Friday. April 20,1962 University Daily Kansan
Page 15
KU Swimmers Have Top Year Under Markley
By Mike Miller
KU's 1962 swimming team climaxed its most successful season in the 32-year history of conference competition by taking eight of a possible 14 first places in the Big Eight conference meet.
LACK OF DEPTH hampered the KU swimmers more than anything else. The Kansas squad had only eight swimmers compared to 18 for Oklahoma and 17 for Iowa State, which finished third in the meet. This lack of manpower hurt the team because it was not able to pick up badly-needed fifth and sixth place points.
Although the team finished second to Oklahoma, which won the conference championship for the 11th straight year, the KU swimmers made the meet closer than it has been since 1950.
Both relay teams, the 400-yard medley and the 400-yard freestyle, set new Big Eight records. The medley team broke its own record which it had set two weeks before against Oklahoma. Their time against Oklahoma bettered the American record for the event in a 20-yard pool.
This year Kansas swimmers broke two conference relay team records and two individual marks while taking eight first places in the conference meet.
THE MEDLEY RELAY team is made up of Bill Mills, Topeka (freestyle), Bill Murdock, Webster Groves, Mo. (breaststroke), George Winter, Chicago, Ill. (backstroke), and John Kemp from Springfield, Ill. (butterfly). All are sophomores except Murdock who is a junior.
The freestyle team, consisting of Ludy Harman, Ponca City, Okla; junior; Stew Anderson, La Grange, Ill.; sophomore; Mills, and captain Eldon Ward, Wichita senior and KU's only swimming All America, had never swum the event as a team before their winning performance.
Winter set a new league mark as he won the 100-yard backstroke, as did Kemp in the 200-yard butterfly. Kemp was a double winner as he also took first place honors in the 100-yard butterfly. Murdock took both the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke and Ward retained his 50-yard freestyle championship.
Head coach Jay Markley took four swimmers (Ward, Murdock, Kemp and Winter) to the National Collegeate meet in Columbus, Ohio, last month. This was the largest group of KU swimmers ever to swim in the meet. Although none of them was able to quality for the finals, three broke existing varsity records.
AS AN INDICATION of how Kansas has improved over previous years, Ward's 50-yard freestyle championship was the first time that a KU swimmer had coped a conference first place. KU swimmers now own nine conference first places.
THIS YEAR'S TEAM has been the climax of a five-year upswing in swimming at KU. The 1957 team tied for last place in the conference after occupying the cellar uncontended for the previous two years. Markley became coach in 1958 and since that time, the team has raised its point output in the conference meet from $47\frac{1}{2}$ to 50 to 58 to 71 and finally to 110 this year. This 110-point total put KU only nine points behind winner Oklahoma which won the meet handily by 70 points last year. In the five years that Markley has coached the team, they have never finished lower than third in the Big Eight.
Ward's 22.5 in the 50-yard freestyle was singled out by Coach Markley as the outstanding performance by a KU swimmer in the meet.
Next year's team promises to be even better than the 1962 squad. The team will lose Ward and Dick Reamon through graduation, but with the added experience of the four sophomores who were swimming in their first Big Eight competition this year plus standout juniors Ludy Harman and Bill Murdock, the team should be able again to contend with perennial champion Oklahoma for the Big Eight title crown.
Van der Wal—
(Continued from page 13)
now in his 17th season at Kearney and his 35th overall. "I think he can get under 150 in the half too."
Hylke transferred from East Texas last winter. His parents were displaced persons from Holland, where settled in Wartford, Ontario, where his father farms. Young Van Daler Wal is studying for the ministry. He'll enter the seminary at Ottawa, Quebec, next autumn.
During the indoor campaign Van der Wal won the Winnipeg International Meet of Champions 1000 in 2:10.7, a figure nine-tenths under the Big Eight record. He trailed Jim Beatty in 2:11.1 in the Milwaukee Journal Games, and won the Chicago U. Holiday 880 in 1:53.3.
Running ahead of him for the Antelopees are Ed Kester, 440; Daryl Broberg, 880, and Tuck Mason, 1320.
Kester, a Cambridge, Neb., senior,
clocked 50.5 and 51.7 in Kearney's
two latest bolts. Broberg, a Loomis,
Neb., senior, hit 2:00.5 and 1:57.4.
Mason, Ord, Neb., senior, wheeled
2:05.5 and 3:03.8.
The latter is Nebraska College Conference 880 record-holder at 1:51.8. He was runner-up for the NAIA title in 1960 and finished third last year.
Foster is a story in himself, having piloted eight consecutive NCC title teams in a streak that also shows 13 championships in the last 16 years.
This is the gang that hopes to bring Kearney its first Kansas baton title in history.
Javhawks Switch Veterans
Most significant experiment involving a veteran on Kansas' spring practice blueprint will be a trial for Marvin Clothier, 207-pound coming senior guard from Stafford, at end. A second veteran, Mickie Walker, coming Groves, Texas, junior, is ticketed to a return to guard after finishing the 1961 season at tackle.
Temple Sees Improved Showing For Jayhawker Baseball Team
The addition of Junior College All America Hubert Bumgardner at second base gives the team a big boost in the infield. Not only is Bumgardner a good player, but his spirit helps the whole ball club.
Head baseball coach Floyd Temple has predicted a fourth or fifth place conference finish for his 1962 Jayhawker team. The team started off the season giving indication that it can finish at least this well by winning its first three conference games.
"We are sure Bumgardner is a Big Eight caliber fielder, and he should be able to hit Big Eight pitching," Temple says. "He should also add the hustle to the team which was so badly lacking last year."
"We have to have runs to win games; we can't beat them on defense alone," Temple said.
Coach Temple says that this year's team should be a vast improvement over last year's cellar dwellers if the pitching holds up and if the many sophomores on the squad are able to adjust to Big Eight playing conditions.
THE BIG QUESTION mark in the team's chances, however, is whether the hitting of the team can produce enough runs to support the improved defense.
He says that he has noted a vast improvement in the mental attitude of this team over last year's squad, adding that the defense has also improved over last year's.
The rest of the infield is made up of Dick Fanning at first, Don Miller at shortstop, and Jim Evilsizer and Leroy Rader sharing the third base job.
Veterans Jim Marshall and Ken Hensley along with sophomores Tony Leiker, and David Robinson
Floyd Temple
will be handling most of the outfield assignments for the Jayhawks this season.
Pete Quatrochi and Dave Culp,
Abercrombie hit .345 last year
when pressed into duty at second
base.
CATCHING IS ONE of the teams more stable departments with last year's leading hitter Keith Abercrombie backed up by footballer
TEMPLE'S PITCHING staff is centered around a pair of fireballing righthanders, Jerry Waldschmidt and Carl Nelson. They are backed up by lefthanders Sam Tryon, Roger Brock, Monte Stewart and Steve Lunsford.
Nelson and Waldschmidt are seniors, Tryon and Brock are juniors and Stewart and Lunsford sophomores.
Philly Signs Fisher
Tackle Mike Fisher has signed a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles, which brings to eight the number of 1961 Kansas footballers secured by the pros. That checklist includes tackle Stan Kirkman, Houston Oilers; guard Elvin Basham, Oakland Raiders; halfback Curtis McClinton, Dallas Texans; end Larry Allen, Toronto Argonauts; quarterback John Hadl, San Diego Chargers; tickle Dick Davis, Green Bay Packers, and halfback Bert Cono, San Diego Chargers.
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