Second Section
Seurer waits for turn
Ex-KU quarterback learning NFL lessons in difficult season with Chiefs
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Chiefs second-string quarterback Frank Seurer warms up before practice.
By MARK TILFORD Staff writer
Staff writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Wearing a red satin jacket and a stocking cap, Kansas City Chiefs' quarterback coach Homer Smith sits at a desk in the Chiefs' room and concentrates intently on a sandwich. Between bites, he sums up his second-string quarterback, Frank Seurier.
"Frank is a player with a very high football IQ. He has quick feet, a gifted throwing arm, and I don't see why he can't be a good professional quarterback," Smith said.
Seurer is considered to have the best throwing arm and the most mobility of the Chiefs' three quarter-backs.
Actually, there is little about Frank Seurer that could prevent him from having a distinguished National
Little except, maybe, Seurer's team, the Chiefs.
"We're all struggling." Seurer, 25,
said recently. "We're trying to put
our finger on it. There's so many
things."
With a 2-9 record, including a ninegame losing streak that just ended, the Chiefs will have plenty of time to figure things out while other teams are in the playoffs.
Like last year, the offense ranks last out of 28 NFL teams.
In a move to bring something back to the offense, Searer got his first NFL start Nov. 15 at home in Arrowhead Stadium against the New York Jets.
The Chiefs lost to the Jets 16-9 and the following week were defeated by
the Green Bay Packers, 23-3, again with Seuer at the helm.
"I made a lot of mental mistakes." Saerul said of his two appearances.
He sat on the bench during the Chiefs' Thanksgiving Day victory against the Detroit Lions, but in his two losses he gained what he desperately needed in the NFL: experience.
"I was excited, I couldn't wait." Seer said. "You can practice all you want, but the game pace is a lot different."
But more experience will be necessary before Seurer realizes his potential, Smith said.
Things weren't always this gloomy, though, for Seurer or the teams he played for.
that, Smith said.
"He needs to get some seasoning," Smith said. "That's all he needs to do."
teams he played.
As a senior at Edison High School in Hunting Beach, Calif., he led his team to the California state championship, while gaining all-America and all-state status.
With blonde curls and chiseled good looks, Seurer guides himself easily around the Chiefs locker room, joking easily with teammates
The California cool still comes through.
Professor recalls talks with Truman, memories of war
At Kansas, Seurer became KU's starting quarterback in the fifth game of his freshman year, and in his first season, he scored 50 points to hook up to the 1941 Hall of Fame Baseball Hall.
He graduated as KU's leading passer, with 6,140 yards in four years.
See SEURER, p. 4, col. 1
By VIRGINIA McGRATH Staff writer
Staff writer
Francis Heller, professor of law and political science, will retire from KU at the end of this year. Heller has been at the University for 40 years.
When Francis Heller came to the University of Kansas in 1948, it was as a one-year replacement in the political science department. Forty years later, he's still here
he acquires it. He also returns it since, Heller, who will retire at the end of this school year, has seen the University of Kansas grow from about 6,000 students to more than 24,000. In turn, he has left his own mark on KU.
Heller, a Roy A. Roberts distinguished professor of law and political science, teaches mostly law now. For four decades, he has shared with his students his wisdom and his respect for the genius and endurance of his favorite subject: the U.S. Constitution.
sub john S. was the four
and in a way, it was the Constitution that first brought
him to KU.
Heller, who had emigrated from Vienna 10 years earlier, was looking for a job. KU was the only school that would allow him to teach more than just the introductory course in political science. The University said he would have to teach two sections of the introductory course, but he could teach one section of his favorite: the junior-senior course in constitutional law.
said, "That first class was a first-rate group of people. They were awfully good." Heller said.
were awfully good, but he had one student from that first constitutional law class was Robert Bennett, who later became governor of Kansas. Heller's wife, Donna, was also one of his students.
Heller has done more than teach during his years at KU. He has been associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, associate dean of faculties, vice chancellor for academic affairs and acting provost.
In addition, from spring 1954 until summer 1955, Heller shared his knowledge and skill with someone other than the average college or law student. That time was spent helping former President Truman write his memoirs.
neither to sit there in a once-in-a lifetime opportunity." Heller said. "I provided it a fascinating and enjoyable experience."
"I found it a most fascinating and enjoyable experience."
Truman, who was from Independence, Mo. had had several false starts with his memoirs, Heller said, and wanted to find someone to help him write the memoirs
"He simply picked up the phone and called Chancellor (Franklin D.) Murphy. He also called the president of the University of Missouri and he said to each of them, I'm working on my memoirs and I need a young man who can write decently to help me," Heller said.
he said. "A few weeks later, I got a phone call and was asked if I would come into Kansas City. Mr. Truman would
interview me. (When I got there) we had a little bit of chitchah here and there, and then he said 'When can you start?' "
start!
For the next 14 months, Heller taught at KU three days a week and worked on the memoirs in Kansas City the rest of the week.
Sometimes Truman would give Heller handwritten notes he had made, or they would talk together over events that had happened. Heller would then write the memoirs.
completely unwilling to limit the sale.
After the book was published, Heller's stepmother told
"I learned fairly quickly to avoid a style that would be completely unnatural to him," he said.
"And she was exactly 100 percent wrong," he said. He and Truman developed a friendship that lasted many years. Heller and his wife were guests of the Trumans at their home in Independence, Mo., several times.
him she could tell exactly what he had written and what Truman had written.
In the course of writing the memoirs, Heller met and worked with some of the top people in Truman's administration. Dean G. Acheson, who was Truman's third secretary of state, and Gen. Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1949 to 1953, were among the 12 to 15 people who came to Kansas City
But in his lifetime, Heller has known more than just the leaders and the important people.
In 1942, Heller was drafted into the army. After training in Fort Bragg, N.C., and in the bush in northern Australia, Heller was sent to New Guinea. He eventually went to the Philippines, where at one time, his battalion was trapped 26 days behind Japanese lines.
"I always look back on it as, for me, a tremendous human learning experience. I went in through the draft and I was shipped overseas as a private and I had to work my way up."
"I found myself associating with people that I had never associated with in my life before. And I came out a very, very different person than when I went in.
Heller, a man with a law degree from the prestigious University of Virginia, found himself in an army unit of men where he was the only one who had finished college.
very, very unreliable. "At the University of Virginia, I had been associating with snobs. Most of my classmates had gone to private schools. There was a lot of money in my law class. And all of a sudden, I found myself on work detail. A pick and shovel weren't exactly my tools."
His supervisor was a giant 6-foot-6 man whose education had stopped at the fifth grade.
"But by the time we got through all the thick of things, and I had passed him in rank considerably, he was
always there.
Heller's unit landed with the first wave of soldiers in the Philippines. The commanding officer didn't make it ashore, so Heller was next in charge. And the corporal who had once been his supervisor was right behind him with his submachine gun.
with 'n's subj. I talk it out with me. And that, you see, makes a lot of difference. Because I can't think about people in terms of my colleagues here only. When I think about people, I'm thinking about guys like him.
"In practice, war is a great equalizer." Heller said. "And it made a difference to me."
And although Heller will be officially retiring at the end of this year, he won't be quitting. He's made a commitment to write one book and has two others in mind.
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