Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports
Kansas defender Kylie Watts' head has been a dangerous weapon for the layhawks this season. See Page 3B
Pro Basketball
The NBA cancelled two more weeks of the regular season yesterday.
SEE PAGE 3B
Thursday
October 29, 1998
Section:
B
Page 1
College Football
K-State QB Michael Bishop was named one of the five finalists for the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award.
SEE PAGE 4B
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Commentary
In-state rivalry lacks intensity of years past
There was a time when the Kansas vs. Kansas State football game was the biggest event in the state.
Larger than the wheat harvest. Greater than election day. More critical than who got blue ribbons at the State Fair.
People spent the week leading to the contest doing what they could to give their team an advantage and strike at the hearts of the opposition.
Students snuck onto the rival's campus and caused creative destruction.
Kansas die-hards painted Jayhawks on Kansas State's football field, dressed up Kansas State statues in Kansas hats and jackets and then shaved the Wildcats' sheep.
Kansas State fanatics poured purple dye in the Chi Omega fountain, kidnapped Baby Jay and left cow droppings lying around the Kansas cam-
pings lying around the Kansas campus.
People lived and died by this game. In 1975, people bought calendars that went up to 1990, just so they could mark the game for years to come.
Kansas graduates would, for one week, stop talking to their spouses who had graduated from Kansas State.
As a fourth-generation KU student, I was taught as a child that Wildcats are the weakest of the cat family.
Kansas State graduates preached to their children that Kansas had to invent the Jayhawk, because no real animal wanted the shame of being the Kansas mascot.
Students skinned class before the
Spencer Duncan
langton @facon.co.
ukans.edu
game just to rest for "Sacred Saturday." Professors gave pop quizzes asking, "Are you going to the game?" Students who answered "no" were in danger of flunking.
Football players went into seclusion days before the game, watching tapes of games they didn't even play in but that showed past losses their team had suffered.
For one week, the state focused on the biggest game of the year.
This week. it is a side note.
The Wildcats have trounced Kansas five consecutive years. Kansas State is now a perennial powerhouse ranked in the Top 10, while Kansas is searching for a winning record.
The rivalry, while still significant, does not have the pregame intensity it once had. Kansas, once divided for one Saturday of every year, is now a state that recognizes the game but doesn't allow it to overtake daily lives.
At some point on Saturday, when the Jayhawks falls behind, an absurd group of Kansas fans will yell, "Wait until basketball season." This only will show how much the rivalry has deteriorated. The football game used to be THE game. Basketball season could not wipe away the pain of a football loss.
The situation has been worsened by the Athletics Department's attempt to cash in on the rivalry. Tickets for Saturday's game are 840 per ticket, the most in history, and many fans are not paying.
More than 7,500 tickets remain for a game which many had expected a near sellout of the 50,200-seat Memorial Stadium.
It is unreasonable to ask fans to pay so much. Families of four must spend $160 to just get in to the game. Then that family must pay the outrageous food and drink prices.
Many cannot afford it, so they don't go. And that hurts the rivalry.
If young people and fans are forced to watch the game on television or listen to the radio because they can't ever afford tickets, then they lose a sense of how important the game is. Television cannot capture the emotion and atmosphere of the rivalry. If people cannot experience the game firsthand, then it becomes less important to them.
Somewhere along the line the game became less important to people. Too bad, because this rivalry always has been a good one.
Let me correct mvself.
Yesterday I wrote that during Saturday's Homecoming game a few Crimson Girls made fun of an alumna baton twirler during halftime of the game.
Larson, who was very pleasant, said the twirler was a friend of the Crimson Girls who works regularly with the women. The Crimson Girls were not laughing at the baton twirler, they were joking around with her.
Lindsey Larson, Crimson Girls captain, visited me and enlightened me to new facts not initially told to me.
I apologize for my mistake, but my initial point still stands.
It is great that the Crimson Girls have that relationship with an alumna. However, the people sitting in the stands at the football game did not know that the Crimson Girls were not being mean but just having fun.
To the casual observer, it looked as if the Crimson Girls were making fun of the woman.
The Crimson Girls and any other group that performs in front of thousands of people should keep this in mind at all times.
Duncan is a Topeka senior in journalism and English.
Jayhawks prevail in last match
Volleyball
Oklahoma State finally is defeated after intense rally
By Laura Bokenkroger Kansan sportswriter
Kansan sportswriter
For the first time this season, the Kansas volleyball team had to play a fifth game.
The Oklahoma Sooners came back from a two-game deficit last night at Allen Field House, winning two consecutive games sending the match to rally scoring.
Rally scoring means that a point is scored on every serve—every side-out is a point.
But Kansas prevailed, improving to 14-9 overall and 4-7 in the confer-
see, after winning 16-14, 15-11, 13-15, 7-15 and 15-7 in five games.
"It was definitely a battle all the way," said right side hitter
Nancy Bell. "We kind of let ourselves down in the third game because we weren't executing."
Oklahoma jumped out to a 6-3 lead in the first game and kept it close the whole way. After falling 16-14, the Sooners lost some momentum and fell behind 12-4 in the second game.
But, as they would continue to prove all night, they were resilient, rattling off four consecutive points to pull within four. But the Jayhawks held on for the win, defeating the Sooners 15-11.
But in the third game, the momentum shifted. The Jayhawks lost a 9-2 lead as Oklahoma battled to stay alive.
"Oklahoma comes in and they're relaxed," coach Ray Beachard said. "They're thinking they have nothing to lose, because theyre not supposed to get much done. All they wanted to do was hang around and extend the match, and they did that."
The Jayhawks were kept off-balance as Oklahoma's offense took over. The Sooners tied the game at 12 and again at 13 before taking the lead for the first time. They won 15-13.
"We stopped battling," said setter Laura Rohde. "We were ahead 9-2 and they won it and that's unacceptable. We should finish the game off."
Oklahoma was on a roll. The Sooners, who were 1-9 in the conference before last night, jumped ahead 13-4 in the fourth game and the Jayhawks never recovered.
"It was really quiet out there," Bell said. "We weren't taking responsibility for our mistakes as a team, and we weren't executing. We weren't using our opportunities to score points."
After losing 15-7 in the fourth game, the Jayhawks were faced with a new challenge.
They would have to play a fifth game—in rally scoring—to decide the winner.
The Jayhawks jumped ahead 5-1, but the game was quickly tied at 6. The teams battled for each point, keeping one point away from the leader the whole way.
Tied at 14, the Sooners set up for a critical kick on a Kansas overpass, but Rohde blocked the attack, giving Kansas the 15-14 edge. Beard said it was plays like those that helped them overcome the Sooners 18-16.
"Games don't get much closer than that," Bechard said. "We put ourselves in a real tense situation. You hate to get to that point, but we got some breaks, and we made some great plays. Maybe that'll help us down the road somewhere."
Rohde broke the Kansas record for assists in a single five-game match, posting 74, one more than the previous best.
The Jayhawks battle Kansas State at 7:30 tomorrow night in Allen Field House.
Middle blocker Amanda Reves spikes the ball against her Oklahoma opponent, Carolyn Kittell, in the second match of the evening. The Jayhawks defeated the Sooners in five sets, 16-14, 15-11, 13-15, 7-15 and 15-7. Kansas will face rival Kansas State tomorrow night at Allen Field House. Photo by Jay Sheperd/ KANSAN
"We don't toot our horn enough in this league."
Nebraska coach Paul Sanderford
Aiming for the NCAA tournament
Women's basketball Big 12 coaches hope to sow better seeds
By Sam Mellinger
Kansas sportswriter
The University of Kansas women's basketball team danced to Aretha Franklin's "Respect" at Late Night on Oct. 16, and yesterday at Big 12 Media Day, the league's coaches were singing a similar tune.
Kansan sportswriter
The event was held at the Embassy Suites KCI Airport, and
"As coaches, we need to do a better job promoting our-
if featured many of the coaches pleading for R-E-S-P-E-C T.
iect of some disrespect.
"We don't toot our horn enough in this league," said Nebraska second-year coach Paul Sanderford. "If you watch when the SEC is on TV, they're always saying they're great and they're all of this, well, the bottom six teams in our conference would wear out the SEC."
Oklahoma State coach Dick Hall-
terman said his team was the sub-
selves and each other," said Iowa State coach Bill Pennelly.
"I really felt like we did get snubbed last year," he said. "If you look at what we did in the last
10 games last year, for us to not be in is absolutely a joke. I'm not so sure we didn't get sold out a little bit to get some better seeds down the road."
The Cowgirls won eight of their last 10 games in 1997-98, losing to eventual champion Texas Tech in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament.
Halterman suggested that his team was left out of the tournament as part of a deal to make Iowa State a higher seed.
"It's hard to justify Iowa State as a top-16 team," he said.
The Cyclones beat OSU 68-63 on Feb. 4 in Stillwater, Okla.
"They're still on the committee, and I've probably said too much already," he said.
ratterman declined to elaborate on which selection committee members may have been involved.
Some see this season as an opportunity to add the Big 12 to the nation's top conferences. Kansas and Texas Tech are ranked in several preseason top 10 lists, and Iowa State and Nebraska also have received some national attention.
Many of the coaches and players said that the rankings in women's college basketball had a lot to do with tradition. Players and teams from traditional power conferences such as the SEC and ACC tend to get more attention.
This season, several Big 12 teams feature some of the nation's top players. Preseason conference Player of the Year Lynn Pride,
"It's been unbelievable," said
Ansas junior,
and Texas Tech
senior Angie
Braziel are
among the preseason
candidates for the
N a i s m i t h
Player of the
Year award.
Other top players
in the Big 12
include Phylesha
Whaley,
O k l a h o m a:
Kesha Bonds,
Missouri Lara
Webb, Baylor; Stacy Frese, Iowa State; and Edwina Brown, Texas. "It has been unbelievable." said
Washington:
Jayhawks are No.
1 in the Big 12.
Nearly every coach praised the depth of the conference, saying there was no weak link in the chain from Kansas, picked to finish first, to Missouri, picked to finish last
ences in the country."
Baylor coach Sonja Hogg. "The fact that we have so many good, quality players in this league has made us one of the best conferences in the
Halterman: Thinks his team gets no respect.
"Can you imagine the
University of Texas, with all its history, being picked seventh?" Sanderford said.
The depth of quality teams in the conference makes for parity when the wins and losses are added up, but Kansas State coach Deb Patterson said this might be the year that the Big 12 got its respect.
"We have a legitimate shot at qualifying six or seven teams to the NCAA tournament," she said. "We're excited about that and about lining up against quality competition each and every night."
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