OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY HADLY KANSAN
7A
THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2008
COMMENTARY
Final weeks after the Final Four game Kansas' victory proves time at University worthwhile
I sat in the stands of the Alamodome feeling blue as the deepest part of the Pacific, bargaining with myself.
We'll be good next year if some key players stay at Kansas.
Maybe the Royals will make something out of their early spring momentum and take my mind off of things.
Maybe BALCO, founder Victor Conte would announce during a TV timeout that he supplied the Memphis players with a super-steroid, finely tuned for basketball prowess, therefore rendering the Tigers as cheaters and making Kansas the national champions by default.
But then, it all unfolded so fast that I couldn't stop to think. My heart was aflutter and mind reeling.
All at once, everything raced toward me for the first time in my last semester as a Kansas student.
In six weeks, I'll leave this campus and move on to the next stage.
I'm typically not a nostalgic person, and I'm ready for the change of pace.
But now as I think about it, I'm going to miss the college sports scene a lot.
I don't know if there's anything more authentic that the pageantry of college sports. I couldn't imagine going to school where sports weren't a big deal or where I didn't have a chance to kill a rainy day or watch a modestly talented classmate compete against modestly talented competition.
I have some friends who go to school at Ivy League institutions and the little Ivies and the Ivies of the central Missouri area.
Some of my professors shiver at the thought of Kansas' coaches and their big salaries, and they are irritated by the lack of academic focus consistent with celebration of athletic accomplishment.
I have a friend at George Washington University who texts me during every game. He straps himself into the emotional rollercoaster, wholly mocking the Colonials' poor attempts to construct a basketball team that could even qualify for the Atlantic 10 tournament.
They're from the Midwest,
and they love Kansas basketball.
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This Kansas national title made people feel good. Going to a basketball game this season probably prohibited that final, needed revision of my Romance and Satire paper or truncated my studying for a tough Public Finance exam.
I knew that coming in, though. Although I've enjoyed getting a good score on an exam or polishing up a difficult project, neither of those feelings compared to the jubilation that came with watching the Jayhawks win their third national title.
I felt so alive that it totally seemed I was living 10 to 12 awake lives at once — I jumped, I screamed, I danced. I could hardly get to all the text messages I received from friends.
I have a friend at Duke who, despite the strength of their program, ranks them at a distant second place in his heart.
I've loved my time at Kansas. There's as good an education to be found here as anywhere, though you might have to look a little harder for it.
Not to mention the dozens of other friends who don't attend KU who traveled to San Antonio to watch coach Bill Self cut down the nets.
That Monday night, I finally got to celebrate my success here through another awesome team's success.
After the final game, I hugged strangers, high-fived octogenarians and re-enacted a shabby version of the St. Louis Rams' famous "bob-n-weave" celebration dance with a 9-year-old.
It felt so good that I don't know if I'll ever recapture that feeling.
In a way, I was celebrating myself a little bit.
Goble is a Mission Hills senior in English and economics.
I'd like to thank the basketball team for their incredible performance in the NCAA Tournament, because the players brought genuine joy to my family, my friends and me.
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COMMENTARY
Roy Williams rigged championship game
The Jayhawks are finally NCAA champions.
DENNIS MERSMANN
Being a life-long Lawrence resident, no one in this town is happier than I am. Maybe the actual basketball team, but for the sake of hyperbole, I'll claim to be happier.
The Final Four was rigged, and it was Roy Williams' doing. He intentionally lost to make everyone at the University stop hating him.
It was clear that something was amiss even before we ripped the championship from Memphis' claws. But after we beat North Carolina, I knew something was wrong. And yes, I refer to the basketball team as "we."
Still, something about the whole ordeal feels a little empty, and I know why.
Maybe I'm not on the actual team, but I have been living vicariously through them for more than 20 years. I am a student at KU, and KU students are Jayhawks. Who won the national championship? The Jayhawks. WE won.
I am Wilt Chamberlain. I am Jared Haase. I am Mario Chalmers. Don't kill my buzz just because you can't find joy in a sports team you've attached your identity to. Some of us have souls.
But I digress. I knew something was askew when we trampled UNC because UNC is not a team that gets trampled. They have multiple NBA first-round draft picks and the best player with the worst nickname, Tyler "Psycho T" Hansbrough (maybe we can change it to "Please, Mr. Aldrich Can I Have the Ball?"). Dark forces were clearly at work.
Initially, I was happily stunned by our comfortable victory. That is until the post-game conference.
Roy is known for his blearyeyed, end-of-the-season press conferences where he explains how
There was Roy with his normal, end-of-season, droopy-dog face. It was the same scene I had grown accustomed to during his 15 years at Kansas, but this time something was missing. His tears.
THANK YOU. KANSAS BASKETBALL FOR MAKING HUNDREDS OF MIDDLE-AGED WHITE MEN FEEL LIKE THEY'VE ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING.
Max Rinkel
much he loves his players and how he let them down.
Roy is a crier, but on this night he was not. His eyes were dry.
Was he not sad about losing this game? No, he wasn't, because he had thrown the game.
He was facing his old team. Being the emotional guy that he is, Roy was flooded with memories of coaching here; the good times, the bad, the guilt of not winning a championship here, leaving amid turmoil only to win two years later at UNC.
Then there was the media attention of him facing his former employer.
Roy started to think that maybe Kansas needs this national championship more than he does.
He already has one. It's been 20 years since Kansas won a national championship.
During his press conference, Roy said that he had not prepared
This was the perfect opportunity for him to heal a community by giving it a cathartic moment. So he threw the game and lost on purpose.
the teams as well as he should have
My suspicion was confirmed that fateful Monday night when the now infamous shots of Roy sporting a Jayhawk sticker flickered across my television screen. He needed us to beat Memphis for his altruistic move to be completed.
That's the key. He intentionally under-prepared his squad. He didn't expect the Jayhawks to jump on UNC like they did early on, but he knew UNC would lose. He made sure of it.
Now you may think that he was just there to cheer on the school where he spent 15 years.
That sticker represents a conspiracy born in the depths of a guilty heart.
Yes, every other living coach that KU has had was in attendance, but Roy is the only one whose team crumbled under the weight of expectation two days earlier.
Mersmann is a Lawrence senior in creative writing.
》 LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Despite ripped-down flags, campus still place of tolerance
It's been suggested by some that the University of Kansas has a gayfriendy campus.
"Gay U" isn't an uncommon nickname, nor is calling us the "Gayhawks." It's true that KU's queer community is blessed in many different ways, with advocates on the faculty and staff, supportive resources and a surrounding town which is an anomaly in the state of Kansas.
A week ago, Queers & Allies hosted its annual Pride Week, a celebration of LGBT culture and the progress made by our movement since the Stonewall riots of 1969. Unarguably, the most visible elements of Pride Week were the rainbow flags hung up and down Jayhawk Boulevard. To many of you, these flags symbolized the accepting environment of our campus. After all, there's a reason we've garnered those nicknames.
However, the flags were repeatedly torn down. KU Public Safety caught several of the perpetrators, including the five young men who had enough remorse and courage to write an apology. Sadly, the motivations of others were not so innocuous. Another person carried a ladder through campus in order to cut down our flags. When the
police caught him, he stated that he didn't want us "pushing our beliefs" onto him. You also might have seen the tattered remains of flags torn down by people who were fortunate enough to not get caught.
It doesn't stop with the flags. It was suggested by one student that we should be lynched next to our flags. Another man raged in his class about the wrongs of the "fag lifestyle." And as usual, Fred Phelps wants us to burn in hell.
For these reasons, Queers & Allies is sponsoring for the first time the National Day of Silence, a day of action in which students take a vow of silence in order to bring attention to the name-calling, bullying and harassment (in effect, the silencing) of the queer community and its allies.
This year's Day of Silence will take place, April 25. Participants are requested to maintain silence wherever possible (excluding activities such as classes or work). The silence ends at 5 p.m.
On Wescoe Beach at 7p.m. Queers & Allies will be hosting a memorial for Lawrence King, a 15-year-old boy murdered because he was "effeminate."
For more information, stop by the Queens & Allies table in front of
how to submit
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send letters to the editor by e-mail to kansanopdesk@gmail.com. Letters should include the author's name, grade and hometown.
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Wescoe from April 23 to April 25. We'll have handouts about Day of Silence, along with a fresh batch of "Gay? Fine by Me" T-shirts.
Ryan Campbell Executive Director, Queers & Allies
We urge all of you to take a stand. Show the world why KU is known as a place of tolerance.
Megan Vail Activism Chair, Queers & Allies
To contribute to Free For All, visit Kansan.com or call 785-864-0500. Free For All callers have 20 seconds to talk about anything they choose.
My favorite house is PDK.
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Horatio on "CSI: Miami" is my lover.
Free For All, I love you, and I haven't been at KU since 1995.
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Stop posting the URL for the KU band video on YouTube. We get it.
If you haven't been at KU since 1995 and you are still on Facebook, you're acreeer.
To the person upset about scooters on sidewalks: Ride your scooter on the street, and I will run over you with my real car.
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I just saw two girls run through the second floor of Anschutz playing frisbee in the Ouelt Zone.
It's Anschutz. Who the hell is quiet in Anschutz, even in the Quiet Zone? If you want quiet, go to Watson, nerd.
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Hot twins are the greatest gift god has ever given man.
My ex-girlfriend of nine months is trying to stop me from hooking up with a girl who has had a boyfriend for six years. I'm so confused.
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To the good-looking girl in my physics lab, be my partner so I don't have to work with the jackass next to me anymore.
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I need sex. If you are a golf player and or frat boy, you need not apply. Experience preferred
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You should all listen to "Parting of the Sensory" by Modest Mouse. The lyrics are ingenious and so meaningful. It's a beautiful song.I would like someone to know I want loved at my funeral
I want to have Ellen Page's babies.
Free For All, you will be a Debbie Downer if you mention punctuation and firebombs tomorrow.
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I tolerate everybody's beliefs. Except Chi Omegas and their mom's day's s's.s.
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While we're oppressing people, can I get a lady to make me a sammich?
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Nobody's perfect. You show your ignorance when you overgeneralize.
@KANSAN.COM
Want more? Check out Free For All online.
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