6A
Friday, March 21, 1997
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Scott Dold gazes in front of a stained glass window of the 1912 version of the Kansas Jayhawk, which is in his home's "Jayhawk Room." He is a diehard fan, and his roots remain tied to the plains of Kansas for his lifetime
Mad about the Jayhawks
With Kansas hoping to make a run to the Final Four, one fan believes that there's no place like Lawrence
Story by Nick Charalambous
Scott Dold lives, breathes and bleeds crimson and blue, and he's madder about KU than a March hare.
OK, so you might not think that's too strange, given the fact that the Jayhawks are gearing up for their fifth national basketball championship and that Dold is an assistant director of admissions and a KU alumnus.
But think again.
"He would love that to happen," said Jean, his wife of six years. "But it's never going to happen."
When he married his wife, a Wichita State and KU law graduate, in 1990, he insisted that the KU alma mater be played after the exchange of vows. But his wife wasn't too crazy about that.
Do think again. He's serious about naming his first child "Kansas." His wife says the names Raef or Pierce also are high on the list. He has even joked about the baby, which is due May 10, being born on centercourt at Allen Field House.
In the Dold's kitchen, there are pictures of the Campanile and Fraser Hall hand-etched into the wall tiles. And in the living room, there is a hand-made 18-inch stained glass window of a 1912 Jayhawk.
"Initially, I said, 'Oh my God,' but it was played on a harp, so it was really rather nice," she said.
Once he and Jean have renovated their old
townhouse on Tennessee Street and unpacked the cartons full of KU memorabilia, he is planning to convert the back room into a Jayhawk room, a shrine devoted to all things KU.
For Dold, the University of Kansas was love at first sight. He knew it the very first time he
that his parents on campus as a National Merit scholar.
"I stepped out of the car and looked at my mom and said, "This is where I'm going to school and where I'm going to live," Dold said. "My gut feeling told me this was it. This was my place."
After graduating from the University, Dold served six years in the Marine Corps from 1982 to 1988 in Korea, Hawaii
as an assistant director of admissions.
"I absolutely loved my legal practice," he said. "It was the pull of KU; the chance to be around this; the chance to give something back to KU; the chance to be in Lawrence."
Dawn Kovats, coordinator of transfer student recruitment, was on the search com
and the Philippines, attaining the rank of captain. Dold was born into a military family, so he had moved many times as a child, but of all the places he had lived, Kansas was always home, he said.
"My gut feeling told me this was it. This was my place."
In 1988, Dold returned to the University to study law and then practiced for five years as a prosecutor and defense attorney. But he gave it all up in 1995 to earn much less money
Scott Dold Assistant director of admissions
mittee that hired Dold and vividly remembers his interview. Instead of giving a five-minute presentation, he hauled out a trunk from beneath his legs, began unpacking all sorts of memorabilia and talked for about an hour about KU.
his insanity about KU."
"We were just sitting there with our mouths open thinking this guy was nuts, "Kovats said. "Evidently, we'd only scratched the surface of
Dold remembers a World War I recruiting poster that hung above his bed as a child. An old-fashioned sailor in a crackerjack uniform was leaning over a man sitting in an armchair with a book. The poster said: "Don't read history, be a part of it."
Dold says he's done both. He reads history books and journals for two hours every night.
rus mother, an antique dealer, helps him find artifacts from KU history.
'She found a 1912 commencement program and stuck that in an envelope and sent it up to me for my birthday. She found a little glass bottle with a Jayhawk on it that said 'Lawrence Creamery.' And that's just the kind of thing she knows that I'll stick in a box and someday put up on the shelf.
"I was here. I was a little teeny part of this history and so I want to know about things I was a part of," Dold said. "I like to know about this place because it is a part of me."
Dold will leave the office of admissions April 4 to look after his baby. He says it's one more role in his life that he will relish, until it is time to do something else — like working at Disneyland for a summer after he retires.
His friend John Hampton, an athletic trainer with the 1988 national championship basketball squad, said that while he and Dold studied together in the late 1980s, their goal in college was to graduate, let their wives earn money as attorneys and buy a sports bar.
"We would buy Dos Hombres, put stadium chairs in the balcony on the upper deck, put in a big screen TV to make it seem like you were in Allen Field House, get a direct feed from the clock so people would know exactly how much time was left and pipe in Max and Bob," he said. "Instead of waitresses, we'd have a beer guy, like at a baseball game."
BUTTERY CHUNKS MUSIC REVIEW
Bon Folds Five: Whatever and Ever Amen (Caroline Records)
Can a rock band that has no guitar still
Can a rock band the
threesh2 Well, the trio
biasin Wei, the duo from Chapel Hill known as Ben Folds Five have answered that question with a resounding yes. The new album, Whatever and Ever Amen, is more mature and melow than the band's first album, the self-titled Ben Folds Five. Songs like One Angry
Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces and Kate are typical of the group's piano-thrash-funk-punk, while songs like Smoke and Brick show the thoughtful and introspective side of the band. Fortunately, the band has come together and tightened its musical style while leaving its quirky lyrics intact. The track Songs for the Dumped is a perfect example of the sarcastic, funny lyrics that we have come to expect from the band.
So you wanted to take
a break/Slow it down some and
have some space. Well @#*% you,
too/Give me my money
hack/You b--h.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:
The Boatman's Call (Reprise
Records)
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Nick Cave has released an expressive new album that is in total contrast with his previous
Murder Ballads. The Boatman's Call is 12 slow songs that show off Cave's mellow stylings. The songs that appear on Boatman are intensely private and melancholy, making listeners feel as if they had taken a brief glimpse into the world of a tortured lover. Songs
(Are You) The One I've Been Waiting For? And Far From Me are definitely romantic, in a dark mysterious way, and the words draw you in to tell their story.
For you dear I was bom/For you I was raised up/For you I've lived and for you I will die/For you I am dying now.
Matthew Sweet: Blue Sky On Mars (Volkman Records)
If you are afraid that pop music is dying out, fear no more. With Blue Sky On Mars, Matthew Sweet, the prince of
college pop, serves up a moist, fluffy album with a light, creamy filling. Sweet admits his pop roots, and that's what makes the album work. There is no pretension, just straight-ahead pop, with the occasional grungy-sounding guitar riff thrown in for good measure. But the bottom line is that for all the feel-good lyrics and uptime rhythms, it's still pretty good. And either Come to California or Where You Get Love is sure to be the obligatory hit from the new album. Blue Sky is sort of like a Pauly Shore movie: As long as you know it's going to be stupid and you don't expect too much, you'll like it.
Shiner: Lula Divina (Hititt Records)
This Kansas City band needs to figure out what kind of sound it is going for. Is it alternative? Is it cheese rock? Or is it just plain bad? It is usually nice to see some sort of construction within a song, and on Lula Diva, it was hard to spot it. The mediocre singing is backed by muffled, mediocre music. Shiner needs about two more years of playing together before trying to attempt another pseudo-major label release. Shiner will be performing Saturday at the Bottleneck. Maybe they sound better live.
—Ashlee Roll