Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports
Tuesday September 14,1999
Section:
It was John Elway night when the Broncos and Dolphins played the first Monday night NFL game of the season last night in Denver.
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Big 12 football
SEE PAGE 3B
Kansas wasn't the only Big 12 Conference team racking up points on Saturday.
SEE PAGE 6B
Kansas football
Kansas athletics director Bob Frederick will be one of five recipients of the General Robert Neyland Athletic Director Award.
SEE PAGE 2B
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Too many scores tire out flagman
By Mike Miller sports@kansan.com Kansan sportswriter
For once, Kris Nightengale was glad Kansas didn't score.
A member of the Kansas spirit squad, the Sublette junior takes turns with the rest of the male members of the team running the Kansas flag around the field after the football team scores.
They take turns because during high-scoring games, the flag — which weighs about 30 pounds with the pole — becomes too heavy for one person to run after every score.
When Nightengale's partner broke her foot during a stunt before the game, he did the noble thing and offered to run the flag by himself since he didn't have to do stunts between scores.
"He thought he'd be all right," said Lisa Patterson, Olathe sophomore and Nightengale's partner.
"But he didn't know we'd score 70 points." Nightengale says that running the quarter-mile track isn't too bad, except when the Jayhawks score a lot and score often. They did both Saturday during a 71-14 victory.
By the end of the game, Nightengale ran around the track 10 times—more than two miles—carrying the flag the whole time.
"We started scoring and we never quit scoring." Nightengale said.
It got to the point where Nightengale was running a lap about every 10 minutes. But the worst came during one stretch of the third quarter. Kansas scored four times in a span of five and a half minutes.
"After we scored that safety, it just started wearing me out," he said. "I thought I was going to pass out."
He started running slower and slower
after each score. The flag started to droop a bit. Nightengale started cutting corners and ran in front of the goalpost. Then the crowd got into it.
They started cheering when he ran down the student side of the stadium — the homestretch of each lap — and by the time he was on his sixth lap, Nightengale was sucking wind.
"It was crazy when I was going around. Everyone was cheering and stuff," he said. "It really kept me goering after a while."
His stamina amazed the rest of the squad — but so did his stubbornness.
"He just kept running—that's all he did the whole time," said spirit squad member Tara Steiner, Stilwell sophomore. "I would've taken turns. That thing's ungodly heavy."
Nightengale stuck with it, though. He said he has had trouble with the flag before, and he didn't want to quit.
"It came off, and the crowd went nuts." Nightengale said. "So I went and picked up my flag and sulked back."
This time, he pushed through the adversity — and learned to appreciate defensive battles in the process.
"It started wearing me out. I slept well that night," he said.
Nightengale said he was thankful that, with seconds to go and Kansas threatening to score again, Jayhawk coach Terry Allen chose not to put more points on the board.
"But I still haven't thanked Terry for not scoring that last touchdown."
—Edited by Ronnie Wachter
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Kris Nightengale, Kansas spirit squad member, finishes a lap around Notre Dame stadium after a Kansas touchdown. Photo by Matt J. Daugherty/KANSAN
Forward driven by strong work ethic
sports@kansan.com
By Melinda Weaver
Kansan sportswriter
A strong love of basketball and an intense work ethic inspire Kansas forward Brooke Reves to spend her summers in the gym instead of at the beach or in front of the television.
NBA players, including Bobby Jackson of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
For the previous two summers, she has sought the help of a personal trainer, John Stout. A professional, Stout has trained
Reves, her sister Amanda who plays volleyball at Kansas and her close friend Tasha Campbell work with Stout weight training as well as doing drills that help perfect their basketball skills.
"I met her last year through a friend, and once I started training her, I fell in love with her," Stout said. "She did everything I asked of her. Professional athletes tend to be stubborn and won't always listen,
but Brooke had this attitude that she just wanted to get better."
The workout began every day at 6 a.m. — when most people are still in bed hitting the snooze bar — with weight training.
The average person sleeps until 10 a.m. and does not work out until noon," Stout said. "But, like I told the girls, we don't want to be average. We are not working to be average."
Reves said that the most important asset she gained through the training was
endurance.
"When I was tired from working for a long time, we worked on focus and shooting," Reves said. "It's important to maintain your level of skill no matter how tired you are. We worked on techniques that I can use at the end of the game."
Revees developed her work ethic when she was introduced to the game in the
See REVES on page 3A
Soccer team frustrated after disappointing start
Colorado midfielder Maris Dillman blows past Kansas defender Natalie Hoogveld during the Jayhawks game against the Buffaloaes Aug. 27. The Jayhawks are off to a rough start, with a record of 2-3 overall and 0-2 in the Big 12. Photo by Lucas W. Krump/KANSAN
Coach Francis changes lineup wants to see team increase focus
The 1998 Kansas soccer team finished last in the Big 12 Conference, but after three conference games, its record stood at a respectable 1-1-1.
The Jayhawks occupied the middle of the pack at that point, but they lost their last seven Big 12 matches.
by brad rhammer
sports@kansan.com
Kansas associate sports editor
This year has not brought better news. After two Big 12 games, Kansas, 2-3, 0-2 in the Big 12, is already on the outside looking in at one of the eight spots in November's Big 12 tournament in San Antonio.
Early frustration hit the Jayhawks after a 4-0 setback at Missouri last Friday, their worst loss since a 6-0 loss at Nebraska on Oct. 5, 1997.
"We're always thinking we have a different team each
"It's only two games, and we have four games before conference play starts again, so we have a lot of time to improve and be prepared for the conference games."
—Edited by Ronnie Wachter
year," junior midfielder Katie Lents said. "Last year we lost 10 to Colorado, and this year we lost to them 2-1, but we have a better team (this year).
Coach Mark Francis said that he was making changes to the starting lineup, a lineup that still doesn't include Hilla Rantala, the Jayhawks highly touted forward from Finland, who is still out because of an ankle injury.
"We're not getting the job done in a couple of areas," Francis said. "Not having Hilla has hurt us. Not only does she finish well, but she creates. Her runs are so intelligent and the other forwards learn from playing with her.
"She's definitely a missing piece of the pie."
Sophomore Natalie Hoogveld will make one of the changes in the lineup. Yesterday, she made the switch from defender back to forward. Francis said that the Jayhawks needed more punch at forward and that Hoogveld had the tools to play
"I'm kind of excited because that's my original position," Hoogveld said. "I'm not sure if I'll stay there, but I know we're trying to find some chemistry up top. I'll do what I can."
Despite the unpredictable playing level, Kansas' number of goals has been steady. The Jayhawks have tallied nine goals in five games, half of their total from the 1998 season.
Lents said that the problem has been that Kansas wasn't mentally prepared at the beginning of many of its games.
that position.
"We were down 2-0 to Missouri in the first 10 minutes," she said. "That can be really frustrating. All of the players need to find what gets them focused before the game. That way we are focused from the beginning, and we don't have to play catch-up."
"We will sort out these problems in the next four or five games," he said. "But when October comes, we need to win."
Francis agreed. She said Missouri would punish any team that made mistakes. But he said he wouldn't push the panic button.
It's not hypocrisy fat cats should just drink up
As a full-fledged Jayhawk and a sportswriter, I am ashamed of myself.
After a weekend of troubled introspection, I've decided to reveal one of my dirty little secrets.
I'm what's known in KU vernacular as L.T. (that's Lawrence Trash, and it's not one of my secrets).
Here's the dirty little secret part after nearly 24 years of living in Lawrence (four of those as an undergraduate and another one as a graduate student at KU) I can count the number of Kansas football games I've attended on one hand.
So I've decided to turn it around.
This year I vow to attend every single home game through rain, snow or even an avalanche of homework.
I'm weary of making any predictions on how the team will fare this season, but the football program is better than ever.
Lucky for me, I picked the perfect season to hop on the football bandwagon.
Memorial Stadium feels brand new after the impressive additions of the scholarship suites, press box and MegaVision video board.
Say what you will about the cost of the scholarship suites or what goes on inside, they look awesome and filled me with a sense of pride. They are a stunning symbol of KU's commitment to being a first-rate football school.
Derek Prater
sports columnist
mail@kansan.com
The video board is so good that I found myself forgetting to watch the action on the field. I ended up
like a spectator at the U.S. Open, my head turning back and forth from the field to the board like it was following a tennis ball.
Tailgating before Saturday's game, I got caught up in the football atmosphere. The weather was beautiful, kids were tossing football outside the stadium, and I had developed a nice, light alcohol buzz.
Please don't tell the police, but my friends and I managed to sneak a few beers in the parking lot behind the video board. It was surprisingly easy, and it brings me to the big stadium controversy — alcohol.
Watching football and drinking alcohol go hand in hand. Alcohol sales would certainly boost attendance at games (Saturday's attendance was a rather mediocre 33,300).
Sure, Korb Maxwell and all the other self-righteous political types cry hypocrisy because the fat cats in the scholarship suites get to drink while the average-Joe fan must go without.
But the fact is that it's not really hypocritical. Hypocrisy is when someone professes something that they don't believe (I looked it up).
That said, I understand the University administration's position and tend to agree.
The administration isn't necessarily saying that drinking is bad and no one should do it. It just doesn't want to deal with having thousands of drunk, immature and probably underage students at a University event.
Equating drinking in the scholarship suites to drinking in the stands is like comparing the effect of a six-pack to that of a keg.
There's little worry that fights or vandalism is going to be fueled by alcohol in the scholarship suites. Those people pay big bucks to watch the game in comfort.
And anyway, we live in the real world here, and those big bucks are paying for an improving football program that will start to draw bigger crowds on the merits of its play.
If you ask me, we should be stocking their fridges with beer.
Prater is a Lawrence graduate student in journalism