Page 6 Summer Session Kansan Tuesday, June 26, 1967
By Steve Clark
The pre-season football polls will be published before too long and don't be surprised when the Missouri Tigers are picked to win the Big Eight.
Kansas was picked to win the conference last year and a preseason favoricy can hurt a team more than it helps them.
WE HAVEN'T talked to KU Coach Jack Mitchell, but we have a feeling that he will enjoy the Jayhawkers being picked not to win the conference championship this year.
Last year, he was not overly happy that Kansas was picked to win the conference, and when a national magazine picked KU as second in the nation, all he could say is "we're flattered" and "it gives us something to shoot for."
During spring drills he told one sports writer that KU would be lucky to finish in the first division. The story headline came out something to the extent that Mitchell expects a second division finish for the Jayhawkers.
IT IS EVIDENT that there is a little psychology in the making. In 1960 the pre-season ticket sales publicity was "Come and see the Greatest Home Football Schedule in History and the Greatest KU backfield in History."
Both billings were correct and fans flocked to Memorial Stadium to see the Jayhawkers play. KU, in my opinion, had one of its greatest teams that year.
The Jayhawkers finished with a 7-2-1 record on the field and a 5-4-1 record off the field, due to the two stirring losses on the mezzanine floor of a Kansas City hotel.
NEVERTHELESS, the KU fans and coaches were happy with the Jayhawkers play since it was a higher finish than Jayhawker teams of the previous decade.
We were not happy, however. Our preseason prediction was an undefeated season and a number one ranking in the nation. This can be disregarded as optimism, as our expectations of the Crimson and Blue are always high, much to the dismay of coaches who would prefer that pessimism prevail among sports writers in regard to pre-season rankings.
We were not happy, however. Our preseason prediction was an undefeated season that year. They should have beaten Syracuse and Oklahoma and if they had played the first half at Iowa like they did the second half, it would have been an undefeated season.
WE DISREGARDED the disappointing season as "they did not realize their own greatness."
Last year, we felt that 1961 was the year. The starters, mostly juniors, had a season's experience behind them and should not have any jitters. They didn't. They even realized their own greatness. As a result Texas Christian upended them, Wyoming came through with a shocking tie and Colorado scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter to pave their road for the title.
Two good years down the drain. My feeling two years ago was if the Jayhawkers didn't win in one of the two years, they wouldn't. Now my feelings are changed.
THE JAYHAWKERS are green and inexperienced. They have lost a senior line and two All America backs in John Hadl and Curtis McClinton. The hopes are bleak for the Jayhawkers on paper.
That's fine with the KU coaching personnel. They are not expected to come through with a winning team because of this year's graduation losses.
But football is something more than what's on paper, its more than facts and figures on a person's physical stature and the financial accountings in the athletic budget. Football, as all sports, has a more important side to it, the mental.
IT APPEARS to us that the 1962 Jayhawker squad has something that the previous two did not have, the will to win. We expect this year's team to be so foolhardy and scrappy and want to win so badly that they will come through.
ON THE FIELD he looks minute compared to some of the others, but he's a fighter. When he sees a chance to pick up an extra yard he does, even by leaving his feet and jumping up into the air, an unforgivable sin in football and the easiest way to break a leg.
We did not expect them to win the alumni game, but they did. On paper they look, as Jack Mitchell says, like a second division ball club.
Throw the paper away and there is a scrapy club that wants to win, led by a scrapy quarterback, Rodger McFarland. We've never seen a scrapper like McFarland.
Another overlooked fact about McFarland is that the KU unit did not start to jell until he was inserted into the KU starting lineup in the fourth game of last year.
Prediction: KU will win the Big Eight football championship.
The "dope book" says that KU will not have a winning team this season. But, it appears that the Jayhawkers want to win badly. We think they will.
Jay Roberts Becomes Three-Sport Letterman
Jay Roberts, 6-4, 203-pound Des Moines, Ia., sophomore, became the 3rd three-sport letterman in Kansas history when he was named among a list of 25 track and field monogram winners.
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Roberts, son of Arlo Roberts, long-time midwest handball and volleyball standout now a statistical contractor in San Francisco, earlier earned football and basketball letters as a reserve end and reserve forward. He thus became the first three-sport K-winner since Harold Patterson, who scored a football-basketball-baseball triple in 1952-53. Too, Roberts is the first rookie to bring off this feit since Charlie Hoag, an Oak Park, Ill., product, earned letters in football, basketball and track during 1950-51.
one of Phog Allen's most illustrious basketball coaching pupils, now at Colorado (Greeley) State, is next with 10. Grouped at nine are Bill Miller, Dick Priest and Lewis Halvern, who earned multiple spurs in the early days of the Missouri Valley, and Dutch Lonborg, present Jayhawker athletic director, who was competing just before and after World War I.
Here is the complete triple-sport elite, including Sherman, who is the Javahwkers' only four-sporter:
Roberts earned his track award with a fifth-place tie in the Big Eight Outdoor High Jump at 6-2. As alternate right end last autumn he hauled in seven passes for 88 yards and one touchdown. He broke into 12 basketball games, averaging only 10. but hauling down 33 rebounds.
Adrian Sherman, Rossville, '97; Earl Ammons, Arkansas City, '11; Frank Bausch, Wichita, '32; Jim Bausch, Wichita, '31; Charles Black, Alton, Ill., '24; Jain Bunn, Humboldt, '20; Ed Hall, Sublette, '41; Fred Harris, Lawrence, '36; Lewis Halver, Beattie, '14; Willis Henderson, Iola, '99; Bill Hess, Pratt, '02; Charlie Hoag, Oak Park, Ill., '53; Tommy Johnson, Lawrence, '11; Ad Lindsey, Kingfisher, Okla., '17; Dutch Londong, Horton, '20; Bob Maney, St. Joseph, Mo., '29; Bill Miller, Osage City, '08; John Outland, Glen Elder, '66; Harold Patterson, Rozell, '54; Dick Priest, Chanute, '08; W. A. Matteson, Abilene, '94; M. E. Michaelson, Moline, '04; Wade Moore, Norwood, '99; John Reber, Pleasanton, '16; M. Replogle, Coldwater, '39; Earl Steinberger, Erie, '94; Glenn Wilhelm, Clay Center, '11; Harold Wilson, Horton, '14; Harley Wood, Ness City, '09.
By maintaining this pace, Roberts can match a nine-letter pinnacle reached by only six men in Mt. Oread history. Topping this roster is Adrian Sherman, who gained 11 awards spread thru football, basketball, tennis and track, from 1890 thru 1897. He is one of the seven who achieved his triple before the turn of the century. John Bunn,
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Co-feature — Clark Gable in "THE MISFITS"
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