Coach's wife a favorite with team
Photo by Moe Behravesh
NUMBER ONE JAYHAWK TRACK FAN
Mrs. Robert Timmons, wife of KU's head track coach, sits in front of the fireplace in the Timmons' new home west of Lawrence which she decorated herself. She often entertains members of the Kansas track squad at the house to give them a welcome break from residence hall living.
KU Relays honor former track great
One of Kansas' all-time track greats, Air Force Capt. Cliff Cushman, will be honored at the 1968 KU Relavs.
Cushman has been listed as "missing in action" in the Vietnam war theater since the fall of 1966.
Bob Timmons, Kansas track coach and director of the Relays, said this year's meet will be dedicated to Cushman. Also, the intermediate hurdles, an event he won three times, will be named in his honor.
Cushman finished second in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles in the 1960 Rome Olympics in 49.6, only a half-second above the present world record.
Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe is offering a trophy to be awarded annually to the winner of the "Cliff Cushman 400-Meter Intermediate Hurdles."
Cushman won the intermediate hurdles at the KU Relays in 1957 as a freshman, in 1960 as a senior and 1961 as a post-graduate.
Timmons said Cushman's wife, Carolyn, who lives in Omaha, Neb., has been invited to the Relays to represent her husband. Cliff's parents, Mr. and Mrs. M. L. Cushman, live in Grand Forks, N.D., where the elder Cushman is dean of education at the University of North Dakota.
Cushman's varsity years at KU were 1958-59-60 and he captained the Jayhawks in 1960. He was one of the most versatile runners in Kansas history, possessing the speed of a spinner and the endurance of a distance runner plus the agility to be a competent hurdler over the highs, lows and intermediates.
Cushman ran with championship relay teams at major meets at every distance from the mile through the four-mile and he
CLIFF CUSHMAN
By Pamela Peck
Four years after winning a silver medal at the Rome Olympics, Cushman tried for a spot on the 1964 U.S. Olympic squad, but hit a hurdle and missed qualifying. The race in which he sprawled to the track was shown on national television.
helped Kansas win the shuttle hurdles title at the 1959 Drake Relays.
After being flooded with messages from all over the country by well-meaning persons attempting to console him, Cushman wrote a challenging open letter to the students of his high school, asking them not to feel sorry for him and daring them to put forth more effort to make their own lives more worthwhile.
Assistant Sports Editor
The letter received wide distribution because of its hard-hitting message to young people all over America.
Members of the University of Kansas track team and Mrs. Robert Timmons, wife of KU's head track mentor, have formed a mutual-admiration-society.
Over a soft drink and a doughnut or popcorn, Mrs. Timmons enjoys talking and joking with the athletes or watching color TV with them in her family's new home west of Lawrence. Members of the team have been guests at two chili feeds and a sit-down dinner in the Timmons home during this school year.
Mrs. Timmons, a slim young brunette and mother of four children, said the athletes, who are welcome in her home anytime, come mostly around final time.
"They've usually completed a hard exam and need that home-feeling. They're not just athletes, but gentlemen who have learned to set goals for themselves," she said.
"She's one of the greatest women I know," Meade said. "She's really behind the team. Have you heard that crazy yell of hers?"
The coach's energetic wife once swam competitively and last year jogged an average of three miles every day.
The track team's attitude toward their coach's wife was stated best by Julio Meade, New York City, N.Y., sophomore.
The yell Meade was referring to is what Mrs. Timmons, who was a KU cheerleader for three years, calls her "hoot."
"HOO-oo, HOO-oo," is the resounding yell Mrs. Timmons uses to spur on her favorite team and
to call her own children home for lunch. She picked it up at Wichita swim meets.
Mrs. Timmons, who affectionately calls her husband "Timmie," believes all wives should understand sports. Once she taught a high school course for girls called "Theory of Boys" and put in a unit on sports' rules.
"It's really loud. Some people think I'm crazy," she said. "Maybe I am."
"Wives go to meets or games and talk to other wives about everything under the sun except the sport in front of them," she said.
The former Pat Perkins met Timmie on a blind date at KU. She went on the date as a favor for a friend.
"It it was after World War II and there were seven or eight men to every woman at KU. It was nothing to have three dates in one day."
Now as the wife of KU's track coach, she calls herself "Timmie's sounding-board." He tells her about the team's progress or disappointments, or about the high school and junior college stars he's recruiting.
Mrs. Timmons stays at home while her husband travels with the team, almost every weekend from January to July. She knows that at meets the team comes first.
She has humorous memories of the two times, once in Wichita and once in New York City, when Timmie became so engrossed with recruiting and meet activities that he forgot to pick her up for the trip home.
Coach Timmons stays at his office evenings often until 2 a.m. Mrs. Timmons doesn't begrudge him his "track-life."
"Any woman can put up with anything if she believes in it. And I believe in track and in my husband.
"It may sound corny, but I really love my husband and from the day I met him, I've had no doubts that he could do anything he sets out to do."
Mrs. Timmons has become accustomed to "handling about everything at home." She says her husband is the discipliner of the family, but that she "takes care of the bills and hangs her own curtain rods and picture frames."
She helped design and decorated the family's new "country-French" home. As a KU student she studied interior decorating and physical education. She didn't complete a degree in physical education because she said she was frightened when she learned she'd have to take anatomy with men.
She does volunteer hospital work and is building chairman for the new Alpha Chi Omega sorority house.
One of the most rewarding aspects of being a track coach's wife to Mrs. Timmons is what she calls "seeing the by-products."
"It's great when former team members come back to visit us. It's what they're involved in after college that counts—their businesses and families," she said. "And they tell us about the things they didn't think we knew they did when they were in school!"
KU prepares for Relays
by Sandy Zahradnik
Kansan Staff Reporter
It takes an athlete months of hard work to get ready mentally and physically for a track meet—and it takes just about that much time at KU to prepare for the KU Relays.
Harold E. Blitch, grounds supervisor who is in charge of getting the stadium and track ready, said it usually takes his crew about a month working part-time to get ready for the Relays.
"It's really a routine matter," he said. "We have to grade, water, and roll the track, and sweep out the stadium."
The buildings and grounds crew is also in charge of putting up the queen's and awards stands, the judges stand, and a tent cover for the training table and officials. They also have to check the track to be sure it conforms to regulations regarding slope and pitch, check the all-weather surfacing on the pole vault and long jump runways, and set up guide tracks to keep the events separated.
But if it rains, the preparations become anything but routine.
"We prepare for rain." Blitch said. The buildings and grounds men clean out the drains on the track and field, but if it rains
hard, he said, the field doesn't have enough drainage to take care of the problem. If the weatherman predicts rain, he said, they get the weed-burner ready in case it's needed to dry the field.
"A couple of years ago," Blitch said, "it rained so hard that we had to tear up the track and repair it overnight."
The weather also influences how much of what is sold by KU Concessions.
Kevin A. Remick, manager, said the weather determines how many people will come to the Relays, and the food and drink situation depends upon the crowd.
"We expect at least 15,000 persons to be here Saturday," he said, "and we'll prepare a drink for every person and about 5,000 hot dogs." The amount of coffee sold will depend entirely upon how the weather is, Remick said
The student KU Relays committee takes care of sending out and compiling entries, putting out souvenir programs, helps out on the field, and recruits big-name track stars to run in the meet.
Ed Gordon, Fort Scott senior, and Terry Gill, Shawnee Mission senior, are co-chairmen of the committee.
Committee members help the judges on the field, checking out
stop-watches, watching the wind gauges, and working with the public address announcer in identifying the trackmen, Gordon said.
The Relays committee makes most of the arrangements for the track stars, while living accommodations for the visiting teams are usually arranged by their respective coaches. "Some coaches are kind of funny about things like that," Gordon said.
A lot of the smaller college teams prefer to stay in the University dorms. This allows them to save on expense money, and also gives them a chance to be near the field to practice, he said.
Randy Matson, Billy Mills, Jim Hines, Charlie Green, and Jia Ryun are just a few of the more well-known track men who will participate in the meet.
The Relays committee pays for the individual out-of-towners traveling expenses, makes their flight arrangements, provides transportation for them from the airport, and finds them a place to stay. "We might have a problem this year," Gordon said, "because I understand there's going to be a convention or meeting of some sort the same weekend as the Relays, and the hotels are already pretty full."
SM East dominates tennis team
Shawnee Mission East High School seems to have a monopoly on members of the KU tennis team.
Six of the seven members of the KU tennis team attended East and played on the tennis team there during their prep days.
Dan Oram, Prairie Village sophomore, explained the reason for the East monopoly. "That area of Kansas City has several country clubs. When we were about 10 or 11 years old, we started playing at the clubs, taking lessons from the professionals. We played for several years and competed in tournaments, and then
when we got to high school we were more experienced than the rest."
Shawne Mission East won the state high school tennis title three years in a row, and the people who made it possible all received scholarships to KU.
The men came to KU and continued their winning ways. Kansas was second in the Big Eight last year and is off to a good start this season.
In addition to Oram, other members of the team who are graduates of East are Mike Borders, Prairie Village junior; Bill DaBau, Leawood junior; Sid Kanter, Prairie Village junior; Jack Kilroy, Mission Hills junior;
and John Towner, Leawood junior.
The only member of the KU squad not from East is Jim Keller, Russell senior, who is captain of the team.
Kansas' tennis coach is Jim Burns, a 1965 KU graduate. He played tennis at Kansas in 1963-65 and won four Big Eight championships—two singles and two doubles.
The big problem the tennis team has is getting spectators.
"There are never very good crowds at college tennis matches, but it seems like we should have better crowds than we do considering how well we've done in the past few years." Burns said.