Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports
Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa continue their record-setting home run season.
See Page 5B
Big 12 Football
Wildcats and Longhorns tangle in Manhattan in week three of the Big 12 football season.
Tuesday
September 15, 1998
Section:
B
Page 1
SEE PAGE 4B
Pro Football
Quarterbacks are an endangered species, and NFL backups are taking a lot of snaps in practice this week.
SEE PAGE 6B
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New football coach pumps up team
Kevin Coleman is in his second year as the Jayhawks' strength coach. The focus of Coleman's drills is building acceleration and agility. Photo by Roger Nomer/KANSAN
The pro-agility drill
Players are timed running the pro-agility drill. It measures their ability to change directions quickly and accelerate. Running Back David Winbush had the fastest time in Kansas fall test at 3.86 seconds.
Coleman brings Kansas power with program
Kristi Fillott / KANSAN
By Randy Withers
Kansan Sportswriter
When you say the words "college football," images of Saturday afternoon battles and national champions come to mind.
Seldom do thoughts of just how much work it takes to compete at the Division I level accompany them. Now more than ever, strength and conditioning play a major role in determining the success of a football program.
Enter strength and conditioning coach Kevin Coleman. As the Kansas football program strives for improvement this fall, his main focus is what goes on before football season ever begins.
The right moves
"Kevin's a great addition to our staff," said coach Terry Allen who hired Coleman in the Fall of 1997. "He's a guy that brings a lot of expertise about weight training, strength and conditioning. It's (weight training) extremely important. I think that was one of the real pluses about being able to break out and get a football-only strength coach. Kevin really fit the bill there, and we're very pleased to have him."
In Coleman's program, power agility and acceleration take precedence over speed.
Most Division I teams emphasize training techniques that are well suited to the sport of football, but Kansas has gone a step further with Coleman's direction. Coleman's training mimics the athletic movements used during the course of a football play.
"Speed is important." Coleman said. "But football players need more acceleration than speed. Speed isn't a huge component. Agility is. Agility is the ability to change directions quickly, like Barry Sanders."
To increase acceleration and agility, players do explosive training during the off-season and preseason on Mondays and Wednesdays. The explosive training focuses on triple extension movements — movements of the ankles, knees and hips. Tuesdays and Thursdays they work on improving strength by using standard resistance exercises.
Simulating game conditions, even the amount of rest between drills mirroring the break between plays in a game, is important to Coleman.
"If a drill takes five seconds, we'll give them, say, 35 seconds to rest," Coleman said. Players conditioned in this fashion are at a distinct advantage on game day.
"You may be strong, and you may
be able to do repeated amounts of intense exercise, but you're not explosive," Coleman said. "Through triple extension, you build power. The athletes have belief in the program, they've seen it work."
Triple extension
The ideas of triple-extension movements and explosive ground based training are not new to college athletics. These principles have been integral parts of Husker Power, the strength program at the University of Nebraska, since its inception in 1969.
"These principles were researched and implemented into the Husker Power program while Kevin Coleman was at Nebraska," said Boyd Epley, Nebraska strength coach. "He benefited from them as an athlete at Nebraska, and now the Kansas athletes are benefiting from them."
"There is no way to determine how much impact the Husker Power program has had on Nebraska football. I can tell you that Nebraska was 6-4 in 1967 and in 1968. Bob Devaney allowed us to start Husker Power in 1969 and the football team has won 299 times since," Epley said.
The University of Nebraska is not the only high-profile football program to benefit from this type of program. Kansas State's Powercat Strength program is built along the same lines.
"It is the best way to train athletes, in my opinion," said Rod Cole, Powercat strength and conditioning coordinator. "Strength and conditioning is just one piece of the puzzle to success in athletics. Strength and conditioning is important and crucial, but
there is no way of giving a 'quantifi-
able amount' to its contribution.
Coleman determines whether players are improving with off-season tests of athleticism. This years preseason testing was held on Aug. 10. The coaching staff tested players in the 10-yard dash, pro-agility drill and vertical leap. The emphases of these drills were on explosiveness and the ability to change directions quickly.
The drills are predicated upon the idea of an athlete executing them at his highest level.
"For me, I believe that anything, no matter what you do, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing 100 percent," Coleman said.
The man
Coleman began his career as a graduate assistant at the University of Nebraska, known across the country as the mecca of power and strength training. Coleman served as a graduate assistant under Coach Epley for four and a half years.
As an undergraduate at Nebraska, he was a back-to-back NCAA indoor shot put national champion in 1992 and 1993, a five-time Big 8 shot champion, and a four-time All-American.
His two school shot put records, 65
See COLEMAN on page 3B
Commentary
Referees, beer ads annoy TV viewers
On a Saturday full of frustration, some joy and comedy was brought to me by Coor's Light
Let me refresh your memory: A Russian basketball player is clumsy and in the way. His teammate mispronounce his name, which provokes the Russian to spell out his name Krebs, K-R-E-B-S. The teammate yells angrily, "I can spell, I'm from here."
To make a long story even longer, the Russian nails the game winner and the player that yelled at him wants to buy him a Coors Light. The Russian then spells Coors and everyone is happy. What were the marketing geniuses thinking? I can see them in a boardroom when someone lays the commercial script on the director. The director leaps out of his seat and says, "Yes, that's amazing, beer can bring nations together. I love it!"
Tony Pacheco
This is just plain stupid. S-T-U-P-I-D.
mind when I think of the referees' performance at this weekend's Kansas vs. Missouri football game.
For the third time in two weeks the referees changed the momentum of a game.
The no-call occurred when Missouri free safety Harold Pierse intercepted Kansas quarterback Zac Wegner's pass to tight end Jason Gulley after throwing Gulley to the ground.
At that point the Tigers were holding on to a 27-23 lead.
Unfortunately, the coaches cannot comment on the performance of the referees, but Coach Allen got his point across when he said, "It's a costly no-call. That is the best as I'm going to call it. But that's two weeks in a row, and I'm tired of it."
Well put, Coach. I can feel your frustration, brother
We all know the game was marred with its low points so let's take a look at the some bright spots.
Congratulations to Henri Childs for his first career touchdown in the form of a 79-yard punt return. He was criticized last week for his decision not to field a punt. Redemption is sweet.
Congratulations to David Winbush for a career-high of 99 yards and to Mitch Bowles for his 39-yard touchdown run. That was one of the best runs I've seen this year, awesome.
The KU offense led by Wegner and running backs Winbush, Bowles and Julius Bruce looked unstoppable at times.
The Kansas offense, much to the surprise of everyone except me (remember I called them All-Americans a couple of weeks ago), racked up more than 300 yards in a balanced attack.
This gives the fans much to be excited about. I believe, at times, the Jayhawks can play with everyone in the league, but the mistakes must stop.
Now I'm starting the KU football bandwagon. Mark my words, it will be another month until the 'Hawks lose. Hop on, it will be a fun ride.
Enough musby stuff.
If I ever had the chance to build a football program, I would model it after the K-State program. The 73-7 murdering of a school nobody can remember screams CLASS ACT.
Have you seen K-State coach Bill Snyder's new book entitled "How to Murder Really Terrible Teams at Home and Then Lose to Nebraska for 30 Years Straight"? It's really good and funny.
Then when I think things can't get any worse, my beloved Chiefs lose.
Some weekends I think it's best not to get out of bed, but I don't want to talk about it.
Pacheco is an Olathe senior in English.
Pick 'em games Week 3, Sept. 19
The games continue. Week three features a North vs. South battle when Texas travels to Manhattan to battle the Wildcats.
You can leave your picks in 111 StaufferFlint Hall, or e-mail them to the sports editor at matter@ukens.edu
Tell us who you think will win all the games.
Send us your picks, your name, year in school and hometown.
Score Teams Score
Illinois State at Kansas
Indiana State at Ohio State
Missouri at Ohio State
Texas State at Tennessee
Ball State at Iowa State
North Carolina at Northampton
Mississippi State at Oklahoma State
Fresno State at Texas Tech
Florida at Tennessee
Kristi Elliott / KANSAN
Telephone survey to help determine need for new KU recreational center
By Sam Mellinger
Student Senate will conduct a survey in the next month to better understand campus opinion about the possible construction of a new recreation center at the University of Kansas.
A planned November renovation of Robinson Center that will replace five racquetball courts with a research laboratory has some students wanting a new facility.
"I get a lot of complaints about this," said Kevin Yoder, student body president. "To me, it's something this campus needs, but we need to work with students, really find out what they want."
Kansan sportswriter
A telephone survey will be conducted by the Institute for Public Policy and Business Research, an independent research unit located on campus.
The group will use a random sampling
Scott Kaiser, student body vice president, said a rough draft of the survey had 14 questions and would probably take about five minutes to answer.
of 300 to 400 people, producing a 2.5 to 3 percent margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.
Yoder said he hoped the survey would provide a better idea of whether students wanted services that required a new facility, or whether Robinson could be improved to meet student needs.
Results from the survey will be used to develop a proposal that Yoder will present to the Senate in November.
"We need to find out what students want to see," Kaiser said. "For people who go to recreational facilities, what do they want to do? How much are they willing to pay?"
Supporters of a new center are hoping for a different result than what happened two years ago in a similar effort.
In the only single-referendum vote in school history, students voted down a proposal for a $21.5 million center by almost a 2-to-1 margin.
"The problems are getting worse, it's not even staying bad," Yoder said. "I think if we do our research and truly represent student opinion, we can get this done."
Kaiser recently visited a facility at Kansas State and said Robinson did not compare.
"It's really nice," Kaiser said. "It's really popular, really modern, you can use it from 6 a.m. to midnight, and when I went, no one was waiting in line.
"I think it's sad that we have a worse facility than K-State," said Brad Lyons, Steamboat Springs, Colo., junior, who has a membership to the Lawrence Athletic Club. "I think Robinson's too small. A new facility would be more convenient."
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