THURSDAY, APRIL 20. 2006
KANSAS RELAYS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 3C
Nelson
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Williams said the two would come to practice almost every afternoon and sit in the bleachers to watch. After about 30 minutes of practice, Williams said, he and the players would look up and see one leaning left and the other leaning right. Williams joked that they liked to take their afternoon naps in the Fieldhouse.
"When people mention Bob Nelson's name, it brings a smile to my face." Williams said.
Williams said he first met Nelson on his first day at the University. After the press conference introducing him as the Kansas basketball coach in July of 1988 at the Holidome, Williams said Nelson marched up to him and said, "They call me the Old Jayhawker." From then on, they became friends.
With Williams, Nelson continued his pre-game tradition from Larry Brown's coaching tenure at the University. Before each game, he waited at the tunnel where all of the players ran out and shook hands with the coach for good luck.
Nelson said while Williams was at the University he got free tickets to all of the away games. The athletes got two free tickets per player to each game, and Williams made sure Nelson and Eleanor got two of them each time.
Among the items that Bob Nelson collects are various KU buttons from decades past and present. Nelson's basement is essentially a shrine to KU athletics.
Even since he moved to Chapel Hill to coach at North Carolina, Williams still sends Nelson Christmas cards. Nelson keeps them in a binder with protective plastic slip pages. Also included are his correspondence from all of the former and current KU coaches and assistant coaches, including former coach Larry Brown, now coaching the New York Knicks, and former assistant coach Matt Doherty. One of Williams' cards had a team photo of all of his UNC players, autographed by each one.
Nelson was born in 1922 in Sedan, but he and his family moved all over the state. After his father died, he and his mother moved to Ohio, for three years. His mother then moved to Lawrence for Nelson's last year of high school.
Anna Faltermieier/KANSAN
After he graduated, Nelson attended Kansas and majored in journalism. He also covered sports for The University Daily Kansan, and he's been following KU sports ever since.
shoes to the men in India, sailed through the Suez Canal and eventually ended up in Boston. There, the Navy said he had to sign a four-year contract for the draft or join the Merchant Marines. He chose the latter, a commercial shipping group that used their freighters to ship U.S. Armed Forces supplies during the war. He travelled to Belgium and other European countries as well.
Nelson left the Merchant Marines after the war and returned to the University.
Nelson worked for the Navy, but was not enlisted, when World War II started, and he did work shipping and supplying United States troops around the world after boarding a boat in San Francisco. He brought
He finished his degree in 1953 and moved to Topeka to pursue a career as a realtor. In 1959, he moved back to Lawrence for good. He took a job as a KU Continuing Education program coordinator, where he worked for 32 years until his retirement in 1991.
In 1964, he met his wife Eleanor Womack. She had moved to Lawrence with her three kids just one year earlier to escape a bad marriage, and she Nelson met through their mutual love of KU sports. Eleanor worked at the University and was also an office manager for the Center for Research on Learning. She retired in 1996.
"You can't help but be a Jayhawk fan if you live in Lawrence," she said.
He and Eleanor dated for 24 years because she "didn't want to get caught between a husband and kids," but they went to all of the games together from the time they met. In 1991, they married in Reno, near her kids, so that she could be named on his KU pension plan when he retired that year.
Nearly 300 people showed up at their reception in Lawrence at the Holidome.
"Our wedding was announced in the Chuck Woodling sports column before anywhere else," Eleanor ioked.
Spotter is an unpaid position. He spotted for such famous announcers as Jerry Bailey, Gary Bender, and Tom Hedgrick. He's worked for every radio announcer at the University except Bob Davis.
Nelson and Eleanor have traveled all over the United States to see the Jayhawks play. Nelson has been to every U.S. state except Maine and Vermont. He's been to Big 8 and Big 12 tournaments, the 50th annual National Championship in Kansas City in 1988, where the Jayhawks won the national title, the Orange Bowl, the Liberty Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Sun Bowl and the Aloha Bowl. He's been to all of the football bowl games except the last few. He didn't make it to Fort Worth last December, he said.
He worked as a spotter for KU football and basketball, the Kansas City Chiefs, and even in Oklahoma. He sat in his seat and help out the announcer in the booth with things that could only be seen from close up.
Nelson even went to the first Super Bowl to watch the Kansas City Chiefs play the Green Bay Packers in Los Angeles in 1967. He said the Chiefs and TWA put a charter together for $125, where he got airfare, hotel, a ticket to the game and plenty of souvenirs.
When Phog Allen coached the 1952 USA Olympic basketball team, it had seven players from the University. Allen sent Nelson a postcard from the games, and now it's on Nelson's mantle on his basement fireplace. His entire basement is a mini-museum of autographed pictures and memorabilia from KU sports since 1939. Eleanor even had a coffee table especially made to house some of his most prized items, like his first ever season tickets in 1941, which she said cost $16 for the entire season.
"He's a pack rat," Eleanor said.
She said in 1993, their basement flooded and many of his artifacts were destroyed, but he still has plenty left. He even has doubles of a lot of things like programs, autographed books, and other items. Eleanor said she's been selling the doubles on the Internet to thin out the collection.
He's known all of the coaches from Phog Alon On: Dick Harp, Larry Brown, Roy Williams and Bill Self.
In fact, he knew Self long before he came to coach at Kansas. He first met Self when he came to Kansas as a graduate assistant for then-coach Larry Brown. Self came in the 1985-86 season after he'd played for Oklahoma State.
Nelson was happy to see Self come back to Kansas as a coach, he said.
Eleanor said one day Self invited her and Nelson to the Fieldhouse to see the improvements made this year. While they were there, Self asked where they were sitting after the Williams Fund redistributed the seats this year. They used to sit close to the court, but got moved to the third level. Eleanor said the new seats made it harder for Nelson to make it to games because he can't climb the stairs as easily.
When Self found out, he called the Williams Fund and shortly after, the Williams Fund
"They should have grandfathered in a lot of the old guys," Eleanor said.
called the Nelson and said they had their old seats back.
While they were there, construction workers told them they couldn't be in the Fieldhouse without hard hats, but according to Eleanor, Self said, "These two damn people built the Fieldhouse in the first place!"
"Certainly they have been generous with giving, but they have given far more than their money in that they have given their love, support and time," Self said.
Self said he looked forward to seeing Nelson each week at his radio show.
"Having fans like Nelly make
you want to work that much harder," Self said. "There is more of a sense of pride when he is around. He represents all the good things that fans should represent. He is loyal and supports you and loves you regardless of the scoreboard."
In 1998, Nelson had a stroke that has since prevented him from having a perfect attendance record at the games. He still attends most games, and he remembers everything impeccably but has a harder time getting around and speaking his mind.
Because of the impression Nelson has made on all of the
former KU athletes and coaches he frequently gets invited to team reunions. He went to the 30-year reunion for the 1974 Final Four team in 2004. He also received recognition for his loyalty to the University in 1992, when the KU Alumni Association gave him the Mildred Clofelter award for his many contributions to the University, an honor only given to one person per year.
In 2000, a group of sportswriters who covered KU sports named him the "fan of the millennium," Eleanor said.
- Edited by Matt Wilson
Battle
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He earned All-America honors in the shot put with a second-place finish at the NCAA championships in 2005
He placed first in the dis
and the hammer throw,
and second in the shot put
last year at the Big 12
Championships.
Battle is ranked third in the nation on the trackwire. com 'dandy dozen' for the shot put.
want to showcase the Kansas track and field team's talent by being productive and competing hard." Sheldon Battle
Although he may not like the attention, Battle has accepted the role of being the face of the Kansas track and field team this season.
Sheldon Battle Senior thrower
He has worked hard as a senior and can challenge for the title in any event at nationals this summer.
After his days are over at Kansas, Battle said he would look to compete professionally.
"We want to showcase the Kansas track and field team's talent by being productive and competing hard," Battle said.
For now though, the focus is on the Kansas Relays.
— Edited by John Jordan
▼ HIGH SCHOOL TRACK
Wheelchair athlete wins suit to race with able-bodied
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BALTIMORE — A high school track athlete who uses a wheelchair will be allowed to race alongside her teammates for the rest of the school year under a federal judge's order.
Tatiyana McFadden, 16, had been allowed to practice with the Atholton High School track team in Columbia, but the school system required her to compete in separate wheelchair events.
"It was lonely and embarrassing, and I just didn't like it," McFadden said. "Other competitors would come up to me and they would say, 'Good race,' but it wasn't really a good race because I was running by myself."
The Maryland Disability Law Center filed the federal suit on McFadden's behalf, citing the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits exclusion of persons with disabilities from programs and activities that receive federal funds.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Andre Davis granted the request for a preliminary injunction against the school system.
McFadden, who won two medals at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, said Monday night that she was looking forward to competing in Wednesday's meet.
"This is important to me because I wanted to get the same thrill and the same experience as all the other high school students," she said. "There's no competition by myself."
The Maryland Disability Law Center filed the federal suit on McFadden's behalf, citing the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits exclusion of persons with disabilities from programs and activities that receive federal funds.
Mark Blom, an attorney for the Howard County school system, said last month when the suit was filed that the system had worked with McFadden to allow her to be a part of the team and to incorporate wheelchair events into track competitions, but it is against merging the two types of events.
The judge disagreed.
)
"She's not suing for blue ribbons, gold ribbons or money — she just wants to be out there when everyone else is out there." Davis said.
McFadden was born with spina bifida. Her mother, Deborah McFadden, called the ruling a landmark.
"The Rehabilitation Act has been around for 33 years," she said. "Maybe we've succeeded in a classroom setting, but there's more to a person's life."
Chris Gordon/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wheelchair athlete Tatyana McFadden pulls ahead in her first track meet along side able-bodied high school runners on Wednesday in Rockville, Md. McFadden, 16, sued for the right to race with able-bodied athletes.