Volleyball coach Ray Bechard announced yesterday that an injury will keep a key player out all season.
DAYAN WORLD SPORTS
Student football ticket pick-up continues today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.at the Allen Fieldhouse Ticket Office. Students must present a valid KUID to redeem their tickets.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2006 WWW.KANSAN.COM
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
PAGE 12A
GOLF
Amanda Costner, senior, and Annie Giangrosso, junior, get together Saturday at the Alvamar Golf Course in Lawrence. Both girls went to the Amateur Championships in Oregon.
Families help golfers find success
Team leader discovered love of sport after trips to golf course with father
BY JOSH LANDAU
Amanda Costner can attribute all of her success in goof to one thing: frozen lemonades.
If it weren't for them, Costner said she would have never played golf.
"When I was 10 or 11, my dad used to take my sister and I to the driving range. We only went for the free frozen lemonades." Costner, a senior, said.
After a few frozen lemonades, she tried her luck at the game, and her father saw potential.
Costner's father thought she hit the ball well so he enrolled her in lessons and entered her in tournaments.
At Claremore High School in Oklahoma, she won the state tournament her junior year and was runner-up her sophomore and senior years.
Costner became a team leader during her first season at the University of Kansas. She led the team in four of the six spring tournaments and finished seventh in the Big 12 Championships. Last year, Costner was named to the All-Big 12 team and she recently competed in the Amateur Championships in Oregon.
SEE LEADER ON PAGE 11A
Summer gives players a chance to travel compete, prepare for upcoming season
Annie Giangrosso usually travels with her family for golf tournaments, so it took some convincing to persuade her parents to let her take a road trip to Colorado with her teammates.
Along with having fun, she was able to learn a lot from teammate Amanda Costner.
BY JOSH LANDAU
We knew each other before I came here, Costner said, but we became best friends when we traveled together.
"Annie is a great golfer and our team wouldn't be the same without her." Costner said.
Giangrosso, a junior, saw it as an opportunity to improve on her game
by spending time with Costner.
"It really helped me out to see how she prepared and played in tournaments." Giangrosso said.
Giangrosso was not always focused solely on golf. She played multiple sports in high school. She didn't start seriously golfing until halfway through high school, when she said she focused on golf to earn college scholarships.
Giangrosso knew she wanted to pursue sports management in college and picked the only school that made sense to her: the University of Kansas.
SEE SUMMER ON PAGE 11A
》SERENITY NOW
Chiefs will improve after early blunders
I'm nervous about this Saturday.
Not because it's my last day at U-Haul or because my social calendar is as bare as most college students' kitchen cupboards, save for that lone can of tomato soup.
I'm nervous because the Chiefs are playing Saturday night.
I don't care that they're playing the St. Louis Rams for the Governor's Cup. Yeah, bragging rights in the preseason, get your best jabs ready. No, forget the Rams, it doesn't matter who the Chiefs are playing. This game Saturday is as big as a preseason game gets for a professional franchise.
"But Fred, didn't you write a column over the summer that was singing the praises of 'your Chiefs' and how the signing of Ty Law and the addition of coach Herm Edwards were the missing pieces to a Super Bowl celebration in the streets of Kansas City come February?"
Yes, evil Fred, you're correct, I did write that column. Gulp. But to anyone who has seen the chumps, err, Chiefs in action so far, the Chiefs look about as ready for the regular season as Floridians for a snow storm. The Chiefs have not looked good. A big, 6-foot-5-inch, 320-pound reason the Chiefs have not looked good this preseason has been the departure of Willie Roaf. The 13-year veteran's retirement prior to training camp has dwarfed any news coming out of Kansas City or River Falls the last three weeks, because, as anyone who watched last year knows, this team needs Big Willie.
Speculation has run rampant since Roaf's retirement that he was going to come back and that he just wanted to miss training camp. Yet Big Willie's appearance on ESPN2's Cold Pizza a week or so ago dismissing that notion set a lot of Chiefs fans back. Most of us are still hanging on to the fact that, hey, he is an athlete, and athletes usually retire three or four times before they really retire.
Check out the most recent case, Junior Seau. Did you see that guy's retirement press conference? I couldn't tell if the dude was rapping or preaching. Best part, he signs with the Patriots a few days later.
BY FRED A. DAVIS III
KANSAN COLUMNIST
FDAVIS@KANSAN.COM
Back to the Chiefs though. Besides missing Willie Roaf, the Chiefs are missing tackles, blocks and, against the Giants, the scoreboard.
After the Texans game, I thought, no biggie, the defense did look like the Chiefs defense we've known to despise and bemoan. Casey Printers' overall Madden rating should be somewhere around 59 and why isn't our boy Nick Reid getting more looks? It's preseason! Who cares?
I just knew Herm the Perm Edwards would get things right before the Giants game.
Then after watching the Chiefs get drubbed on national television by the Giants and wondering how Joe Buck has made it as far as he has — oh, his dad, that's right — I got to thinking, this isn't good. I thought Herms mantra was "You play to win the game," not "You lose so no one remembers your name."
But despite all that I've seen - Casey Printers included - from my beloved Kansas City Chiefs so far, I'm still sticking with my boys to, as the great Big Daddy Kane would say, Get the Job Done.
Herm Edwards is a leader of men, and he knows what every Chiefs fan knows, the team hasn't played to its potential. The defense is still figuring things out and though it has looked dismal, there is too much talent for it to continue playing the way it has.
Meanwhile the offense, yeah, about the offense, we've still got Larry Johnson! And besides, it's only the preseason! So why isn't my man Nick Reid getting more looks?
PROFILE
Kansan sportswriter Fred A. Davis Ill can be contacted at fdavis@kansan.com.
Edited by Mindy Ricketts
Cornish sets goals high for season
After four years senior running back takes field with new optimism and no backup
BY RYAN SCHNEIDER
Jon Cornish could have played professional football this year.
Despite never declaring professional intentions, Cornish was the first running back selected by the Calgary Stampeders in the second round of April's Canadian Football League draft. The senior was eligible because he had been in college four years and had Canadian citizenship.
No, the reason he never considered returning north of the border to continue playing football was simple: He's still got unfinished business here in Kansas.
Cornish said he never seriously considered the offer, though. It wasn't because he grew up playing football by American rules or because he just isn't a CRL fan.
here in Kansas.
"I have some pretty lofty goals for myself this season," Cornish said. "I want to carry the ball as much as possible, I want to catch the ball as much as possible, and I want to help the team as much as possible."
He has already said that a 1,000 yard season isn't out of the question. It would be quite an accomplishment, considering the last Kansas running back to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a single season was 13 years and two head coaches ago. Former Jayhawk June Henley rushed
1,127 yards in 1993, which ranks sixth all-time on Kansas' single season rushing list.
Cornish goals don't bother Kansas coach Mark Mangino. They just come with one stipulation.
It has taken Cornish four seasons of continued improvement to get to the point of talking about such high aspirations.
"I want to carry the ball as much as possible, I want to catch the ball as much as possible, and I want to help the team as much as possible."
"If he's going ___ to talk the talk, he better walk the walk," Mangino said jokingly.
football and has to be a good pass protector. He has made a concerted effort to improve himself in those areas."
Mangino said Cornish's role from last season would change in order for the team to be successful.
JON CORNISH Running back
"The reality is that he has to become a complete running back; Mangino said. "He has to catch the
He came to Lawrence in 2002 off a stellar high school career in New Westminster, British Columbia, where he rushed for 2,136 yards and 31 touchdowns during his senior season. As a result, Cornish was named the
provincial player of the year in British Columbia.
He saw time on the field his freshman season, but took a redshirt after an undisclosed injury ended his season just two games in. During his redshirt freshman season, Cornish made one rushing attempt for three.
yards. After serving as a backup running back for former Jayhawks Clark Green and John Randle in his sophomore season, Cornish had his breakout season in 2005.
He led Kansas last season in total rushing yards, 780, rushing touchdowns, 9, average yards per carry, 5.8, and average yards per game, 65. Above all, Cornish's speed provided a complement to Green's power rushing style.
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Cornish's speed and ability especially became evident toward the end of last season. His 72-yard touchdown run in the third quarter of last season's emotional victory against Nebraska showed just how explosive he had become.
he had become.
"I don't really understand what made me faster towards the end of the season," Cornish said. "I think it was just coming around with the whole system and getting really comfortable with it. I was just able to do my own thing."
SEE CORNISH ON PAGE 11A
Jared Gab/KAHSAI
Jon Cornish, senior running back, pictured at media day, returns to the Jayhawk team after declining a draft offer from the Calgary Stampeders. Cornish has set high goals for himself and hopes to break the 1,000 yard mark in rushing this season
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