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Wednesday, March 30, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Gymnasts miss nationals, but was it all bad luck?
Back in August when workouts started, the KU women's gymnastics team appeared to have a shot at qualifying for the national gymnastics championships. But the team won't be at that meet this weekend because the teams that started before the season began.
Couch Ken Snow thought that in his third year at KU he had changed the program from a poor one to one that was competitive on a national level. But he didn't take into account one thing . . . make that eight things.
Injuries always have been a problem for coaches, but Snow had them in abundance.
BEFORE THE season started he lost two gymnasts—one was injured and another quit.By Christmas break he had lost two more and three others were hampersed. And by the end of January he had hit his fourth gymnast because of injuries.
Snow said yesterday that he wondered what the problem was,
The question is why, Was it bad coaching? It was it poor facilities? Or was it simply a cheap school?
"I kept looking to see if there was something I could change," he said. "I wondered if it was something I was doing. But it wasn't; they were just accidents.
"The bad part about it is that it can "hapen again. I wish I could say, 'Now that I changed, it won't happen again,' but they accidented it, and I can't do anything about it."
SNOW COMPLAINED about the facilities at KU—not about the lack of them, but instead about the non-availability of them. In other words, KU has good equipment; it is relatively new and in good shape. Although Snow undoubtedly would like more of it and more access to it, that isn't a problem causing the injuries.
So it appears to be a case of bad luck.
You have to take into consideration that gymnastics is a dangerous sport. If a person falls, he can be hit by a rock.
prepared for it. But gymnasts don't expect to fall from the apparatus.
TAKE THE case of Helena Plikuznki, who was competing for the Jayhawks in her first meet in late January. She was competitive in the all-around and while performing on the uneven parallel bars, she made a mistake. The mistake caused her to lose the game and she hands back to absorb the shock, she dislocated her elbow.
Thus comes the only cardinal sin in
Fifth Quarter
Dan Bowerman
Associate Sports Editor
through an entire career with only minor injuries.
BUT EVER great gymnasts have accidents. For example, a few years back a potential Olympic gymnast from Southern Illinois University failed to execute a tough move, broke his neck and died a few days later.
Accidents happen, and in gymnastics a mistake can be disastrous. Gymnastics in many ways is one of the most dangerous sports an athlete can be involved in. In some ways this non-contact sport is more dangerous than football.
Football players expect to be hit and are
gymnastics—never put your hands back when you fall.
This rule is dramatically demonstrated by the story of a gymnast on the KU men's team a few years ago who was performing on the floor exercise when he overturned a stunt and put his hands back to absorb the fall.
KU's other injuries this year involved either knees, ankles or feet, which are common problems in gymnastics because the athletes put so much strain on their legs when dismantling from the apparatus and tumbling.
BOTH OF HIS forearms were broken. But the momentum of the fall forced his broken bones through the mat, and they stuck in the wooden floor.
None of the KU women's team's injuries this year were as bad or gruesome as that, but they still showed that gymnastics can be a dangerous sport.
Besides Pikuzniak, Angie Wagle also dislocated her elbow and Pegeum Mphy sustained an elbow injury, the exact nature of which is unknown yet, although it occurred in December.
So the possibility of strained or sprained ankles such as Karen Mundy's or Rene Neville's are to be expected on any gymnastics team.
KNEES ARE a little bit more difficult to injure, but it's possible. KU's team had two--with Debbie Theno and Susie Spangler. Theno, as a freshman, was KU's top all-around performer until she decided to quit because of her knee injury. Her induction into the national high school. Spangler's injury was slight and she recovered within a month.
The 'Jahawks' other injured gymnast was floor-exercise specialist Kelly Gibson, who aggrigated a high school foot injury underwent surgery during Christmas break.
THE POSSIBILITY of injuries in gymnastics is great. But, for all the possibilities, injuries are usually not so frequent as they were for the KU team this year.
It would seem then that there is some problem within the program. It might seem on the surface that the equipment was bad, taking bad or the spotting of gymnasts bad.
But when the nature of the injuries and the ease with which they could occur are taken into account, one can see that fate was hard on Ken Snow this year.
The worst part of it, and Snow would readily agree, is that fate took away his plans to take the team to the national meet this weekend. He thought he had the best
team of his career. And with the talent he had he probably did.
HIS GOALS this year were to be the best
huns in Kannu, to be the third best in this
region.
Despite all the injuries, the KU team still managed to attain the first goal. It won the game with a win over Duluth.
But because of injuries, the team didn't qualify for regionals, much less take third. And instead of scoring 134, the Jayhawks' best score was 117.99.
Snow, with justification, is disappointed that his team didn't do as well as he had expected, but he was pleased with the way the team came through.
"THEE WAN'T any team that we met this year that could've lost their third, third and fourth all-around performers and still be competitive," he said.
That's true. Most gymnastics teams don't have the depth that would be needed in those circumstances. But KU had eight people in each of two events and nine people in each of the other two before the season started, with six allowed to compete. But by the end of the season, the Hawks were lucky to fill in all of the positions.
The depth that KU had this season shows a strong base upon which Snow can draw in coming seasons. He started with 12 gymnasts on this year's team, and although none will graduate this spring, he still loses two because they quit.
With the rest of the team coming back presumably healthy—and a few recruits that Snow is working on now, the team could be strong again next year.
But Snow thought that about this year:
"We got out of the blocks but didn't make it"
...so much worse.
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So far the KU softball team has a good thing going and it hones to it that way.
The Jayhawks take a 2-0 record into today's doubleheader against Emporia Kansas State College at 1 and 3 p.m. in Emporia. KU won its first two games of the season last Friday against Northwest Missouri State.
Coach Bob Stancliff said Emporia had a strong defensive team that should test KU's hitting and pitching as the basis of its defense. The Jayhawks beat Emporia last season in the finals of the state championship, 1-0.
The team was a lot more confident about the game than I was then. But I'm not perplexed with it.
Standifd said be now was over his initial qualms of last weekend.
available in the track office, 107 Allen Field House.
Royals win, 4-0
FORET MYERS, Fla. (AP) - Paul Splitter pitched six innings of one-hit shutout baseball and the Kansas City Royals beat Houston 10-7 in their fourth straight spring training victory. Rookie Dash Hachab relieved in the seventh and veteran lefthander Tom Hall in two games. Royals picked up their second straight win with Grapefruit League decision in 21 starts.
Men from KU living groups or off-campus housing are eligible for the relay. All members of a team must be from the same living group.
The deadline for entries is April 13. There is a $2 entry fee for each team.
The Sox, now 8-16 for the exhibition season, managed only two hits, a double by Jim Essian in the third and a single by Bucky Dent in the seventh. Kansas City put the game out of reach in the eighth against left-hander Dave Hamilton on a walk. Jock Zebs' infidel hit and a two-run double by Buck Martinez.
Kings beat Knicks
Entry forms ready
KANSAS CITY AP)—Ron Boone scored a career-high 43 points and Sam Lacey had a personal high 28 as the Kansas City Kings used deadly free-throw shooting to defeat the New York Knicks, 132-128, in national Basketball Association action last night.
The victory, coupled with Chicago's loss to Philadelphia, enabled Kansas City to regain a half-game lead in the race for the 2015 national position in the NBA's Western Conference.
Official entry forms for the Kansas Relains'ms 440-yard relay are now
NFL okays changes
The Seattle Seahawks will be in the American Conference's West Division and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be in the National Conference's Central Division.
PHOENIX, Ariz. (AP)—The National Football League adopted changes for its 1978 season yesterday expanding the regular season from 14 to 16 games and increasing field from 8 teams to 10 and giving two expansion team permanent divisional homes.
According to the new system, each conference will have two wild-cards: the best runner-up among the 14 teams and the team with the next-best percentage.
The expansion of the regular season is the first for the NFL, since it went from 12 to 14 games per season.
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PLAIN TALK FROM ARMCO ON FINDING A JOB:
Why too much regulation may rule you out
How would you like to be forced to get permission from 379 separate Government agencies before you could work? That's what Armoe has to do. We think you could hear a similar story from nearly any large company in America—if the regulatory paperwork leaves them any time to talk to you. Excessive regulation threatens your chance of getting a job.
Most of us agree that the goals regulation seeks are important. Clean air and water. Job safety. Equal rights at work. The problem is the way Government now write and apply specific rules to reach those goals. We need them carefully and very good. They just tie companies up in knots as they try to comply.
Federal regulations now take up twelve-foot shelf of textbook size volumes printed in small type. 13,589 more pages were written last year alone. And Washington is more than three times as many army of state and local regulators.
Nobody really knows how much money regulation costs. Some say it's up to $40 billion a year. Companies paying that bill can't use that money for jobs. A new job, on the average, now costs a company $125,000 per person. Company's own cost is $55,600). At $42,168 per job, regulation last year ate up the money which
could have created 948,000 new jobs.
No sensible American wants to dismantle all Government regulation. But we think the system has gone berserk and the cost is out of control.
Free—Armco's plain talk on how to get a job
We've got a free booklet to help you help you use. It set it to your yourself apart, above the crowd. We answer 50 key questions you'll need to know. Like why should you bone up on companies you like. What to do after the first interview. Hints to make you a more aggressive, attractive job candidate. All prepared for Armo by a consulting firm specializing in business recruiting, with help from the placement staff of a leading university.
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Plain Talk About REGULATION
Besides our 379 permits, Armco at last count had to file periodic reports with 1.245 federal, state and local agencies.
What happens to Armco and other companies isn't that important. What happens to a company's jobs is. Here's a small example:
The Government requires companies to give employees reports on their benefit plans. Fair enough. But the timing this year, plus the complexities of Armco's plans, didn't let us print a report in our company magazine. In stead, we had to mail them — 200,000 armco employees individually. This didn't add one dime to Armco people's benefits. But it cost us $125,000 so far. That's two jobs we couldn't create, right there.
Next time anybody calls for a new regulation, you might ask for some sensible analysis of the costs and benefits—including how many jobs might be lost. One of those jobs could be yours.
Jd
Does our message make sense? We'd like to know what you think. Your personal experiences. Facts you've found to prove or disprove our point. Drop us a line. We'll send you a more detailed report on regulation and jobs. Our offer of How to Get a Job, above, tells you how to write us. Let us hear from you. We've all got a stake in more American jobs.
F