THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday March 2,1988
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Vol. 98, No. 109 (USPS 650-640)
KKK heated topic Issues aired at meeting
Kansan staff writer
By Rebecca J. Cisek Kansan staff writer
Students, faculty and administrators met yesterday to update each other on the forum scheduled for Monday that would bring members of the Ku Klux Klan to campus.
About 15 people attended the two-hour closed mingling yesterday in Strong Hall's Room.
David Amber, vice chancellor for student affairs, said the meeting was not called to make any decisions about Monday's forum. Wayne Webb, president of the Black Student Union, said the purpose of the meeting was to open the lines of communication.
Michael Foubert, Lawrence graduate student and president of Slightly Old Americans for Freedom, is organizing the forum titled "Freedom of Expression in the University Environment: Voices from the Right." Ann Eversole, director of the organization
Class meets at airport to question KKK
By James Buckman
Kansan staff writer
A KU journalism class interviewed two members of the Missouri Knights yesterday morning in almost complete secrecy at Lawrence Municipal Airport.
Harry Jones, the instructor of the reporting class that conducted the interview, originally had intended his class to interview members of the white supremacist group, an affiliate of the Ku Klux Klan, in his classroom on the KU campus in February.
But controversy and pressure from members of the black community, partly because Jones invited the Klansmen to speak during Black History Month, caused Jones to find an alternate means of conducting the interview exercise.
Jones said his students were not told that they would conduct the interview yesterday.
He said he told his class about the field trip yesterday when they arrived at his class.
"They were told at 8:30 when they arrived in room 101 downstairs to get in their cars before they left."
In a note given to his students before they left for the airport, Jones said the trip would be voluntary, with the expectation that the event would attract no attention and occur without incident. The note said that at the first sign of any incident or disturbance, such as a protest demonstration, the students would be free to leave and consider the class
canceled.
Jones said he had asked the Klansmen Tuesday night to do the interview. He said he had an agreement with the members that he would give them only short notice before the interview so that they could not arrange for demonstrations or controversy to call attention to their cause.
"I had them meet me at a restaurant near the turnip hike, and then I drove them in my own car to the meeting place," he said. "I had two kids in my class tail我 must to make sure they didn't have somebody tailing us. They didn't try to double cross me."
He said that the secrecy surrounding the class exercise had successfully allowed for him to carry out his original objective: giving his students a chance to report on and
exnose racism
"It it went exactly as I had planned except that it quadrupled in the educational value because of all the brouhaha," he said. "It heightened their interest in the whole damn thing, and the more interested they are, the better they write.
"We learned what a bigot looks like, and what a narrow-minded bigot looks like. We stared bigotry in the face for an hour."
Marilyn Pollack, Wilmette, III., sophomore, said the interview was a great experience.
"It was absolutely both fascinating and repulsive at the same time," she said. "I'm glad we did it."
Knights tell KU students about goals
See CLASS, p. 12, col. 1
By Meredith Relph Special to the Kansan
Using biblical parallels and historical allusions to illustrate their philosophies, two members of the Missouri Knights of the ku Klux Klan met yesterday with a KU
AFTER HOURS
ACROSS The fastest game on two feet STORY BY BENTE M. DAHL PHOTOS BY JANINE SWIATKOWSKI
hen the North American Indians played the game, they called it "baggathaway." Thousands of men roamed through the forest for days with net-headed sticks, throwing and catching a rubber ball. The purpose of this war-like game was to thrust the ball between two trees or painted poles. The game had few
rules. Thousands of goals were scored, but legend has it that the team with the fewest casualties won the game.
Today, people play the game on grass fields 110 yards long and 60 yards wide, and they call the game lacrosse. The teams have 10 players each and usually are found in high schools and colleges. The net-headed stick is still the tool of the game, and the players still thrust the ball between two poles. But the trees have become steel goals by a goatle. The rules are similar to those of hockey, and the team with the most goals in one hour wins the game.
Lacrosse is mainly an East Coast sport, but Midwestern states such as Illinois and Colorado have caught on. Kansas does not have a tradition of lacrosse, but last semester, a group of students started the KU Lacrosse Club and organized three games without a coach. Now, the club has 35 members and a coach and is a recognized student organization playing in the Gateway Lacrosse League. Other teams in the league are from the University of Missouri, Washington University in St. Louis, the Kansas City Lacrosse Club in Kansas City, Mo., and the Michelob Club Team in St. Louis.
Mark Glassman, Lake Forest, Ill., junior, is one of the students who started the KU club. He played lacrosse in high school and loved the sport too much to give it up in college. "I missed the game and wanted to play more," Glassman says. "I knew other guys felt the same way, so we got a team together and played a couple of games."
This season's first outdoor practice was Feb. 19 at the Shenk Complex field at 23rd and Iowa Streets. The players cheered and applauded each other, defying the freezing winds on their bare legs. With frenzied speed, they constantly swing their sticks to catch, cradle, pass and scoop the ball, propelling it from player to player toward the goal, all the time fending off opposing attackers.
Lacrosse is a new sport not only to the University of Kansas, but also to the coach and many of the players. The coach, Richard Swartzel, is a Lawrence real estate sales manager. He had never played lacrosse before he joined the club this semester. "I discovered it two years ago in Colorado at the National Lacrosse Tournament in Vail. I fell in love with the sport." Swartzel says.
Lacrosse has the crash of football, the dash of basketball and the soul-stirring action of ice hockey. Some call it the fastest game on two feet. Players develop speed and coordination as they run, pivot and dodge white crazing the ball. They also learn how to split-second timing and decision-making, so the players constantly watch both teammates and opponents.
Swartztel met Glassman at Kinko's earlier this year when Glassman was copying fliers for the club. He was delighted to hear that KU had a lacrosse team and quickly joined. The team needed a coach, so Swartztel stepped in. Since then, he has learned the game's principles and strategies, mostly from the experienced players.
want a year old Swartzel lacks in experience, he makes up for in enthusiasm and ability to organize, motivate and discipline the players. Swartzel plans to build the team into
a competitive club, but he knows that the players are the key to success. "The team has some excellent people," he says. "The bottom line is that this team is going to be what the players make it."
Charlie Sedlock, Kansas City, Kan., junior, is one of about 10 newcomers to the sport. "I started out of curiosity. I knew about the sport and wanted to try it," he says. Sedlock is excited about the team's first league season. "We were not too serious last semester, but we're ready to play to win now." he says.
Besides offering a good way to get in shape, lacrosse can be an outlet for built-up aggression. "You swing sticks at people. It's a good way to blow off some steam," says Cory Powell, the club's vice president. There might have been too much stick swinging at times last semester, says Powell, an Evergreen, Colo., junior who has played lacrosse for eight years. He broke his collar bone, Glassman dislabeled a shoulder and a third player broke his nose. "We weren't in shape back then, and we weren't serious enough." Powell says.
The players also hope to go a long way, just as their sport has. Since the Indians played "baggathaway," many things have changed, including the name. When white men first played the game, they named it "lacrosse" after the town where they played, Lac fle ila la Crosse in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Another theory suggests that the French Canadians saw a resemblance between a bishop's crozier and the stick the Indians used to play "baggathway." Hence the word "la crosse." French for "the cross."
Swartzel thinks the KU Lacrosse Club has potential. Many of the members have played on prestigious high school teams, and they know how to teach the inexperienced players. "Hopefully, KU Lacrosse will be in the National Lacrosse Tournament in less than five years," he says. "I would love to take it there."
Chris Cooper, Chapel Hill, N.C., senior, is one of the more experienced players back in North Carolina. It is also a player to go it at IK Lakes.
The KU Lacrosse Club has no place in the history books yet, but only a few months after the team was formed, it became a recognized student organization and was recorded in the Student Senate's funds book. The club has received $1,600 to spend on advertising, sticks and balls, game fees and field preparation. Money for other expenses comes from the players. The team will spend five weekends on the road this spring, and the players say they each will spend about $30 a trip. The players also are responsible for buying their own blue lerses, helmets, pads and gloves.
Finances are tight, but the players' injuries are healed, and KU Lacrosse is ready to play this season. The team has worked hard this winter to get in shape. The first home game is Sunday, when KU takes on the Kansas City Lacrosse Club at the Shenk Complex.
Everything has its price, except for the coach. "This is something I do voluntarily." Swartzel tells. He considers fund-raising an important part of his job. "Nike has exerted itself in supporting the team, and I plan to find other ways to raise money."
During late-night practices in Robinson Center, the players have sweated through aerobics, running and stick handling. Swartzel is impressed with them. "When 25 players show up for practice at 10 on Friday nights, you know they are willing to sacrifice a lot for the game," he says.
Bente M. Dahl is a Haslum, Norway, senior majoring in journalism.
gle.
Cory Powell, Evergreen, Colo., junior, goes airborne to catch
hat in Missouri, there were 00, but more than 250" Klan
seen a member since 1981 he joined after witnessing st whites in Miami
hat he had been a member nine or 10 months. He said because he was "looking for overtening."
d the Klan an "upbeat,ation," and said that one of the Klan was to promote le"
See FORUM, p. 12, col. 1
ate
when the speaker brings it up on calendar, there will certainly be very stormy debate." Branson
bill will be heard on the House probably within two weeks, son said. The Speaker of the decides when the bill will be!
thing should be done to get them curriculum."
th Branson and Lowther said
would be considerable debate
e floor.
Associated Press supplied some information for this story.
violence in the hutches class
neighborhood.
On Tuesday, security agents
oyed an opposition radio station
he neighborhood, apparently
use it broadcast an appeal for
Noriega demonstrations.
monstrators gathered yesterday
! the four-lane street in front of
station, set up barricades
and set fire to a mini-
dairy a car.
i-riot police chased the protest to side streets and apartment bung. Chunks of concrete were found. At least f the apartment houses.
sed by violence in a middle-class
b sorhood near the banking dis-
ng army isloyals
ice fired tear-gas grenades and ed tear gas into the buildings portable tanks, filling the entire borhoe with the acrid, stinging
o officer in charge stood in the e of the street and shouted to nts, "You'll come out like cocks!"
10 KANSAN MAGAZINE March 2, 1988
e did, and reporters on the saw no one injured.
spokesman for the Panama Commission said anonymous one callers warned Tuesday a day that a bomb was detonated in Panama. Keseman Franklin Castrellon he associated Press the build- evacuated and searched both but no bombs were found.
1958 MARCH 4, 1958 11