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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, April 21, 1965
Firing Easton Folly
The Kansas City Athletics (mule and all) and the New York Mets baseball team could win their respective league championships and neither feat would be a bigger sports upset than what transpired on Mt. Oread yesterday.
In comparison to the firing of Bill Easton, the plans for new Fraser Hall must be regarded as an artistic achievement. Both plans and ousting of KU track coach are examples of University administrative folly.
At many colleges, the firing of a track coach would cause little uproar. But not so here where track has become a major sport during Easton's 18 years. Some years, when things were going bad in football and basketball, track was KU's only crowning achievement.
BILL EASTON has been fired. In a statement, Wade Stinson, director of athletics since July, said:
"It is to be regretted that differences which have arisen with Mr. Easton over the proper administration of the track program have become so irreconcilable that it has seemed best to terminate his relationship with the University of Kansas intercollegiate athletic program."
Although there was precipitating incident, the "irreconcilable differences" between Easton and Stinson have been developing since last fall.
Mainly, the difference has apparently been one of finance. Stinson came to KU out of the position of an insurance salesman in Chicago. It is to be expected he would know more about finances and things like budgets and vouchers than would Easton.
Another major factor for the splits boils down to personalities. Easton, talking to reporters outside Memorial Stadium gates yesterday afternoon, said so himself.
EASTON HAS BEEN CRITICAL of Stinson's attitude toward track. It had gotten to the point where something had to give. Rumors, in fact, were rampant Monday that Easton had been fired.
Easton claims that the front office of the athletic department has put such a crimp in the track budget that it is becoming impossible to maintain a good track program.
"It just goes on and on," Easton said yesterday. "A constant pressure of cheap economy with that man there all the time. I don't think I fought for anything I didn't believe in, and I didn't fight for anything I didn't think was right.
"If this University wants an intramural or mediocre track team, okay, but I won't stand for it."
That's the general background. As Easton puts it and as others realize, a series of incidents led to his dismissal.
BUT "THE STRAW that broke the camel's back," as one track athlete described it, happened last week. It's a long, detailed story. In simplest terms, as gathered from what Easton had told newsmen, this is the story:
Easton ordered a pole vault box for the stadium since there had been a change in NCAA track and field rules on dimensions of the box (in which the pole is placed.) As Easton tells it, Stinson came into his office one day and demanded to
know why Easton made the purchase without Stinson's authorization. Besides that, Stinson didn't believe the rules had changed. (Easton yesterday showed reporters a copy of the rules which contained specifications for the pole vault box and a black five-pointed star which indicated that the specifications were new.)
Easton never pointed out to Stinson about the black star and asked (or told) the athletic director to leave his office.
Stinson then had the box crated up and sent back to the manufacturer. Easton intercepted it at the bus depot and it was used during the Relays.
That's the precipitating incident.
THERE SEEMS to be reason enough for the new athletic director to overlook a business principle or adopt a more understanding attitude toward track and Easton.
As Herald Hadley, captain of this year's track team, said yesterday. "If Easton goes—track goes."
As for Easton's record:
- Eleven of the last 16 Big Eight Indoor championships.
- Eleven of the last 13 outdoor championships.
- Four world records, 14 American records, seven NCAA meet records and tied one, four Olympic records and two national freshman marks by Easton-coached athletes.
- One national cross country victory and two outdoor NCAA titles.
- Easton is due to take over as head of the U.S. Track Coaches Association this summer.
- The 1964 cross country team finished the season with 14 straight dual wins over conference opponents, 25 over all opposition and a 17-year dual track record of 71-3.
- An indoor track streak of 27 victories stretching over 10 years.
- Olympians Al Oerter, Bill Alley, Bill Neider and Billy Mills.
- He has directed 25 KU and Drake Relays.
He made the KU Relays what it is.
That's just part of the record. It's evident if Easton goes, track does go, too.
More than that, the firing of Easton has broader implications. It's no secret that grumbling ensues from more than one office in Allen Field House.
FINALLY, IT MUST BE POINTED out that Easton is a molder of men. As he listed them yesterday, there are three things he expects from his athletes: that they get an education, that they perform well, and that they be men.
If for no other reason, Easton must be respected for fighting for what he believes in. He was given a chance to resign. He wouldn't.
Easton's fight for a strong track program has paid off. It has given KU one of the best reputations in the country. Easton ranks in the upper one per cent—if not higher—of the nation's track coaches.
It's difficult to accept any side in the disagreement other than Easton's.
The People Say..
Editor:
I HAVE JUST SEEN THE WEDnesday, April 14. Shindig program, featuring the Righteous Brothers. I don't know whose idea it was to pair this group with Henry Mancini in his forthcoming concert, April 24. I understand they are his "special guests." I find this hard to believe. If Mancini or anyone connected with him decided that this was a necessary concession to those in a college audience who might have no musical taste. I hope that he is wrong about the collegiate idea of truly good music. If this move was taken by anyone else, I say, "Fie on you, fella."
I have seen Mancini in concert before, at McCormic Place in Chicago, and I consider this the most enjoyable evening's entertainment in my life. Mancini has a tremendous amount of talent, and comes across in concert as a personable, likeable guy with a sharp sense of humor. His music is magnificent, establishing and blending moods such as I have seldom seen in a performance.
And then there are the "Right-
Robert O. Berry Sophomore
rade) to twist (Experiment in Terror) to Jazz (Peter Gunn) to Mancini style (Breakfast at Tiffany's, etc.). But, still, I cringe to think of his concert orchestra billed with such dissonant junk. If I sound too critical, I apologize to all those who enjoy this garbage. As for myself, I plan to make the "Righteous Brothers'" performance an extended intermission.
eous Brothers." I won't knock them. They're evidently popular this month. I won't knock their singing, as it fails to fit my definition. I won't say they have negligible talent. They make money, too. I just hate to think of their spoiling an otherwise beautiful evening. No, I won't even go so far as to say that. I just regret the incongruity of this pairing. Certainly, Mancini has shown himself capable of handling a wide range of musical styles, from pseudo-classical (Cha-
Daili'i Hänsan
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Southern View
Editor's note: The following opinion was submitted by the publisher of the Bastrop Enterprise Publishing Co., Inc., Nathan Bolton. His letter follows the article. The opinion does not reflect the ideas of the Kansan or the editorial editors, but it is an interesting example of the opinion of one Southern editor.
When a colored resident of Bogalusa fired willy-nilly into the dark one recent night, filling the air with rifle slugs and the wire services with juicy and misleading reports of "gunplay," the matter was triggered by a brick heaved at a parked car owned by a student of the University of Kansas.
And when there was an exchange of shots between auto occupants the other night in Jonesboro, the Negro driver of one vehicle was reportedly hauling a group of students from the University of Kansas to a service station to get a can of gasoline for their dry-tank vehicle.
These two incidents involving University of Kansas students provide an interesting and wryly humorous sidelight to the demonstrations keeping a troublesome brew boiling in those two Louisiana communities.
It seems that a mixed group of University of Kansas students took time out from their studies to spend a fortnight in Bogalusa. There, they worked with a Negro voters' league in helping school Negroes in filling out voter registration cards and in planning disturbances to force stores to hire Negro clerks. There is no problem with Negroes registering at Bogalusa if they can fill out their cards.
At Jonesboro, the mixed group of Kansas students were there to help rebuild two churches which somehow got burned down.
At Bogalusa, the "gunplay" arose when occupants of a car passing the home of a Negro citizen heaved a brick through the windshield of the parked Kansas students' car. The students were staying at this home. The homeowner raced out into the street and fired a volley of shots. He later claimed that his home had been shot at, but local police and federals investigating could find no bullet holes at his house; only the broken windshield.
At Jonesboro, a young Negro driver was taking a mixed group of Kansas students to get a can of gasoline for their car. Reports are that occupants of another car fired at this car. Providentially, this Negro driver had a weapon and was able to fire back, so there WAS some gunfire.
What is humorous is that about six weeks ago one of the major racial sit-ins to occur in the nation's seats of learning happened at ... KANSAS UNIVERSITY. That's right.
At Kansas University more than 150 students, mostly Negro, filled the hallways outside the office of the university president for all of one day, sitting on the floor in protest of what they called racial discrimination. They presented college officials with a sevenpoint demand to end various kinds of alleged discrimination.
At closing time many refused to leave, and peace officers were called. A large number of students were arrested and jailed and freed on bond. Last I heard they still face trial.
I was in Kansas at the time of this KU sit-in. Next day, when the morning papers were filled with pictures of Negro students sitting on the floor of the university hallway, with the college president wending his way from his office through this spread of protesting bodies, I had lunch with a KU alumnus.
He was furious at the goings-on at his old university. "Out-siders," he said, were creating all that trouble, pointing out that the Negro student who organized the racial protest sit-in at KU was from California. And the other officers of this campus group were all listed as out-of-state students.
If "outsiders" foment racial discrimination displays at Kansas University, then what are KU students who leave this discriminatory scene to come to Louisiana to aid in the fomenting of racial discrimination displays?
— By John R. Thistlewhite
Opeloslaus, La. World
Related Letter -
Dear Sir:
AS A FORMER GRADUATE OF KU, now residing in the South I am particularly disturbed to learn that University of Kansas students are invading our state causing turmoil and trouble—and to no good. A group visited Jonesboro and Bogalusa. They may think that they are working for a "noble cause," but as a resident of this area, a former Northerner, I think I have a pretty good understanding of the situation, CORE, the NAACP and other trouble-makers, including Martin Luther King, are not primarily here to help the lot of the Negro, but for their own aggrandizement. Evidently they have succeeded in brain-washing some people in the North to thinking that the Negroes are downtrodden, not allowed to vote and so forth. All this is untrue. Negroes can vote if they are qualified voters and our qualifications are not as high as in New York state for instance. The trouble-makers are not interested in that, nor are they interested in having peace. The mayor of Boga-
lusa only last week agreed to meet with the CORE group to try to work out any differences, but they failed to show up.
The editor of the Opelousas, La., paper put it well in his column the other day when he said that the humorous thing is that these students come down here from KU and do the same thing for which they are condemned doing at the University itself.
In conclusion, I hope that these KU students are not taking off from their classes to come down here to Louisiana. If so, they should be summarily dismissed from school. Frankly I am now ashamed to say that I am a graduate of the University of Kansas, and that my daughter also is a graduate. Heretofore I have been proud of my University. I hope that University authorities will do all they can to discourage such unwarranted activities, as they do great harm to the image of KU.
Yours sincerely,
Nathan Bolton
Publisher, Bastrop
Enterprise Publishing Co.