PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Boston pitcher ROGER CLEMENS was selected American League Player of the Week yesterday, while Loo A ngeles pitcher Video Nomo and Pittsburgh shortstop Jay Bell shared the National League award. Clemens tied his major-league record with 20 strikeouts against Detroit in
SPORTS
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
a 4-0 win Thursday night. Nomo pitched a no-hitter Tuesday night at Colorado, and Bell went 11-for-20 last week with two doubles.
OLYMPIC BASEBALL UPDATE
The INTERNATIONAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, the games world governing body, voted on Saturday to open the sport to professionals. Although there is no guarantee major leaguers
will play in Sydney in 2000, the IBA rescinded its amateur-only rule for the Olympics, world championships, and other IBA-sanctioned events.
BIG 12 UPDATE
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1996
Iowa State Running back TROY DAVIS and Kansas State cornerback Chris Canty were named yesterday as Big 12 Conference Players of the Week. Davis was named top offensive player for his 53-carry, 241-yard and four touchdown performance in a 42-35 victory Saturday against Northern Iowa.
Defensive honors went to Centy for his accomplishments in the Wildcet's 34-7 win at Rice. He returned an interception 44 yards, returned three punts for 37 yards and ran back a kickoff for a season-high 70
abovehight 9 yards. He also caught a pass for 24 yards.
Trainer fired for telling tales of Mike Tyson's marriage
ALBANY, N.Y. — Boxer Mike Tyson testified yesterday that he once considered Kevin Rooney to be like a brother, but he grew angry with his former trainer when he began talking about Tyson's personal life to reporters.
Tyson took the stand in federal court for nearly three hours in Rooney's $49 million breach of contract lawsuit against the fighter. Rooney contends that he had Tyson's word that he would be his trainer throughout his career.
Before a courtroom packed with fans and reporters, Tyson testified about his early career and love for mentor Cus D'Amato.
"Even right now I'm not mad at Kevin." Tyson said.
Their relationship soured in late
1988 when Rooney went public with criticisms of Tyson's rocky marriage with actress Robin Givens. Rooney was fired by Tyson soon after some of the trainer's
appeared in the media
Mike Tyson
"I didn't feel comfortable being in the ring with Kevin. I lost a great deal of confidence and respect for him," Tyson testified.
lyson also disputed Rooney's contention that he's never been as good a boxer since firing Rooney.
Rooney is suing the boxer for $18.5 million of his past earnings and $30.6 million in projected earnings.
Rooney concedes he had no contract with Tyson from the time he first trained him in 1982.
The Associated Press
Falcon quarterback benched after confronting his coach
or on a shirt in George, after being benched in the third quarter of a 33-18 loss to Philadelphia, followed Jones down the sideline, noticeably upset after the decision.
SUWANEE, Ga. — The Atlanta Falcons suspended Jeff George on Monday, one day after the quarterback confronted Falcon coach June Jones on the sidelines.
"It was very serious in my eyes." Jones said after Monday's practice. "He left me no choice."
Jones met with George on Monday and told him of the suspension.
Bobby Hebert will start Sunday for the
Falcons at San Francisco, and Jones said he would evaluate George's future after a day or two. The coach indicated that George's days in Atlanta were finished, saying a trade
Jeff George
was possible.
George left the Falcons complex without comment, although he was repentant Sunday night about the language he used with his coach.
"I guess some of the things I said on the sideline, I'm kind of upset about that," he said. "I need to learn a little bit about that, I guess."
Still, it was clear George wasn't happy about being benched, having completed 10 straight passes before he threw an interception that prompted Jones to put Hebert in the game with the Falcons trailing 23-10.
"In my mind, I think I could have brought the team back," George said. "We had the whole second half. There was a lot of football to be played."
—The Associated Press
Ment tee off in home opener
KU women play Pacific territory
by tommy Gallagher
Kansan sportswriter
The Jayhawk golf teams will be in action for the next three days, but where and who they play at their respective tournaments couldn't be any further apart.
confer, both the The Jayhawk men start their season today by sponsoring the Kansas Invitational at Alvamar Golf Course. The Jayhawks, who have won the tournament the last two years and six of the last eight, will be competing on the same course they practice on daily.
"To us, the course really doesn't seem that hard because we know what each hole is like," sophmore Chris Thompson said. "The course has big greens with steep slopes and subtle breaks and that gives people the most trouble."
year's tournament Last year, the Jayhawks shot all rounds of the three-round tournament at par or better for the first time in team history with team scores of 286, 285 and 288. The Jayhawks won the tournament with a team score of 859, which broke the team low for the Invitational by 11 shots, set by Kansas in 1988.
Thompson, one of Kansas' top golfers, set career lows for a round and total with scores of 72 and 220, respectively, at last year's tournament.
Despite the team's success at the tournament,men's head coach Ross Randall guarded against being too optimistic about playing at home.
"Sometimes there can be more pressure playing at home because you know the course, because you want to do too much," he said. "We want to find out how our young talent performs under pressure and see who will continue to golf for us later in the year."
year.
The first round will start at 8 a.m. and the second about 1 p.m.
The last round of the 54-hole tournament will start at 8:30 a.m.
tomorrow.
tunfortow. The tournament will feature 17 teams. Area teams include Missouri, Kansas State, Iowa State, Nebraska, Texas Tech, Wichita State and Drake.
The Jayhawk women will compete in the Northwest Invitational at Crosswater Golf Resort in Suriver, Ore. The team will play the three-round tournament in three days, starting today.
"We'll see a different group of schools than we're accustomed to," said Jerry Waugh, women's head coach. "The thing is, we don't compete against the other teams or the golf course; we play to challenge ourselves to perform at our best each time out."
The women's golf team won't be playing at home. In fact, they will play teams and a course unfamiliar to coaches and players alike.
Most of the 18 teams will be from the Pacific region, such as Southern California, Washington, Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State. The only other Big 12 school will be Colorado.
But team members are looking forward to the tournament.
Chris Hamilton / KANSAN
"None of us know what to expect, so we're all pretty excited to go," said sophomore Mandy Munsch.
Jake Istrnik, Tulsa, Okla., sophomore, tees off at Alvamar Golf Course in the Kansas Invitational. Istrik shot a 68 yesterday on his first round.
Volleyball player sets example
Pam Dishmanr / KANSAN
By Adam Herschman Kansan sportswriter
Tiffany Sennett, Wonderlake, Ill.,
junior, serves the ball against Cal-
State-Fullerton Saturday night.
Drying sweaty volleyballs in Allen Field House may not sound rewarding, but eighth-grader Satinne Maring would disagree.
Maring, a speed wiper at the Kansas Tournament, traveled 50 miles with the Osawatonie Middle School seventh- and eighth-grade volleyball team to watch the Kansas volleyball team defeat Texas Pan-American in the home opener on Friday.
SECTION 2
"I someday hope to play on a volleyball team in college, and I really like to watch volleyball and be around it," Maring said.
Sennett, a backup to sophomore setter Laura Rohde, was a big reason why Kansas won the home opener and went 2-1 in the Kansas Tournament. Robhue suffered a mild concussion after she collided with another Jayhawk in the second game against Texas Pan-American. Sennett relieved Rohde and post ed21 assists in four games.
Maring said she considered the Kansas players role models.
One of the Jayhawks Maring watched closely in the tournament was junior Tiffany Sennett, who also plays setter.
"I think they're great," said Maring, a setter on the eighth-grade team. "They're just everything I'd like to be when I get older."
"First I was glad to see her get up," Sennett said. "But I knew she'd probably be a little disoriented. I'd probably go in for a couple plays — that's what I thought when I saw her get up."
Sennett, however, finished the match and started the next two because Rohde did not return after her injury. She will be re-evaluated later this week to determine when she can practice.
Sennett recorded 25 assists in the Jayhawks' win against DePaul and 37 assists in the team's loss to Cal State-Fullerton
"Their whole role is to be ready at a minute's notice to go in and take the opportunity to prove themselves," Schonewise said.
Kansas coach Karen Schonewise said bench players lived their lives for a chance to play.
She ranks fifth in Kansas' career records in set assists and recorded 728 last year. She was a two-time all-area and all-conference player at Central High School in Clifton, Ill.
But Sennett hasn't always been a reserve.
"She's capable of playing, and we
assure all at hits that she's capa-
lity."
ble of playing," junior middle blocker Maggie Mohrfeld said. "We have all the confidence in the world in her to come in and do the job if something like this would happen. She's a very calming setter. If you're hitting the ball, and you miss one, she has faith in you."
Just as Maring admires Kansas volleyball players, Sennett also had a role model. Leighann Vanderhayden played volleyball at Minooka High School in Minooka, III, when Sennett was in the sixth grade.
"I don't know if she took me under her wing, or I kind of snuck under her wing but she taught me a lot of things," Sennett said.
Sennett wears the same number for the Jayhawks, 15, that Vanderhavden wore.
hayden wrote.
"Ever since I saw her play, I tried to play the same way she did," Sennett said. "I just loved her because she spent time with me and showed me things."
After the home opener, the Kansas volleyball team signed autographs for many of the players on the Osawatomie teams.
Sennett now understands how important it is to set a good example, she said.
"Now I know what she felt like when someone's looking up to you," Sennett said.
Time off has Jayhawks eager to play
Football team lusts for game routine
By Dan Gelston
Kansan sportswriter
Kansas can say bye-bye to bye weeks.
Saturday was the No. 20 Jayhawks' last week off for the rest of the season. When Kansas, 2-1, plays Utah at 8:05 p.m. Saturday at Salt Lake City, the game will be Kansas' first in two weeks and only the second game this month.
Utah is 3-1,
having won
three straight
since dropping
its opener.
K ans s
coach Glen
Mason said
the Jayhawks
had been
butting heads
in practice getting ready to play.
"it's really been a weird deal," he said. "We've fared OK. You know, you get all geared up for the season — it’s kind of like starting the Indy
500 then you go a couple of laps,
then is starts raining and they put
you in the pit for a while. You sit
there and start checking your tires
but you want to get out and go
again."
Kansas has been in the fast lane of the Big 12 Conference this season. Nebraska's stunning 19-0 loss to Arizona State on Saturday put the Jayhawks and 4-0 Kansas State in a tie for first place in the conference's northern division.
"That was an atypical performance of a Tom-Osborne-coached
Even Mason was surprised at the Cornhuskers' loss.
team." he said.
The Jayhawks have been using time wisely by studying the Utah game film. When Kansas played
As beneficial as practice is, Mason said the Jayhawks could improve only so much playing against each other.
"Everybody gets tired of practice. It's kind of like an extension of spring practice, so to speak," he said. "We've tried to use our time wisely, but at the same time we're anxious to get into the routine of playing."
Continued from Page 4.
Huskers' loss hard to believe
I went to bed too early Saturday night — way too early. When I woke up Sunday morning, I found the college football world, as I knew it, had fallen apart.
I didn't even bother to watch the
I know that's meldromatic. Arizona State shutting out Nebraska, 19-0, isn't the end of the world, at least outside the Nebraska border.
We'll be hearing the numbers for a while: a 26-game winning streak broken; the last shutout against Nebraska in the regular season was in 1973; a 37-game, regular-season winning streak broken; a lost No. 1 ranking, which is no doubt the least important number in this paragraph full of unbelievable ones.
game, knowing that Arizona State would be little or no match for the 'Huskers. In truth, I had already ceded the national championship to them. Who would be in their way? The Florida Gators, still haunted by the whipping they received in Tempe, Ariz. in January? The Tennessee Volunteers? Only if they could have gotten past Florida, and we all saw how well that turned out. Did Nebraska have any major schedule challenges? There was no team I thought they couldn't handle.
In a way, this could be a good thing, because now the pressure is off. Sure, lots of people thought they would win the championship, but nobody thought so more than the team itself. It was as though the regular season was just a formality. They'd roll right past any team blocking their path on the way to another title.
Now the chances of the 'Huskers achieving a three-peat are slim, since a loss in college football equals the kiss of death for championship hopes. They still will have a winning record, for the 35th straight season, another astounding number, and I expect them to be in St. Louis on Dec. 12 for the Big 12 championship game. But then again, maybe not. At this point, anything is possible. By that time and with the way things are going, Kansas will be ranked No. 1 and the Nov. 23 game with Missouri will decide the national title.
That is the beauty of sports. Everyday something different happens. Things never go exactly the way the line says it will. And even more often, things go completely wrong.
Believe it or not, the Nebraska loss wasn't the scariest thing to happen in sports this weekend. That distinction belongs to the Auburn-Louisiana State game, or more precisely, Auburn's old Sports Arena burning during the game. Just 50 yards from the northeast corner of the stadium, the building caught fire. No one was hurt, but with flames shooting 30 feet into the air, it made for one serious bonfire.
We've finally made it to the end of the baseball regular season. Long season? Absolutely, but worth it. There's something wonderful about having one week left in the season and only two division titles clinched — Cleveland in the AL Central and Atlanta in the NEast. Sure, the Cardinals in the NL Central and the Yankees in the AL East have pretty much wrapped up their titles, but it's not finished yet. And best of all, the wild card has served its purpose well — keeping fans on the edge of their seats until the last game has been played. No matter, the Yankees are going to walk away with it all. Agree or disagree? Let me know at cfoster@kansas.com