Jim Bates
Even though the importance of WINNING in sports has been responsible for more cliche than anything else, sports aphorism that says it all.
Winning: that's all there is
By John Fuller Contributing Writer
It should be engraved on every national monument, embossed on every textbook and included in a prayer said five times a day as we lay in the direction of Wall Street.
™ REFERRING to Vince Lombardi's famous words, "Winning isn't everything—it's the only thing." What other sentence could better characterize our political, social and economic systems? Surely it could be written in a language like "In God we Trust" as our national motto, particularly during football season.
But I write not to criticize our pursuit of victory after victory but to celebrate it. After all, this IS football season, and both of the teams I avidly root for (the Dallas Cowboys and the Jays) have undefeated seasons so far. I love my teams to win!
Give me a cool and sunny fall
Saturday with leaves blowing in
the air. Fill me with some fried
chicken and beer, hand me a
ticket or show me a mole in the
wire fence surrounding the stadium, and I'm ready for the show.
**WHAT A** bracing sight it is to enter the stadium packed with the raucous, multitud thron of spectators, especially when the Hawks are strong and ready to whip their opponent. As the teams come out on the field to warm up, drawing the first great rear from the team of the collective adrenaline of the crowd surge in anticipation of the action.
The Jayhawks' recent stars haven't disappointed me and other fans. Seeing Nolan Croman off hand to Laverne Smith at just the right instant, watching Mike Butler rip through the backpack or yelling my lungs out as KU returns an interception for long yardage are moments of sheer beauty for me.
It's hard to match the excitement and pleasure that a fan gets from watching a favorite team on watchers' and its on way to victory. When his team is winning, the rest of his life can be in relative shamishes and he'll still be happy. When it's losing, no matter how happy you are, everything seems gray and drab. How gray and drab depends on how much of a fan he is.
AND THERE's the rub. what about those poor fans who are cursed with a losing football team year after year—such as those loyal but perpetually disappointed K-State fans? Clearly, winning isn't the only thing for them. How much excitement and energy from seeing their team trounced again and again until it becomes one of the losiest teams in NCAA history?
However, any good fan is a superstitious fan. Was it that long ago when Kansas went to the NFL? It was recorded with a 1-9 record the next?
Because of special-edition deadlines, even this editorial could be out of date by the time it appears in print. Kansas and the Cowbys could be 3-2 in the rankings about winning and the beauty of our great team could be tragically satirical.
That's why I say that winning is the only thing—as long as you or your team is winning. Show me a good loser and I'll show you a realistic person who says that we all can't be winners.
Savor the victories while they last, for tomorrow we lose!
Football prestige wins coverage
Before every Jayhawk football game, there's a lot of talk about troning the opponent so KU, our wonderful alma mater, won't have to play at home in the bottom of that golden valley.
Winning means prestige for KU, and we want everyone to know we have it. We weer merclesly at Kansas State University cheers and the "red polyester pantuit syndrome" we wear, but we don't performenally go through. We don't explain that we come here because KU is the only school that offers courses in our major
or, well, because KU is an in-state school.
homecoming decorations to those who decide what football games will be seen on television.
SOME OF KU's prestige comes from academia, but in the fall, prestige is measured by
the kind of football team we
have. If we win big, we can say
we go to the best school in
The Big Eight Conference. If we
lose, we forfeit a lot of our
prestige.
But all that prestige doesn't matter a garbage can full of
In the sports television
Mary Ann Daugberty Contributing Writer
Welcome to "Weird Kingdom"
(FADE IN a paneled, map-covered room. A white-haired, mustachioed old gentleman in a plaid jacket is striking a fuzzy, stuffed Jayhawk with his left hand.)
MAN: Good evening and welcome to Mutual of Tonganoxie "The 'Wird Kingdom.'" Tm Melvin Parkins and this is my little friend Sam. (Holds up Jayhawk and make a sound) We are going to Lawrence, Kansas, and that's where we're going today.
(CUT TO aerial shot of KU campus, drifting toward Memorial Stadium.)
(CUT TO pair of tipsy alums playing cards next to a rusted Wimnebago.)
VOICE OF PARKINS:
Mysterious Lawrence first discovered by Western experts, but now still unmarked on many maps. Here, Jayhawks like our little friend Sam romp and play. We are particularly interested in their skills. An older, more mature Jayhawks.
During most of the year, these birds wander far and wide, nesting with their almost imperilled mates. But on certain weekends every fall, they flock back to the breeding grounds at Lawrence Park.
VOICE OF PARKKS: And here they are. Just as the kangaroo keeps its young in its pouch, so these mature Jayhawks keep their pouches full of various liquids. They seem to be in an institutional manner determined by cions of evolution.
(CUT TO the parking lot near the stadium, full of taffigating alumn.)
VOICE OF PARKINS: In this ritual, two males struggle to
Jim Bates
Editorial Editor
Staff photo by DAVE REGIER
establish dominance. By means of stares, stimaces and groans, each of them fights to be superior.
(One of the men disgustedly throws down his queen-high hand.)
VOICE OF PARKINS:
There! The older male has given up. He now must provide the man with a male with more of the liquid.
(The loser pours the winner a Dixie cup of Old Turkey.)
VOICE OF PARKINS:
Jayhawks are not herd birds. The dominant male does not get to work his will on all the nearby
females—although he might like to. He does, however, build himself up in the eyes of the Jawhaws.
(FADE TO small, blond kid with bill visor.)
VOICE OF PARKINS: After all the various levels of dominance have been
VOICE OF PARKING:
(Laughs) Ah-ha, Sam, there's one more your size then they're their own young with them. Eventually, the young will come to Lawrence on their own where they will be taught how to mate and to drink the sacred beverage.
(CUT TO the football game itself.)
Biologists believe that the two species fight these mock wars to establish territorial dominance and a sexual pecking order. The animals that attack each other and consists of movements and gestures long ago determined by Mother Nature. If not for these, the species might have wiped one another out long ago, and the fans wavest wheat after a score.
established, the Jayhawks gather in a large natural amphitheatre. Eleven of the most dominant young Jayhawks emerge from a form of embrace with 11 members of some other species.
VOICE OF PARKINS: Just as the American Indian climbed
business there is what is known as "wild card weekends," in which three or four football games can be chosen to be aired on regional television. On the Monday before a wild card weekend, ABC television and Fox News Association representatives confer on what contests merit air time that weekend.
VOICE OF PARKINS: The Jayhawk is a fascinating and weird bird. But his future is unsure. Already he is threatened by the encroachment of the ERA and the Federal Government. Luckily, a dedicated group of volunteers, of women from Tennessee, are fighting for its survival. If they win, the Jayhawk shall continue to engage in its strange and freakish habits. If not, that's the way it goes.
(CUT TO another aerial view of campus.)
trees to see into the distance, so the Jawhayk waves away dust particles in the air so he can see his chamons at war.
on television we determined by the success we had against our opponents in both conference and nonconference games.
The importance of television revenue was vividly underscored when the University of Oklahoma Sooners were prohibited from appearing on television, Baker says. During an estimated $220,000 was lost each school in the Big Eight.
THERE ISN'T much anyone at KU—except the football team—can do to assure KU air time during the football season. No amount of public relations or films of strolls down colorful Jayhawk Boulevard will affect KU. There is a handful of executives who decide what games will be broadcast.
For instance, Baker says the decision to televisie the Iowa State game, our sixth game of the season, can be large at times. Cromwell earned national recognition in the Oregon State game, the third game of the season, when he rushed for 294 yards in an NCAA record for single-game rushing by a quarterback.
DON BAKER, KU sports information director, says the Big Eight schedule does well in getting the nod from the decision makers. Reputed to be the best conference in the nation, having won 28 out of 32 games last season, the Big Eight season, the Big Eight schedule always seems to have a contest that is worth consideration.
Once a game has been aired,
the acquired revenue is given to
the conference, which in turn
divides it among its member
schools. The money represents a
big chunk of the total budget
for athletics at any school.
Baker says, KU is no exception.
The only thing that matters is the attractiveness of the final product, which is especially important to ABC because it must determine the ability to abstain from all abuse. That attractiveness is determined solely by the kind of football the Jahyhs play.
Last year, football fans watched KU on television when they played Iowa State in October. UW is the University of Colorado Nov. 15 and the University of Pittsburgh in the Sun Bowel Dec. 26.
EXCEPT FOR THE Sun Bowl game, which would have aired regardless of previous KU performances, our appearances
The decision to televise the Colorado game, Baker says, originally was made because of talent shown by the Colorado Buffaloes. But, when KU upset the Broncos in 28.3 the week before the game, the complexion of that decision changed.
KU fans can holler all they want about their prestige, their traditions and their hilly campus, but none of that is important to the Air. To get there, individual players or our team as a whole have to prove their superiority. That superiority will be noted by those who make broadcast decisions and rewarded in return for their role for the athletic corporations of Big Eight schools.
Separate teams sexist
The athletic program at KU is unfair on the basis of sex, causing much money to be spent wrongly. There wouldn't be much problem if everything were free.
But everything isn't free, and one gropes for the logic and fairness of separate intercollegiate teams for men and women. It is clear why the separate teams exist—the government in Washington, D.C., say it must be that way.
BUT WHY should it? Why not have one team for each sport and make it open to everyone? Granted, at least for the time between seasons, but most, if not all, teams. This would mean that many fewer
But why would that be unfair? Why shouldn't teams be picked for intercollegiate competition between schools that basis alone? One who says there must be separate intercollegiate women's teams is arguing for favoritism on the basis of sex, and on that basis alone.
THERE ISN'T enough money to provide intercollegiate
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Let fans pay for sports
If the Student Senate isn't remembered for anything else, it will be remembered for its hot and cold approach to student subsidies for football and basketball tickets. Every year the issue comes up, and every year the amount of the subsidy changes.
I am opposed to the subsidy.
Football and basketball at KU are big business, and the revenue from these two programs makes up a financial part of the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation's budget.
FOOTBALL AND basketball are "winners" at KU. They make money. They are the only two sports for which a ticket subsidy is considered. The athletic corporation will survive whether or not it gets money from the Student Senate.
The ticket subsidy supposedly allows all students to pay for reduced tickets for a few of the
students. It's the same principle that applies to the funding of minor organizations, such as the Chess Club.
Such organizations are considered legitimate extensions of a student's education, the theory
Carl Young Contributing Writer
being that a certain club or activity will make him "well-rounded."
THE SAME theory applied to KU football and basketball when the average student had as good a chance to make a team here as he did when he tried out for his high school team.
That age ended many, many years ago. Intramural teams now provide students with an opportunity for exercise.
The idea of the entire studentry supporting organizations that are
self-sufficient seems to be a little fuzzy. The Chess Club and those other organizations that appear in small type in the Senate's list of subsidized organizations couldn't exist without student money. Sports can.
OKAY, NOW let us assume that going to watch a major college sport makes students better. Should all of the students have to take subsidies that will allow some of the students to buy cheap seats?
Offer me a ticket at a reasonable price, and I will buy it. But don't ask someone who doesn't know a skill from a field goal to help pay for it.
No. The fans should pay for their fun. A portion of alumni dues go toward getting cheap seats for the alumni, and there is no reason why anything different should be done with the student acticity fee.
athletics for everyone who wants to compete, regardless of ability. When you provide intercollegiate athletics on the basis of sex, rather than on ability, there is unfairness.
Chris Jones and Chris Smith are equal in basketball ability, and in their longing to play intercollegiate basketball. Chris Jones is playing intercollegiate basketball because she is a manm. Chris she does not have the ability making the KU team because he is a man. How can anyone say that is fair?
Some argue that because most women simply aren't as strong physically as most men there must be bias in the system to neutralize the naturalistic advantages men have. This setting plays and simple, and everyone should admit it.
MOST OF the better sprinters are black rather than white. Blacks dominate basketball. But does anyone argue that whites should have separate sprinting divisions in track, or separate basketball teams? Would they do that, or would the arguments of those supporting separate intercollegiate teams for women, is ridiculous.
Some say we need remedial programs for women to make
up for the years they weren't allowed to compete in most sports. Perhaps we do, but I don't know why. Are the wrong place to start.
People must realize that women of all ages should have the same opportunity that men have to compete for spots on the best-organized teams. There should also be programs at all levels of education, who wants to play, regardless of ability.
SOME ARGUE that sports are separated at the professional level, so why not in college? The two systems aren't name. Women's professional teams draw fans and make money.
In college, however, the money isn't there for most sports. Men's football and basketball are the only real sports in college, from those two, along with endowment money and state funds, is quite limited and should be spent in the fairest way possible. And that is for institutionate teams based on ability.
The Student Senate wisely cut the subsidy for football and basketball tickets last year. I didn't like the fact that my season tickets cost more, but I must admit it was unfair to ask them to subsidize those who watched football and basketball.
UNFORTUNATELY, last spring the Senate didn't question the $3,450 of student athletic programs in women's intercollegiate athletics. Much less money, $28,381, went to the intramural program, which serves many teams, than women's athletics does.
If you support teams separated on the basis of sex, don't let me stop you. But admit it is a sexist practice, and please don't do it with my money.