FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1996
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
NEWS 864-4810
ADVERTISING 864-4358
SECTION A VOL.102.NO.118
(USPS 650-640)
SPORTS
Jayhawks ready for Bulldogs
The men's team begins NCAA tournament play about 4:10 today in Tempe, Ariz. Page 1B
Traveling quilt
A part of the AIDS Memorial Quilt is on display at the Topeka ExpoCentre through Sunday. Page 3A
CAMPUS
NATION
House passes crime bill
President Clinton hopes the bill will be made stronger before he sees it. Page 6A
WORLD
Clinton battles terrorism
The president pledged $100 million for anti-terrorism initiatives. Page 7A
WEATHER CLOUDY AND DRY
High 58° Low 40°
INDEX
Weather: Page 2A
Opinion . . . 4A
Nation/World . . 6A
Features . . 8A
Sports . . 1B
Scoreboard . . 2B
Governor nominates Regents
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of the Kansan are 25 cents.
Two candidates to fill vacant spots on Board
By John Collar Kansan staff writer
TOPEKA — Gov. Bill Graves nominated a philanthropy administrator and a banker to the Kansas Board of Regents yesterday.
Graves nominated Sylvia Robinson, who is the manager and program officer of the Ewing
Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo.
Robinson has an extensive background in education, having served as a teacher and administrator. She has served on the Kansas City, Kan., school board since 1983.
Graves also nominated Murray Lull, a banker from Smith Center. He is a fourth-generation president of the Smith County State Bank and Trust Co.
"Murray and Sylvia are recognized as leaders in their fields, and they bring a great deal of talent and wisdom to this new task." Graves said in a statement.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway said that he had not met the nominees, but Graves had made high-quality appointments in the past.
they give every indication that they are very excellent regents," Hemenway said.
"I know these two people by reputation, and
The two nominees will complete the board's full complement of nine regents. The resignation of Karen Maillard, Leawood, and the expiration of the term of Frank Sabatini, Topeka, created the vacancies.
Robinson received a doctorate in special education/educational psychology and research from the University of Kansas, a master's degree in special education from the University and a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Kansas State University.
Lull earned a bachelor's degree from Wichita State University and graduated from the School of Banking in Madison, Wis. He also attended Fort Hays State University and the University. He is a member of the board of directors of the American Bankers Association. Lull and Robinson were not available for comment.
In other Regents' action, the board granted an easement for a bike path that Lawrence will build on West Campus. The Regents also approved the final plans for the renovation of Templin Hall. After the Legislature passes the plan, the bid process for the renovation will begin.
The nominees are required to be confirmed by the Senate before they can begin their terms. Regent John Hiebert of Lawrence said he hoped that both nominees would be confirmed before the board's April meeting.
She has published articles and research projects on the education and development of children.
Money talk$
Loyalties often get pushed aside in athletic equipment contracts
Story by Dan Gelston — Photo by Darcy Coles — Illustration by Jeff Swartz
There are times when Tamecka Dixon's room resembles a blue-light special at Kmart.
Friends rumpage through piles of unused or unwanted shirts and gym bags, tossing aside what they already have and scramble for that special sweatshirt or souvenir.
Sure, Dixon is personable and the starting point guard on the women's basketball team. But at the end of the year, she knows why her friends come around.
"They want my stuff," she said, laughing. "They come in and get whatever I don't want."
So much "stuff" accumulates by the end of the season that Dixon said she didn't know what to do with it all.
"I keep the warmups and a shirt or so," she said. "But I give a lot of it away. Goodwill gets a lot of my sneakers."
Dixon and the rest of the athletes at the University of Kansas get their sneakers, hats and T-shirts supplied to them by athletic equipment manufacturers such as Adidas, Converse, Nike and Reebok. College athletics have become a product promoter's dream largely because of the deals that these corporations provide collegiate programs. It is a system in which athletes get new clothes and sports gear. It is also a system that pays coaches big bucks for signing exclusive contracts with suppliers
— system in which corporations turn teams into walking and running billboards.
Shoe wars have begun to rival the battles on the court. But critics of the contracts say they are just another example of the University's over-emphasis on sports.
The contracts generally provide teams with free or discounted equipment and the coach with an income supplement. They also offer free advertising that turns the biggest names in college sports into human commercials.
Her duties include negotiating the Nike contracts with women's sports programs. She estimates that Nike has contracts with 65 such collegiate programs.
Sue Levins works in the women's sports marketing department for Nike.
"It's not just advertising," Levins said. "It's more specific. We're interested in the development of girls' sports."
While Levins tries to downplay Nike's free advertising, it inevitably surfaces.
Nike does sponsor camps and clinics at various levels, from elementary school to college.
But there are ulterior motives behind these associations.
"When I first started my coaching career, I started out with Converse." Washington said. "They weren't really living up to their deal. I expected to at least get shoes."
Levins negotiated the present deal between Nike and Kansas women's basketball coach Marian Washington. It is an association that spans 18 years.
Washington said Converse supplied the team with free shoes but there was a change with the Converse representative she dealt with. That person decided to charge Kansas. By the time the situation was close to being resolved, Washington decided to switch to Nike.
"Little girls will go and think: These girls are great, they wear Nike sneakers, I want to be like them," so they wear Nikes," Levins said.
She said she had been pleased with the association.
"It's something that's really been beneficial to the program," she said. "The team gets as many shoes as I need, running shoes, basketball shoes for the season, cross country.
"I'd say each player goes through
Washington just re-signed with Nike for five years. While she didn't disclose what she would be paid, she did say it was "a nice little amount of money."
about four pairs of each shoe a year."
Kansas also gets Nike warmups, socks and bags. In the future, Washington said Nike would be involved with designing the Kansas uniforms.
What Washington calls a nice little amount of money hovers around six figures for some of the top coaches and programs in collegiate sports, said Scott Bush, the administrative assistant for sports marketing at Converse.
"Different schools have different packages, so the average may not seem so high," Bush said. "But the top programs are making six figures a year."
The top players and the top universities are making nothing. Just the coaches cash the checks.
Bush said a variety of factors went into determining whether Converse would offer a school a package.
what kind of exposure are you going to get from the school," he said. "And certainly location is important. It might be a very good team that's located in a poor selling area. But there may be a small or up-and-coming program in a more profitable selling area and that may be the team we'd be apt to go after. But the key to the game is exposure."
"One of the things we look at is
And that exposure translates into the corporations desire essentially to get free advertising.
Matthew Grimm, news editor for Brand Week magazine, said competition was fierce among the schools.
"You can see who has the most marketing dollars to spend by what you see on TV," Grimm said. "It's a money deal for (the corporations) just as much as it is for the schools. If you don't have a lot of money, you can't compete."
Grimm said that while it appeared the corporations were throwing money at the schools, they actually were saving and even making money.
See EQUIPMENT, Page 5A.
Pulitzer winner focuses on issue
Speech asks for new awareness with issue of domestic violence
By R. Adam Ward Kansan staff writer
Gaston said she didn't know it at the time, but the
The theme for National Women's History Month — seeing history in new ways — was what Patricia Weems Gaston did in the Pulitzer Prize-winning series she helped create for the Dallas Morning News.
The KU alumna spoke to a crowd of 25 people in the Jayhawk room of the Kansas Union last night.
Patricia Gaston
series changed the way people viewed history by telling the stories of women from India to Brazil.
The series brought violence against women closer to home by exposing violence in the United States, said Gaston, co-winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize
The fourteen-part series called Violence Against Women: a Question of Human Rights, examined violence that women are subjected to around the world. She orchestrated a team of 30 writers and photographers, more than half of which was made up of women and minorities.
The group traveled across the world to cover stories about violence against women without resorting to using anonymous sources.
Rufus Coleman, Dallas sophomore, agreed with her message that media coverage of violence against women has to change.
But she wondered whether efforts to raise awareness of the issue were really working.
She said that even though more abused women sought help during the O.J. Simpson trial, a conspiracy of silence still surrounded domestic violence.
"Rape is normally on the back pages of papers and it needs to be on the front," he said.
Jana Blackburn, Courtland senior, agreed.
She said that there needed to be more series such as Gaston's that put the issue of violence against women on the front page.
The speech was sponsored by the Emily Taylor Resource Center. Barbara Ballard, the director of the center, said the center was fortunate to bring a multifaceted speaker who was a role model and could speak about the issue of domestic violence.
XI