SPORTS
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM
OBITUARY
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. 2007
First black starter dies, leaves legacy for players
PAGE 1B
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPENCER RESEARCH LIBRARY
Maurice King faced obstacles of racism during his KU basketball career. He paved the way for black players to come. Services for King are at 11 a.m. today at the Fortress of Hope Church in Kansas City, Mo.
BY MARK DENT
mdent@kansan.com
Maurice King never earned All-American status like his teammate Wilt Chamberlain. Time and Newsweek never featured King in stories.
But when it came to making life easier, for black athletes, King was Chamberlain's equal.
King became the first black starter in Kansas basketball history in 1954 and touched lives until his death Monday. Ronald Lindsay, the pastor at King's church, saw firsthand how King could affect others.
"A young man who had just spoken with Maurice once told me "Wilt may have been the face of KU basketball, but Maurice was the soul." Lindsay said. "In terms of facing the struggles of being an African-American in that time, he really carried it."
SUCCEED IN SPITE OF OBSTACLES
When King arrived in Lawrence in 1953, he became the second African-American to play for the Jayhawks. Later in his career, he became the first black starter and played in the 1957 Final Four. King faced racism and prejudice but never responded with anger. Ron Loneski, a teammate of King at Kansas, said King provided an example for future black athletes.
Dick Harp was ready to check his team into a luxurious Dallas hotel during the 1957 NCAA Tournament when he discovered the hotel staff had a problem. Actually, two problems.
King passed away at his home in Kansas City, Mo., after a bout with cancer. His visitation is at 9 a.m. today at Concord Fortress of Hope Church in Kansas City. Funeral services begin at 11 a.m.
The staff wouldn't allow King and Chamberlain to stay because they were black. Harp, Kansas' coach from 1956 to 1964, had enough. Hotels had already turned down King before so this time Harp decided to move the whole team to a more modest hotel.
It didn't get any easier for King after that. He couldn't even escape from prejudice on the basketball court. During a game on that same Dallas trip, fans held up a sign that read "Niggers Go Home."
"It was sort of an evolution for everybody that followed," Loneski said. "Maurice made it that much easier."
"He endured a lot of tough times," Falkenstein said. "But he was always very quiet and dignified — a humble person."
Max Falkenstein, who broadcasted for the Jayhawks from 1946 to 2006, witnessed all of it.
Racism didn't just exist in the South in the 1950s. Loneski said King faced it in Lawrence. Restaurants and movie theaters often refused to let him enter.
"He didn't know what to expect when he came because he'd never played with whites," Falkenstein said. "He was apprehensive about the whole thing."
The new situation and racial obstacles didn't hold King back. He averaged 3.6 points per game his first year on the varsity team. The next season he scored 14.3 points per game, and he averaged 9.7 points per game as a senior in 1957.
first. He came from R.T. Coles Vocational High School in Kansas City, Mo., an allblack school.
The culture shock was hard on King at
Seven players competed for the Jayhawks in the 1957 National Championship game. After Maurice King's death Monday, only one player is still alive: Ron Loneski.
"It's a little scary," Loneski said. "It kind of makes you wow."
a legacy almost lost
King's numbers went down that year, but the team had more success. With Chamberlain dominating opponents despite
SEE KING ON PAGE 5B
Jayhawks who played in the 1957 National Championship
Ron Loneski
Lew Johnson
Maurice King
Wilt Chamberlain
Gene Elstun
Bob Billings
John Parker
FOOTBALL
Sophomore safety Darrell Stuckey plays full speed this season. Last year Stuckey suffered a lower-leg injury
Strong leader on field, off
Sophomore safety stays close to home, mom
BY ASHER FUSCO afusco@kansan.com
At the snap of the ball, free safety Darrell Stuckey backpedaled into pass coverage. A split-second later, Stuckey turned his gaze across the line of scrimmage and focused on the eyes of Toledo quarterback Aaron Opelt. He read the quarterback's intentions perfectly; as the ball left Opelt's hand, Stuckey broke toward the intended receiver and left his feet to pick the pass from the air.
After snatching the ball away, Stuckey fell to the turf, unable to return the interception for any yardage.
Why the slip-up? Well, he was moving a bit too quickly.
"Sometimes I react too fast and actually get myself out of position so it makes plays more difficult than they should be," Stuckey said. "On Saturday, it could have been a catch where I could have ran and advanced the ball. But I got myself out of position and instead of backpedaling the whole time I made an awkward catch and ended up falling as I caught it."
Playing at full speed is taking some getting used to for the sophomore. Stuckey spent much of last season sidelined by an early-season lower leg injury. He never got back to 100 percent in the seven games he did play. The injury limited his flexibility, created a hitch in his gait and slowed him considerably, he said. Finally back at full-speed, Stuckey is one of the reasons Kansas is ranked 10th nationally in passing yards allowed per game.
"The kid was playing his heart out last year, but he didn't have a full range of motion," Coach Mark Mangino said. "He was limping all over the place, he couldn't get to the highest point of the ball, and he got beat a few times over the top when a healthy Darrell Stuckey wouldn't have let that happen."
The toughness and leadership Stuckey showed as he struggled through the 2006 season earned him the respect of his teammates, Mangino said. That respect has car-ried over into this season. Though Stuckey is only a sophomore, teammates and coaches usually include his name when they discuss leadership.
A NATURAL FIT
The KU coaching staff did not need to put much work into attracting their team leader to Lawrence — the road map did most of the recruiting.
Stuckey, a Kansas City native, decided to attend the University the summer before his senior year and never had second thoughts. He was so dead-set on becoming a Jayhawk that he had his high school coach at Washington High tell each of the 20 schools that pursued him that he was intent on honoring his commitment to Kansas.
The reason Stuckey declined offers from schools such as Northwestern and Kansas State was simple. The closer he stayed to Kansas City, the easier it would be for his mother to watch him play.
"She's a single-parent mother, and I can count on my hands the number of games she's missed in the one-and-a-half decades I've been playing sports," Stuckey said. "Having a single-parent mother who was providing for multiple kids and only missed so many of her son's games in all those years — it just wouldn't have felt right."
A LEADER
This spring, Stuckey took his leadership role to a higher level when he represented the entire Kansas Athletics Department at the NCAA National Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla. He was one of 325 student-athletes chosen to represent their schools at the five-day conference. The student-athletes attended presentations and traded ideas about how to improve their campuses.
"We went through different leadership evaluations and classes and found out how we can change our campus," Stuckey said. "I
CLUB SPORTS
SEE FOOTBALL ON PAGE 5B
Team founders lead prosperous young program
BY EMILY MUSKIN emuskin@kansan.com
At the end of the year, four members of the club baseball team will have to part with the program they built just three years ago. Even though the team is new to the club sports arena, all of the players on the Kansas club baseball team have plenty of experience. They all played high school ball, and several played with college programs as well.
Mike Irvine, Chicago senior, hits grounds to other players on the Kansas club baseball team Thursday night at Holom Sports Complex. Irvine is one of four who founded the team three years ago.
There are twenty men on the varsity team and fifteen on junior varsity. If all goes according to plan, the varsity team will finish the season at the national tournament in Fort Myers, Fla., at the Red Sox spring training facility.
Current president B.J. Rains, a St. Louis senior, was one of the founders of the club baseball team. He saw an absence of available baseball leagues in the Lawrence area
Jessica Crabaugh/KANSAN
Mike Irvine, Chicago senior
Kyle Knutson, Overland Park junior
Kevin Sterk, Oak Lawn, Ill.
graduate student
key players
and decided to start his own. This year, the team held a three-week try to select the best players from more than 50 hopefuls.
The team is a member of the National Club Baseball Association, which has 180 teams altogether. Last year the team posted a 12-2 record and narrowly missed winning the conference title. Rains said expectations for this season were high, but most importantly, he hoped that the team could be competitive and build camaraderie among the players.
Club baseball provides an opportunity for athletes who are unwilling or unable to continue their baseball careers in varsity college programs to stay close to the game.
The club baseball team supports itself through many fundraising efforts and some donations. Coach Ritch Price and the Kansas baseball team took notice of these
efforts this year and decided to donate their old uniforms to the club team.
The players will get the opportunity to prove themselves this weekend in an eight-team tournament at the University of Illinois.
Edited by Jeff Briscoe
SOCCER
SOCCER Home for the weekend, Jayhawks face Illini, Gators
The KU soccer team will be playing on its own turf this weekend, hosting No. 25 Illinois at 5 p.m. on Friday, and No. 20 California at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
The Jayhawks game on Friday against Illinois will be their first since breaking a losing streak on Tuesday. The Illini, 3-2, has lost two of its games to Missouri at home and at UCLA.
Kansas will have the home advantage this weekend, which will be beneficial when playing Illinois. Last season, the Illini lost eight of their games; seven of them were away.
Illinois upset the No. 9 Florida Gators, 1-0, on Sept. 14. Not only did the team win, it also led the Gators in shot attempts, 14-5, and in corner kicks, 8-3.
On Sunday, the Jayhawks will face off against 5-1 California for the second year in a row. Last season, Kansas lost 1-0 to the Golden Bears.
Senior midfielder Nicole Cauzillo said she was excited for the weekend's games for three reasons.
"It's an opportunity to play two more great opponents before conference play next week," she said. "Our team is getting better every time we step on the field together. Now we know what it feels like to win, and this weekend is huge to build on that confidence."
— Alison Cumbow