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University Daily Kansan Thursday, March 5, 1964
Varsity-Alumni Grid Contest To be Abandoned This Year
By Marshall Caskey (Sports Editor)
Head football coach Jack Mitchell has announced that the traditional varsity-alumni practice football game will be abandoned this Spring and be replaced with an intra-sound match.
The intra-squid contest is scheduled for May 2.
A. C. "Dutch" Lonborg confirmed the report and said the game has been discontinued for a number of reasons.
"ONE BIG problem with the game." Lonborg said, "was the trouble we were having getting the men playing professional ball to play in the varsity-alumni game. The pro coaches didn't like to let their players participate in the game. It was difficult to put together an alumni team who could give the varsity a good game."
"A second reason we did away with the game and the one with which I was most directly concerned, was the possibility of one of the alumni being injured in the game. Some of the men were out of shape and could have been badly injured in one of the contests," Lonborg said.
the varsity-alumni game, according to Wayne Replogle, assistant football coach, had its beginnings over twenty years ago.
"THEER WAS SOME semblance of a game," Replogle said, "before I came here in 1940. I can remember the games after 1940 very well because I coached the alumni for many years.
"I remember the 1941 game well. We played it in Haskell Stadium. The varsity team that year was the old Ray Evans team—the team that went to the Orange Bowl after the war. I was coaching the alumni team.
"We had a 3-0 lead at the half, but the varsity came back in the second period and beat us 24-3," Replogle said.
The game was not played during
Indoor Slates Last Meets
The 1964 track season ended last weekend for most members of Coach Bill Easton's squad. For a few men on the team, however, two more meets remain.
The two meets are the Chicago Daily News meet and the Milwaukee Journal games. The Chicago meet will be Saturday and the Milwaukee meet Monday.
Coach Easton said he plans to take a two-mile relay team from KU to the Chicago meet. Members of the relay team are Herold Hadley, John Donner, Lowell Paul and John Lawson.
Bill Dotson, former championship miler from KU, will also be participating in the Chicago meet. Dotson will be entered in the open mile.
Coach Easton announced that Floyd Manning, Bill Silverberg, Tyce Smith and Dotson will participate in the Milwaukee games. Manning will enter the pole vault, Silverberg the two-mile, Smith the high jump and Dotson the open mile.
Manning set a new Big Eight meet record over the weekend as he vaulted 15-8 in Kansas City, Silverberg ran the two mile in 9:05 two weeks ago to set a new Allen Field House record. Smith set three Field House records in the high jump during the season. His best jump was 6-83%.
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the war years, according to Replogle, because many of the alums were in the service.
"THEE WAS NO game in 1942, '43, "44 or "45," Replogle said, "and in '46 and '47, Evans and most of his teammates came back to school, but there weren't enough alums to play a game."
"In 1948, many of the men had graduated and we got up a game. I can remember coaching the alumni in that game and I can remember the barbecue afterward. The barbecue, of course, became a tradition right along with the game," Replogle said.
In 1951, the most famous players in KU football history, up to that time, assembled for the varsity-alumni tilt. Ray Evans, the Orange Bowl veteran and all-American played in the game. Otto Schnellbacher, Don Fambrough, Don "Red-Dog" Ettinger, Forrest Griffith, Mike McCormack and many well-known players also participated. The alums beat the varsity 13-6.
SINCE 1951, THE VARSITY teams have won seven of the traditional contests, while the alumni have won five. Last year, the varsity trounced the alums 33-0.
Reploge said he agreed that it was advisable to stop playing the traditional game.
"I think it's good that they called the game off," Replogle said. "If a man got really banged up—as might well have happened—it could have ruined him for life. Some of these men haven't been in shape for one or more years. You can't take a man out here when he's way out of shape and expect him to play against the well-trained college men."
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"Some of these alums have really gotten knocked for a loop in the Spring game, too. Some of them didn't recover for days."
"SOMETIMES their wives wouldn't let them play in the game.
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That's what happened to (George) Mrkinic last year. And it's only right, too. You take a man who hasn't been in shape like Mrkinic and run him into someone like Schweda, who is in shape and he could really get hurt."
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