KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2010 / SPORTS
5B
FOOTBALL
Team announces senior captains
Senior running back Angus Quigley talks to the media about being named one of the five captains. The other captains are Justin Springer, Jake Laptad, Chris Harris and Sal Capra.
BY MAX VOSBURGH
mvosburgh@kansan.com
After losing many of their experienced veterans last year, the current members of the Kansas football team are looking for new guys to step into the role of team leader.
On Wednesday, coach Turner Gill guided some of that responsibility into the direction of five seniors as running back Angus Quigley, defensive end Jake Laptad, cornerback Chris Harris, offensive lineman Sal Capra and linebacker Justin Springer were all named captains.
These seniors have all been a
part of the transition of a Kansas football program that went from unprecedented success three years ago to a complete rebuilding process this year.
"I've been here for five years, and you kind of stay on the path of doing the right things, and people respect that," senior offensive lineman Sal Capra said. "You stay out of trouble and earn your way on the playing field."
Capra, who was awarded the Gale Sayers Award for most courageous player last year, still wasn't expecting to be named a team captain this year.
"I was a little surprised. There are a lot of great guys on the team
that deserve to be captain, but I guess I was one of those guys also," Capra said.
After having played with these seniors for at least one year and knowing what each of them is capable of, the players, excluding freshmen, took a vote to decide who would carry the distinguished honor.
"Besides being more of a vocal leader, I'm going to keep doing the same things I've been doing" senior defensive end Jake Laptad said. "Obviously my teammates saw something in me that made them choose me as captain so I feel like I'm going to keep just working hard in practice and, you
Others, despite not officially being named a captain, have already taken on responsibilities associated with the title.
know, leading by example as well as being more of a vocal leader in practice."
"I've always seen myself as sort of a leader on the team because a lot of guys have come and talked to me," senior running back Angus Quigley said. "Would I have thought a few years back that I could be a captain, probably not but like I said, I'm happy the guys trusted me as one of the leaders of this team in this 2010 campaign."
Edited by Abby Davenport
COMMENTARY
NFL's preseason pointless for fans
It's a condition that affects millions of men every August.
Guys in their 20's all over the nation pretend to get excited about preseason NFL football, only to remember how completely worthless it is after watching the Bengals' first string offense struggle against the Cowboys' defense for two series, then get the rest of the night off.
I'm a victim too. I actually got upset this weekend when my Texans lost against the Cardinals, even though the first team won by double digits. The fact is, for us fans, the preseason flat-out doesn't matter.
Why do you think Brett Favre is getting so much press? Sure, he's a popular and successful player. But if all this wishy-wishy drama was taking place during the regular season as opposed to the pre-season, we wouldn't hear nearly as much about it.
You know the worst part of exhibition ball? Paving ridiculously
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. There is one group of sports fans that gets genuine enjoyment out of the four weeks of exhibition: college football maniacs.
The preseason is good for two things: coaches evaluating players and injuries benching a couple superstars a year. I used to have a pool with some buddies trying to predict which high-profile player would tear an ACL or break an ankle. Here's looking at you in 2010, Adrian Peterson.
Let's be honest. It's a pretty big thrill to switch on ESPN in late August and see a former Jayhawk such as Darrell Stuckey competing to be the starting strong safety for the playoff-contending San Diego Chargers. Or to tune in to local TV to see Kerry Meier in a Falcons uniform absolutely schooling the Chiefs' secondary.
BY ELLIOT METZ emetz@kansan.com
high regular season ticket prices to watch three quarters of benchwarming football. As good as the NFL is at marketing itself, you'd think it would have figured out a way to make the preseason more fan-friendly by now.
But it's taking a shortcut. It figured out the loophole. Owners can keep the same number of games in their stadiums, make two more of them regular season rumbles and sell just as many, if not more, tickets.
So here's to week one. Here's to that Thursday night in a few weeks when we can grab a beer, obsess over our fantasy starters and unnecessarily trash on our team's rivals. Stupid Colts.
If we're going to play by that logic, why not do away with the whole preseason? We could just play 20 regular season games a year, charge 20 bucks for parking at training camp and maybe even require a VIP pass to get an autograph from third-string Chiefs QB Tyler Palko.
But until then, spend your time more wisely. Tweak your class schedule. Track the pennant races in baseball. Maybe even read a section of the Kansas not entitled "Sports." Because the only eventful thing that can happen during preseason NFL is some second string undrafted defensive end knocking out your quarterback for the season.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Edited by Joel Petterson
NCAA football coaches react to high-profile agent interference
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
ST. LOUIS — To Alabama coach Nick Saban, unscrupulous sports agents are like "pimps" or "bootleggers." Florida coach Urban Meyer likens them to "predators" who have become "epidemic."
Less dramatically but with no less trepidation, Missouri coach Gary Pinkel calls the potential for agent interference "a big concern — it always has been."
Just never this publicly before.
"It's been there, but now it's magnified," said Ben Dogra of Clayton, Mo-based CAA Football, who with Tom Condon represents, among others, Rams' first-round pick Sam Bradford.
The perception and the disadvantage that improper contacts create are a problem for Dogra, who believes a clean-up would benefit many reputable agents — a point reinforced by the likes of Saban and Texas coach Mack Brown.
"We've got 52 kids, I think, right now in the NFL." Brown said last month at Big 12 media days. "There's a lot of great agents that help those kids. So to say all the agents are breaking rules is unfair"
Yet the issue is simmering on the front burner in the wake of USC being slammed by the NCAA for Reggie Bush's involvement with agents and in the burgeoning form of NCAA investigations at Alabama,
Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. So absorbed in the matter is Saban, an in f a m o u s control freak even in a profession of them, that he took time last
Florida
Georgia, North
Carolina and
South Carolina.
Brown, the NFL Players Association and several athletics directors and agents.
"We're all trying to put our heads together to figure out what we can do to level the playing field so that everybody that's in the agent community — which some of them are very professional — has the same
opportunity to recruit players and that the bootleggers out there are guys that get punished and penalized," Saban told reporters after the call.
week amid Alabama's preseason training camp to spearhead a conference call with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to address it. Others on the call were Meyer, Ohio State's Jim Tressel, Oklahoma's Bob Stoops, Texas' Mack
Among the reasons it's such an emotional issue for coaches is that an agent — most often so-called "street agents" or "runners" — need tempt only a single player to accept gifts to bring shame and sanctions upon any given program.
"For a coach to figure out who a runner is at a nightclub at 2:30 in the morning, I've been asleep for four hours," Meyer said at Southeastern Conference media days last month. "The coaches can't do that. II've tried to. At Florida, we have security for
"If somebody takes a picture of you and an agent downtown, it gets gray already."
All of the disgrace, then, with only so much of the control.
That would be in direct contrast to how it works
MACK BROWN Texas Coach
"At Florida, we have security for one reason...It's for people we don't want around our players."
contrast to how it works now.
one reason.
one reason.
It's for people
we don't want
around our
players."
To what de g r e e coaches bear responsibility is unclear. Most em p h a s i z e how hard they work to educate
URBAN MEYER Florida coach
"If we got a call today and one of ours was involved with an agent, I would be disappointed and I would be shocked," Brown said during Big 12 media days in July. "The responsibility is on me. It's on our staff. It's on the compliance
Missouri, Pinkel said, has an annual agent day for just that and talks about the matter frequently. Saban and Meyer each stressed the time they spend on that and other player education issues and Brown
players and their families on the issues.
said Texas spends part of 12 days a year on it.
"But it's also on the young man. If a young man is going to sign at 21 years old for $20 million, he knows he shouldn't be going to parties
taking cars" provided by agents before eligibility has expired.
"A couple years ago, they started making it legal for players to talk to agents, and that's a dangerous one," Brown said. "You know, it's hard to have a relationship with someone if you don't talk to them. (If) you want to sit down and talk to them and to go out to lunch, what did you pay for? What did he pay for? And then you've got to have receipts."
department. It's on the agent.
The apparent proliferation of abuses is the byproduct of a handful of developments the last few years, ranging from increased financial incentives to both the scrutiny and accessibility afforded by modern technology to rules changes.
"If somebody takes a picture of you and an agent downtown, it gets gray already."
4
The objects of NCAA interest allegedly have been substantially more egregious. Bush, for instance, accepted tens of thousands in various forms of gifts, leading to USC vacating all its victories in 2005, losing 30 scholarships for three years and a two-year postseason ban.
The NCAA is also investigating whether players at Alabama and South Carolina attended a party in South Beach and whether a former Florida player accepted a $100,000 gift last December.
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