Those were the days
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Veteran Kansas - Wildcat observers recall great pranks, greater games
By JAY THOMAS
Kansan Sports Writer
Ah, yes. Once again it's time for a renewal of that delightful little range war known as the Kansas-K-State basketball rivalry.
As usual, the combatants are fighting for a Big Eight championship.
But were this not even the case, the contest would still be a lively, if not always humorous affair, Ask Ted Owens.
"You don't get many laughs out of a K-State game," says the Kansas mentor. "With them, things are highly competitive and really, pretty grim."
True. But down through the years amid all the Big Eight tourneys, conference titles, and showdown ballgames has come some great basketball—and some pretty zany happenings.
Flatten city
"Right," laughs Dean Nesmith, trainer for Jayhawk teams for 31 years. "I'll never forget the times we used to go up to Manhatten in cars instead of a bus. We beat Kansas State pretty good one night and when we got out to our cars, some Wildcat fans had let all the air out of our tires. It was a while before we got out of there."
"Yes, I remember that," echoes Milton P. "Mitt" Allen, Lawrence attorney and son of Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, Kansas' legendary coach for 39 years.
"But there was also another case when Dad's tires were actually slashed after a game. They used to really love him up there, particularly during Jack Gardner's stay."
Boos greeted Phog
Dr. Allen never failed to enter K-State's ancient crackerbox, Nichols Gymnasium, without a welcome of resounding boos. His verbal feuds with 'Cat Coach Gardner added spice to an already colorful series.
Such things as kicking the K-State mascot's cage while calling it a pussycat did much to endear Phog to KSU partisans.
Occasionally Wildcat fans took their wrath out on the players. "At old Nichols," says Mitt Allen, "the endlines were so close to the stands that you were almost standing in the front row when you threw the ball in. K-State fans loved to bring pins to the game and shoot them with rubber bands at KU players."
Nesmith remembers a similar incident. "A Kansas man was preparing to throw the ball in when a State student, from his baseline seat, reached out and pulled off one of the hairs on the player's leg.
"Tempers were always short anyway then (back in the Allen days), but our guy turned around and smashed the ball against this fellow's head. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed before a fight could break out."
No real brawls
Nesmith does not recall ever witnessing any donnybrooks between the schools' players. Nevertheless, there was a time when Jayhawk cagers were mad enough for one.
"This wasn't in a game," notes the Kansas Deanner, "but coming back to Lawrence one evening after lacing them real good, we were on a bus that ran out of gas between Manhattan and Topeka.
Mar. 7
1969 KANSAN 7
"It was freezing and windy outside and the bus driver had to hitchhike back to some town for gas while we sat in that powerless bus. Some K-Staters had siphoned out the fuel."
Pranks have always played a part in the series. In the 30s and 40s, Uncle Jimmy Green annually received a purple paint dousing before Lawrence contests, courtesy of K-State students.
One year, several KU guerrillas sneaked away with one of State's prize herefords, loosing it the next day on the Manhatten campus with the initials "KU" shaved into its side.
Best of pranks?
Perhaps the coup de grace in this department belongs to three ingenious Kansas State students who in 1966 rigged a sign atop the Allen Field House scoreboard, electronically set to unfurl the night of the battle.
Reading "Go K-State, Beat Snob Hill!", the message stretched from the top of the scoreboard to the floor and caused the game to be stopped at its unveiling several minutes after the tip-off.
No explanation was immediately forthcoming as to how the message was moored, but later Kansas football Coach Jack Mitchell recalled having unlocked the field house doors to allow some students to put "some sort of sign up."
Even Coach Owens enjoyed that one. "It was really a good joke," he says today. "I know at the time I couldn't help but laugh, and our fellows thought it was pretty funny too. Another thing it did was soup us up, and we won going away."
Recollections
Of course, it generally does not take too much to "soup up" a ball player for a KU-K-State tussle. Some of the most memorable struggles in conference history have been waged by the two schools.
"Well I don't know that there is one greatest or best game," says Bob Nelson, program coordinator for the University Extension Center and a Jayhawk who has not missed a handful of games, home or away, since 1940.
The greatest?
Schnellbacher, and Armen Dixon), all of whom had orders to be inducted into the Army the day of the K-State game.
"Phog had to have them available to win, so he talked the officials up at Fort Leavenworth into letting them stay for the game and report instead the next day. They consented and KU won—but you should have heard the K-State people scream at that."
"One in 1943 sticks out in my mind. Kansas was playing with a group called the "Iron Five" (Charlie Black II, Ray Evans, John Bischner, Otto
Gary Bender, voice of the Jayhawks on the Kansas Sports Network, recalls the 1962 clash in Lawrence. "That was the night Mike Wroblewski of KSU got out of a sick bed to wipe us out with 46 points," said Bender.
"There was another one where Walt Wesley, just a gangly
This year's win
sophomore, pumped home 32 points to almost single-handedly stand K-State. (KU lost, 58-55).
"Wilt took them apart a couple of games too, particularly in 1958 after we'd lost to them here to eliminate our chances to win the Big Eight. He went over there and put on quite a show and we won big (61-44)."
Owens takes pride in KU's 73-67 victory earlier this season.
"That was a big one," he said,
"because it came at a time when we were down after losing two
tough ones on the road. Racking them up over there showed what a group of young men can do when they make up their minds to do it."
The playoff game in 1960 to determine the conference's NCAA representative was "one of the greatest I've ever seen," reminisces Nesmith. Kansas escaped with a narrow 84-82 overtime verdict in a thriller that saw both teams hold better than 9-point leads at different times. Al Correll's two charity tosses in the last 15 seconds provided the margin.
There have been so many monumental skirmishes, a long-time follower could go on all day. Underdog KU's 80-66 ambush of Number I-ranked Kansas State in 1953 was one. The whirlwind finish in an 80-78 Jayhawk conquest that same year was another.
Few series disciples forget the night in 1960 when a disgusted Tex Winter benched his starting quintet after Kansas had raced to a 47-27 halftime bulge. In the next 17 minutes, five inspired Wildcat reserves played the eventual conference champs (including all-leaguers Bill Bridges, Wayne Hightower, and Jerry Gardner) off their feet, climbing to an unbelievable 62-59 lead with three minutes to play.
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KU eventually escaped with a 64-62 win but it took two costly K-State errors to seal the decision.
Still the one that no one forgets is the 90-88, four-overtime heart-throbber that gave an outmanned Kansas club the 1962 Big Eight tournament crown.
A capacity throng of 10,500 Municipal Auditorium fans saw the Wildcats lead most of the way and apparently sack the triumph on three occasions. Each time they were pulled back by clutch play from the Crimson and Blue.
Most of this came from veteran guard Nolan Ellison, whose 20-footer with two seconds left forced a third extra period and two free throws with three seconds left forced a fourth.
Playing every second of the 60 minute marathon. Ellison rang a career high of 32 points in possibly the most phenomenal performance in history by a Kansas basketball player.
KU finally pulled it out on a fall-away 12-footer with three seconds left by reserve Jay Roberts-after a deft pass from, who else, Nolan Ellison.
That was a tough act to follow.
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