HOMECOMING SPORTS UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, October 15, 1993
9B
Orange Bowl memories bittersweet after 25 years
1968 Jayhawks to be honored during halftime
By Mark Button
Kansas sportswriter
Kansansportswriter
Twenty-five years ago Kansas played in its second and last Orange Bowl. With 15 seconds left, it appeared that the Jayhawks were victorious.
The score was 14-13, with Kansas leading Penn State, as the Nittany Lions scored their second touchdown of the game in the warning seconds of the 1969 Orange Bowl. Penn State coach Joe Paterno decided to go for the two-point conversion and the victory. It failed; Kansas had won.
But wait. A yellow hanky lay on the
field amid the Jayhawk defensive celebration.
The referees ruled that Kansas had 12 men on the field during the conversion attempt. Penn State was given a second chance and converted. Kansas lost 15-14.
Although sports fans remember the '69 Orange Bowl as the "Twelfth Man Game," the players and coaches of that Kansas team remember it as the last game in a wonderful season.
This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the 1968 team that went 9-1, earning a trip to the Orange Bowl in Miami on Jan. 1, 1969. This weekend, players from the team are holding a reunion and will be recognized at tomorrow's homecoming game halftime.
Bobby Douglass, senior quarterback of the '68 team, said that he couldn't wait to get back to Lawrence.
"I'm looking forward to it," said Douglass, who earned All-American
status in '68 and ranks as Kansas' sixth leading all-time passer. "I have many good friends that I keep in touch with on that team. It's always great to see the guys youplayed with."
Douglass, who went on to play 13 years in the NFL with Chicago, San Diego, New Orleans and Green Bay, said that playing in the Orange Bowl was not the high point of his season.
"I think the best part of that season was that after the second or third week, we seemed to belong with the best teams in the country," he said.
Kansas, in the last six weeks of the season, was ranked in the top 10 and finished the season ranked sixth. Only Oklahoma defeated Kansas in regular-season play, as the Sooners defeated the Jayhawks 27-23 in Norman, Okla.
"We had a feeling of accomplishment all season," Douglass said. "And getting to the Orange Bowl was our goal. It was more important than winning it."
Whether or not all the players agree with Douglass, they'll all have plenty of time this weekend to talk about that and all the other games the old teammates shared.
They'll also have some company that is not without its own controversy.
The 1973 Kansas bowl team, which lost to North Carolina State 31-18 in the Liberty Bowl, is celebrating its 20th Anniversary. That team will also be recognized tomorrow during the halftime of the Kansas-Iowa State game.
In the third quarter of the '73 Liberty Bowl, played Dec. 17, 1973, in Memphis, Tenn., the Wolfpack punted on a fourth down and four. Following a fair catch signal by Kansas' Bruce Adams, Adams fell to the ground and the ball glanced off him. North Carolina State recovered and scored two plays later. Adams argued to no avail
that he was tripped by a Wolfpack player.
The majority of the players will arrive in town today and play a round of golf at Alvamar Golf and Country Club, 3000 W. 15th St. Later, the two teams will gather to brag about their birdie putts, argue over which of the two teams was better and share their opinions about this year's Kansas squad. Tomorrow, a brunch will be held for the football alumni at the Kansas Union Ballroom honoring the letter winners.
John Mosier, adjunior receiver on the '68 team, will be at least one player that agrees with Douglass that the season's accomplishments outweighed the outcome of the Penn State game.
"It would have been the icing on the cake," said Mosier, who caught a crucial third down pass from Douglass, sealing a 21-19 victory against Missouri in the last game of the regular
season that propelled the Jayhawks into the bowl bid. "Still, we had a pretty good cake."
Still, the loss hurt.
Both Douglass and Mosier, along with most of the entire Kansas team, said at the time that they had no idea about the 12-man infraction until after the referee had made his ruling. However, upon reviewing the game film, the quarterback, receiver and the rest of the team saw that there had been one extra Jayhawk player on the field for each of the three previous plays — including the touchdown.
"We were throwing a lot of wild defenses at them," Mosier said. "At that time we running a balanced 6-6 defense instead of an unbalanced 6-5."
ISU mascot mystery confuses everyone
Apparently, the loss still hurts.
"We felt we had them beat," Mosier said "I still think about that 25 years later."
By Carlos Tejada
Kansan staff writer
At tomorrow's game, KU football fans will be greeted by Iowa State University's two mascots, Cy and Clone, whose history may be unfamiliar to Kansans.
Chances are their history will be unfamiliar to any Iowa State fans in the stands as well. "Nobody really knows," said Ellen Fairchild, president of ISU's Pep Council. "We know Cy's our mascot, but that's it." No other members of the Pep Council know the story behind the Cyclones and their mascots, which resemble cardinals. Neither does ISU's Student Alumni Center. Information Services, ISU's equivalent to KU Info, was stumped as well.
They know what the mascots look like, however.
"Cy, he's the one everybody knows," Fairchild said. "He can move around, but he's in a real rigid outfit because he looks like a cardinal, so Clone can run around and hug kids."
The story behind KU's mascot is a little easier to find. Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, lists the "jaywahk"
as an anti-slavery fighter in Kansas before and during the Civil War. It also says a jayhawk is a mythical bird and a nickname for Kansas residents.
The name probably began just before the Civil War, said Steve Jansen, director of Watkins Community Museum. At that time, Pat Devlin, a soldier in an anti-slavery force, returned from a foray in Kansas saying he had been living off the land like ajayhawk, "a bird from Ireland." From then on, his force was known as the Javahkers.
Incidentally, researchers have yet to find such a bird in Ireland or elsewhere.
"Jayhawkers were not necessarily seen as a positive reference when it was used in the border wars in the 1850s, but since then Kansans have been Jayhawkers," Jansen said.
Then came the Rock Chalk Chant, which was adopted by the fedgelling University of Kansas in 1886. By 1890, Jansen said, the football team was calling itself the Jayhawkers, and the name stuck.
The Jayhawk is part of U.S. history. But what are Cy and Clone of ISU? The answer lies in a file of newspaper clippings kept at ISU's library archives.
Becky Jordan, librarian assistant in special collections, said newspaper clippings showed the name originated from a football game against Northwestern University in 1895. The headline the next day in the Chicago Tribune read, "Cyclone out of west defeats Northwestern."
Jordan said the name had stuck ever since.
Jordan said the name had stuck ever since. Cy became the mascot in 1954 when the Pep Council decided the Cyclones needed a physical representation. They decided on a cardinal shape, for some unknown reason, and the name Cy, after "Mrs. Edward Ohlsen," won the naming contest, the clipping said.
Clone was created in 1989 as a more huggable companion, Jordan said.
"Clone will sit in the stands next to cute girls and run all over," she said.
Jordan said she thought the ISU student population turned over too quickly to remember the mascots' history.
"I have known forever, but young people wouldn't have any idea," said Jordan, who has worked in the library for more than 20 years. "It's just general unawareness of the school's history."
Dousing drew no regrets from Husker
The Associated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. — There's nothing like an ice-water dowsing to open communication channels with the head coach. Ask Nebraska defensive tackle Kevin Ramaeka.
Ramaekers is finding
Ramaekers is finding out what it's like to talk with Nebraska coach Tom Osborne after the big defensive player dumped a jug of ice water on Osborne following last Thursday's 27-13 win over Oklahoma State. It was Osborne's 200th career win and Ramaekers believed it was only appropriate to help the
coach remember it as something special.
remember it as something special. As Osborne began a post-game television interview, Ramaekers snuck up behind the coach, soaking Osborne and the television reporter doing the interview.
Ramaeers said a couple of reporters had asked him during the week prior to the game
if he could ever do something like that to the conservative, no-nonsense Osborne. Ramaeks said sure.
"We had practice Saturday morning. I felt sure he'd have me run extra or something like that," Ramaekers said. "He just walked up to me after practice, after we got done running and I thought 'Oh, God, he's going to run me.' He just said 'Ramaekers, I don't know where, I don't know when and I don't know how but I'm gonna get you.' Then he walked away."
That was the first warning.
Osborne, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology, kept his big tackle off guard with another tap on the shoulder this week.
"He came up behind me at practice again yesterday and said, 'So you're the brains behind this thing.' It's the most I've talked to the guy in five years. I guess we'll wait to see what happens," Ramaeksers said.
"It but it was worth it. I've heard them say it's very disrespectful for me to be doing this, I'll tell you what, it's his 200th win, and we're part of it. I'd do it again if I had to. I'm not ashamed of it."
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