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WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 28, 2012
MEN'S BASKETBALL
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Injury forces freshman forward out of program
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Freshman forward Zach Peters goes in for a layup against AMW Team Frace in an exhibition game this summer. Peters will no longer play for Kansas after the end of the semester.
ETHAN PADWAY
epadway@kansan.com
For freshman Zach Peters, his time as a member of the Kansas men's basketball team came to an abrupt end before it really broke
abrupt end before it really had a chance to begin.
had a chance to begin.
The 6-foot-9 forward from Plano, Texas,
announced he would be leaving the Kansas program at the end of the fall semester after the Jayhawks' game against San Jose State on Monday night.
Peters came to his decision after traveling home to meet with his family over the Thanksgiving break following the Jayhawks victory in the CBE Classic tournament in Kansas City, Mo., last week.
Christian Academy, Peters was planning on redshirting this season as he recovered from a shoulder injury as well as four concussions he suffered in the past year, two of which have come since he
Peters
A four-time all-state selection in high school at Prestonwood
arrived on campus in the fall.
"This is unfortunate for Zach and our team," coach Bill Self said. "I personally thought that Zach had a chance to be a very good player at the University of Kansas. It's a shame that these
health issues have kept him from doing so. While the shoulder has improved, he's still not 100 percent."
Self did not believe the lack of playing time factored into his decision.
"I hate that this is happening. I have really enjoyed my time at KU." Peters said in a press release.
"I was looking forward to having a great college experience here but with all the injuries, including the concussions, that I have dealt with lately. I feel like in order for me to move on and be able to get over all this, I need to go home and basically heal."
Peters will not transfer to another school in an attempt to play. Instead he will first return home and focus his attention on healing.
The 240-pound Peters was expected to bring some physicality to the Jayhawks in the low-post. He was the team's second-leading rebounder on their 2012 European exhibition trip, averaging 6.3 boards in the team's four games against the Swiss National team and AMW Team France.
He also averaged five points per game in the exhibition contests.
"If it were my son, I'd tell him to do the same thing," Self said. "I don't think it's a bad move on his
part at all. I know his family was hoping that it could work out differently, but I don't think that he was feeling it. There was too much concern about getting hit again."
Peters, who led his high school to Texas Association of Private and Parochial school state titles his sophomore and senior seasons, was also a standout wide receiver on his high school football team. He finished his senior year with 13 touchdown receptions and more than one thousand yards receiving.
"I really like all my teammates. This was the best situation I could have put myself in to excel in basketball." Peters said. "I want to say thank you to KU, the coaches, staff, teammates and fans that have supported me. I wish it didn't have to end up like this, but it's important for me to do so for my future."
MLB
Edited by Brian Sisk
Free agency pioneer passes away
Michael Weiner, left, MLBPA executive director; Marvin Miller, center, former head of the association; and Donald Fehr, former MLBPA executive director and currently the executive director of the NHL Players' Association, where Miller discussed the 40th anniversary of the first baseball strike. Miller, the union leader who created free agency for baseball players and revolutionized professional sports with multimillion dollar contracts, died Tuesday in New York. He was 95.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Marvin Miller was a labor economist who never played a day of organized baseball. He preferred tennis. Yet he transformed the national pastime as surely as Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, television and night games.
Miller, the union boss who won free agency for baseball players in 1975, ushering in an era of multimillion-dollar contracts and athletes who switch teams at the drop of a batting helmet, died Tuesday at 95. He had been diagnosed with liver cancer in August.
"I think he's the most important baseball figure of the last 50 years," former baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent said. "He changed not just the sport but the business of the sport permanently, and he truly emancipated the baseball player — and in the process all professional athletes. Prior to his time, they had few rights. At the moment, they control the games."
In his 16 1/2 years as executive director of the Major League Players Association, starting in 1966, Miller fought owners on many fronts, not only achieving free agency but making the word "strike" stand for something other than a pitched ball.
Over the years, his influence was widely acknowledged if not always honored. Baseball fans argue over whether he made the game fairer or more nakedly mercenary, and the Hall of Fame repeatedly rejected him in what was attributed to lingering resentment among team owners.
Players attending the union's annual executive board meeting in New York said their professional lives are Miller's legacy.
"Anyone who's ever played modern professional sports owes a debt of gratitude to Marvin Miller," Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Chris Capuano said. "He empowered us as players. He gave us ownership of the game we play. Anyone who
steps on a field in any sport, they have a voice because of him."
Major League Baseball's revenue has grown from $50 million in 1967 to $7.5 billion this year. At his last public speaking engagement, a discussion at New York University School of Law in April marking the 40th anniversary of the first baseball strike, Miller said free agency and resulting fan interest contributed to the increase. And both management and labor benefited, he said.
"I never before saw such a win-win situation in my life, where everybody involved in Major League Baseball, both sides of the equation, still continue to set records in terms of revenue and profits and salaries and benefits," Miller said. He called it "an amazing story."
"Anyone who's ever played modern professional sports owes a debt of gratitude to Marvin Miller."
Slightly built and silver-haired with a thick, dark mustache, Miller
days, was followed by a walkout during spring training in 1976 and a midseason job action that darkened the stadiums for seven weeks in 1981.
Miller led players through three strikes and two lockouts. Baseball has had eight work stoppages in all.
CHRIS CAPUANO LA Dodgers pitcher
Miller, who retired in 1982, led the first walkout in the game's history 10 years earlier, a fight over pension benefits. On April 5, 1972, signs posted at major league parks simply said: "No Game Today." The strike, which lasted 13
operated with an eloquence and a soft-spoken manner that belied his toughness. He clashed repeatedly with Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.
Before Miller took over the
union, some players actually opposed his appointment as successor to Milwaukee Judge Robert Cannon, who had counseled them on a part-time but unpaid basis.
"Some of the player representatives were leary about picking a union man." Hall of Fame pitcher and former U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning said in 1974. "But he was very articulate ... not the cigar-chewing type some of the guys expected."
passed the word that if I were selected, goon squads would take over the game. They suggested racketeers and gangsters would swallow baseball. The players expected a 'dese, dem and dose' guy. The best thing I had going for me was owner propaganda."
He was elected by the players by a vote of 489-136. Baseball had entered a new era, one in which its owners would have to bargain with a union professional.
When he took over, the union consisted of a $5,400 kitty and a battered file cabinet, and baseball's minimum salary was $6,000. By 1968, Miller had negotiated baseball's first collective bargaining agreement. By 1970, players obtained the right to take disputes to an arbitrator.
Nowadays, baseball's biggest stars make up to $32 million a season, the average salary is more than $3 million and the major league minimum is $480,000. While the NFL, NBA and NHL have salary caps, baseball does not.
Miller recalled that owners
Miller's biggest legacy — free agency — represented one of the most significant off-the-field changes in the game's history.
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Senior guard Monica Engelman shoots the ball during the first half of the match against the Idaho State Bengals at Allen Fieldhouse on Nov 11. Engelman had 10 total points for the game.
Jayhawks have no illusions about Tigers
Coming off a successful Thanksgiving break-worth of basketball, the No. 20 Kansas Jayhawks will look to improve to 6-0 to start the season for the third consecutive year.
The Jayhawks will square off against the Grambling State Tigers in Allen Fieldhouse tonight at 7 p.m. It'll be a matchup of two different teams seemingly headed in opposite directions as the season starts to heat up.
Kansas senior guard Monica Engelman, who averages 6.8 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, isn't looking at the numbers and the record of the Tigers as a possible day to go easy. Rather, it's an opportunity to keep taking care of business.
NATHAN FORDYCE
nfordvce@kansan.com
"They can struggle against other teams but come in and have the game of their life against us," Engelman said. "Regardless of what's on the front of the jersey, we have to do what we're suppose to do."
Focus and discipline will be the key for the Jayhawks as they try to look past the record of their opponent from the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
The Tigers are 0-4 and have struggled to make shots and get points, averaging just 49.8 points per game and shooting 28.5 percent from the floor.
10
One of the big focal points will be for the Jayhawks to continue to apply pressure on the defensive side of the ball. The Tigers are averaging 22.5 turnovers per game.
"Defensive pressure is always a key, along with getting turnovers," sophomore guard Natalie Knight said. "You have to play defense to win."
The shooting woes didn't have Kansas coach Bonnie Henrickson worried because she knew they were still getting good looks, and eventually those looks would fall.
In the victories over Alabama A&M and Creighton, the Jayhawks shot 50 percent, an improvement from the 36 percent they shot in the first three games of the season.
"We're getting uncontested shots. I would be more upset or angsty if we weren't unselfish enough that we couldn't get anything uncontested and everything was a tough two," Henrickson said. "None of that was the case."
One of the keys to the Jayhawks' success has been feeding the ball inside to senior forward Carolyn Davis. Davis is averaging 18 points per game in 23 minutes of action per game.
Knight said getting Davis easy looks will go a long way in making sure the Jayhaws continue to shoot at a high percentage.
Overall, Kansas is 12-1 against SWAC opponents. However, the Jayhawks are aware that any team can be beaten on any night, so they won't overlook Grambling State.
"You prepare anyone the same," Knight said. "We know to beat someone. You have to be prepared, and we're treating this just like any other game."
Edited by Brian Sisk