University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, February 2, 1988
Sports
9
Kansas swim team has a family flavor
By Tom Stinson
Kansan sports writer
The Kansas swimming program likes to keep it in the family
This year's team has four pairs of siblings, three brothers of former Jayhawk swimmers and two coaches whose brothers swim at Kansas.
Swimming this year are Anne and Susan Bloomfield, Erin and John Easton, Grant and Kelly Seavall and Sara and Tara Bergman.
Also, Pat McCool followed his brother, Chris; Matt Heil followed his sister, Becky; and Todd Neugent followed his brothers Roger and Ron to the Jayhawk program.
That's a lot of talent from a few homes.
"It has worked out well," Coach Gary Kempf said. "Through their brother or sister, they know more about your program. I've been real pleased with it.
"You've got to look at the family tradition. If things don't work out on one, you don't want to gamble on another."
Kemp learned about the Kansas program from his older brother, Tom. Tom Kemp was an All-American in the 1650-year freestyle in 1971 and won three individual Big Eight championships. Gary Kemp swam from 1972 to 1976 and won eight individual Big Eight championships.
"I got to know a great deal from my brother," Kemp said. "When recruiting someone, you get to know what kind of person they are and what their habits are from their family member. It's always good to have another source to look at."
Assistant coach Brad Wells was Kansas' 1984 co-captain with his twin brother, Reed. Brad was an All-Big Eight performer from 1980 to 1984, including two individual Big Eight championships.
Women's co-captain Anne Bloomfield said that she tried to convince her sister, Susan, to come to Kansas when Susan was being recruited.
"I'd tell her how much fun it would be if she came here," the Bartlesville, Okla., senior said. "Since she's
been here, we've gotten a lot closer. There's something special about your sister being on the same team."
Susan Bloomfield said, "It's fun having someone you can really talk to. She's helped me out a lot, also. For example, I didn't lift weights in high school. But then I saw her lifting weights really hard here. So I said, 'I'd better start lifting harder.'"
The Bergman twins said that there was no sibling rivalry between them. The Edina, Minn., freshmen agreed that their competition and their constructive criticism of each other was incentive for better performances.
The two said that they made individual decisions to come to Kansas. Both thought that they were going to attend different schools, but both chose Kansas after a recruiting trip last year. Sara Bergman had planned to go to Arizona State, and Tara Bergman had planned to go to Arizona.
"We weren't going to tell each other which school we liked best," Tara Bergman said. "We found out we both liked Kansas after we had told our mom separately. We came here for the same reasons, but we chose independently."
Being unbiased with each other is important to the Eastons.
"He knows how I should swim and I know how he should swim," said Erin Easton, a two-time Big Eight champion in the 200-yard individual medley. "Nobody has seen us swim as long as we have. So we can help each other. It has been real positive for us."
Grant Seavail said that learning to be a friend as well as an older brother has been the brightest aspect of having his sister on the team.
"She does some things that frustrate me as a brother," the senior said of his freshman sister, Kelly. "But as a friend, we get along much better.
"All the family combos on the team are different," he said. "We argue a lot. But only because we want each other to do well. I'm really glad she came here. It has made us closer."
Sara Bergman
Tara Bergman
Susan Bloomfield
Anne Bloomfield
Erin Easton
John Easton
Kelly Seavall
Grant Seavall
Track squads use meets to improve Men, women working on their performances
By Keith Stroker
Kansan sports writer
The Kansas men's and women's track teams continued last weekend toward their goals of improving their performances.
The coaches say they are less concerned at this point in the indoor season with where their teams place with their performances.
The women finished second Friday at the Arkansas Invitational in Fayetteville. Arkansas won the eighteem team meet with 101 points, followed by Kansas with 86 and Oklahoma with 83
Women's coach Cliff Rovelo said the team entered the meet with the idea of improving rather than scoring points.
"These early meets are a good tune-up for the Big Eight Conference season," he said. "If we looked to coach, we meet, we probably would have won."
Rovelto said he was happy with the team's performance, especially with that of Yolanda Taylor.
Taylor jumped $ 13 \cdot 5^{3/4} $ for second place in the long jump, and Rovelto said she would get better.
"The jump was a short approach style," Rovelto said. "I was very pleased with her performance."
The Kansas women beat Oklahoma in the mile relay for the first time ever, though Rovelto said it wasn't a good race.
The men's track team competed Saturday in Columbia at the Missouri Invitational.
Men's coach Bob Timmons said that no team scores were kept at the meet but that Kansas had some good performances.
Scott Huffman had the pole vault with a jump of 17-0. He said that he was happy he won but that he could have jumped better.
"We are on a cyclic training pro-
T'
these early meets are a good tune-up for the Big Eight Conference season. If we looked to score points in the meet, we probably would have won.'
- Cliff Rovelto
gram, hoping to peak for the major meets," Huffman said, referring to the pole vaulters. "We are training hard and hope to get better in time for the championships."
Other key Jayhawk performances were Sharrier Hazim, second in the long jump at 24:9; Johnny Brackins, third in the triple jump at 49:6; Craig Branstrup, second in the 55-meter hurdles at 7.77 seconds; Steve Heffernan, first in the mile run at 14:16:25; Ty Thiel, second in the mile at 14:16:9; John Creighton, second in the 600-yard run at 1:13:21; Brad Cobb, third in the 600 at 1:14:06; Stacey Smieda, fourth in the 1,000-meter run at 2:32:59; Heffernan, second in the 800-meter run at 1:53:51; and Jon Joslin, third in the 800 at 1:53.96.
Timmons said freshman Thiel was a big surprise, especially with a second-place finish in the mile.
Thel said that the race was slow-paced and that the times were not graceful.
"Steve is out of my class right now." Thiel said, referring to Heferenan, who won the event. "I led until the halfway mark, then the pace picked up. Steve ended up beating me by seven yards."
The next meet for both teams is the Jayhawk Invitational. Friday and Saturday at Anschutz Sports Pavilion, where about 20 teams will compete.
Basketball players get new study area
Kansan sports writer
By Elaine Sung
Now imagine trying to study in there
Imagine a locker room with people wandering in and out, voices echoing in every corner, the sounds of showers running and feet pounding on the track.
That is where the Kansas men's basketball team has been holding its study hall in the past. Their only requirement for admission is a full room in Carruth Athletic Center.
Starting last Thursday, however, the team received permission to use Nunemaker Hall on Engel Road as its new study hall facility.
Olga Evelyn, academic adviser for the team, has been searching the past year for a permanent area the players could study in.
The study hall is held twice every day, once before and once after practice. It is mandatory for all freshman, transfers and those who received less than a C in any course the previous semester.
Because of the odd session times, it was difficult to land one facility for the players to use.
"We haven't had the opportunity to have something that was available everyday." Evelyn said.
The team has the use of three rooms in Nunemaker. The building also has the advantage of readily available reference resources, something the locker room in Allen Field House did not have.
Keith Harris, KU forward, is helped with a math assignment by Brian Olin, Overland Park junior.
"The atmosphere is really conducive to studying," she said. "You feel strange cracking jokes in there all afternoon."
Kansas coach Larry Brown was pleased with the new study hall area.
"It's a really nice facility," he said. "It's really important that the kids know everyday that this is where they're going to study."
Freshman forward Mike Masucci said there was a big difference between studying in the locker room and studying in Nunemaker.
"It was hard to concentrate before. In the locker room, it wasn't comfortable to study," he said. "Now if you want to go somewhere and read a book, you don't have to be reading there with the tutors talking."
Ianine Swiatkowski/KANSAN
But even with the improvement in the study hall areas, Evelyn has much more on her ultimate academic wish-list.
"I'd like to see an academic center twice the size of Nunemaker, available to all sports, where we would have our own offices enclosed right in the center," she said. "We would have our own tutors and we would run a complete academic support system from there."
Evelyn's plan would have the center open nearly the entire day, and it would be supplied with its own reference resources, including encyclopedias and computers. That way, athletics would still be available or games would still have a place to turn to in order to complete assignments.
Campaign Kansas, the University's fund-raising drive scheduled to begin in May, includes plans to build an academic center for all Kansas athletes. The building would be added on to Parrout Athletic Center.
But Bob Frederick, KU athletic director, said it would take a minimum of three years after the drive to
build the new center.
"It is No. 1 on our long-range plans of new facilities," he said. "We have a space problem here. We are putting short-term ideas to use for now."
Evelyn said three years was too long to wait for a new academic
"The center is urgent. We need that right now," she said. "We need to have the room for the kids immediately. We need the proper supplies and equipment to assist the kids."
Once an academic center was built and the tutors hired, Evelyn wants even more. a time clock system might be one at the University of Kentucky.
Using that system, athletes would be assigned study hours. They would obtain their specific time card from the front desk. punch in when they
started and punch out when they left.
treet and扑打 onto when they
At the end of the week, the time
cards would be tabulated and if an
athlete had missed his study hours,
his coach would be notified and the
athlete properly disciplined.
The biggest advantage would be that no uniform study hall session would be held for the team. Teams such as the basketball team are small enough to accommodate a
definite studv hall time.
But the enormous size of the football roster makes it difficult to hold one session that all players could attend.
"We can't wait, and the kids shouldn't have to wait." Evelyn said. "If we want them to perform in class, then we need to make the means for them to do well. Then, if the kid fails, he did it on his own."
Brigham Young turns a unique style into success on the court
PROVO, Utah — There are a lot of things different about the basketball program at Brigham Young.
The Associated Press
Most of the players leave for two years and return after serving a church mission. There is only one black player on the team and he was a lucky find for Coach Ladell Andersen. And third-ranked Brigham Young is the only undefeated major team in the nation, winning 15 games, including all three on a difficult road trip.
Brigham Young didn't come out of nowhere this season. The program has a rich heritage, with players such as Danny Ainge, Greg Kite, Fred Roberts, Devin Durrant and Vance Law.
Brigham Young, though, is known for football. The Cougars were national champions in 1984 and are noted for turning out quarterbacks, such as Jim McMahon, Steve Young and Gifford Nielsen.
The Cougars were 21-11 last season, losing to New Orleans in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. That loss was the impetus to the great start this season.
"I thought we'd be in good shape but I didn't know if we would improve this much," said Andersen, 59, who is in his fifth season at Brigham Young. "We have improved our defense and we have become a good rebounding club. We knew we could shoot."
The Cougars, whose winning streak is the longest in school history and the longest
current streak in Division I, are shooting better than any team in the nation, 56 percent.
The leader of the shooting pack is Jeff Chatman, who is averaging 63 percent. The 6-foot-6 senior is noticeable on the floor not only because of his 21.2 scoring average, but he is the only black on the team.
"I can remember watching BYU on TV with my brother when they played Virginia in the final eight," said Chatman, a native of Talladega, Ala. "We were 'tripping' over this whole team of white boys and saying where they are from."
As little as Chatman knew of Brigham Young, the school's coaching staff knew as little about him.
"Now, we get to stay and play the next game. If we lost, we were on our way home. Instead, we stay around and go to a school all-star game and see this 6-5 kid with long arms and we ask where he's going and everyone says no one's after him. We lost the next day to (Sam) Bowie and (Mel) Turpin and that Kentucky bunch, but we got a player who I think is a first-round (NBA) draft choice."
Chatman said color didn't matter.
"I tell people our victory over UAB (University of Alabama-Birmingham) in my first year (1983-84) was our biggest," Andersen said. "We play them in an NCAA game on their court and they have won 60 of 61 games at home. We beat them by 18.
"We're just a basketball team," he said.
"You don't look at color once a game starts. It's a team effort and no one even thinks about it."
Chatman, who has an 85-inch arm span, said he was planning on attending East Tennessee State until that high school all-star game.
"If they lost, they would have never seen me play," Chatman said. "Things sure would have been different."
The Brigham Young situation also is different because of the missions that young members of the Mormon Church can go on while they are of college age. The players are not penalized by the NCAA for the years they miss.