Mitchell Signs
Quarterback SCOTT MITCHELL signed a four-year deal believed to be worth $21.2 million with the Detroit Lions yesterday. An $8 million signing bonus is reportedly part of the package.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Mitchell's first three seasons at Detroit, were filled with turmoil related to recently fired coach Wayne Fontes.
SPORTS
In 1995, Mitchell rewrote the Lions' record
yards and 32 touchdowns.
Things fell apart in 1996. Mitchell passed for only 2,917 yards and his 17 touchdowns were matched by an equal number of interceptions.
SHAQ TO MISS ALL-STAR GAME
A knee injury will sideline Los Angeles Laker SHAQUILLE O'NEAL until at least Feb. 12. He will miss Sunday's All-Star game.
The Lakers said that O'Neal, third in scoring and fourth in rebounding in the NBA this season, sustained a sprained ligament Saturday during a game against Washington.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6 ,1997
BULLETS FIRE COACH
After two blowout losses, JIM LYNAM was fired yesterday as coach of the Washington Bullets.
General manager Wes Unseld said that assistant Bob Staak would be the interim coach. The Bullets also fired assistant coach Buzz Braman
Unseld said that the two routs were not acceptable. The Bullets have lost six of their last eight
The Bullets had been expected to compete for the Atlantic Division title entering this season, but instead have a 22-24 record.
games. With Lynam as coach, the team was 82-128 in 2 1/2 seasons.
SECTION B
Don Nelson favored to fill Mavericks GM vacancy
DALLAS — Don Nelson, the sixth-winning coach in NBA history and recently selected as one of the league's 10 best all-time coaches, interviewed again with the Dallas Mavericks yesterday for the general manager's job.
Nelson was the leading candidate to fill a vacancy created Oct. 17 by the
resignation of Keith Grant, a team source said.
Nelson was interviewed last week in Hawaii by interim general
manager Frank Zaccanelli, who said,
"We need a first-class, top-notch basketball guy to be in charge."
Zaccarelli said that Nelson had the capabilities and the background to lead the Mavericks out of the NBA basement.
The New York Knicks fired Nelson in March, and he has not worked since.
He was the Golden State general manager from 1988 to 1995. Nelson has 19 years experience as an NBA head coach and served as vice president of the Milwaukee Bucks from 1976 to 1987.
The Mavericks are under new ownership by a group led by Ross Perot Jr. The new owners fired coach Dick Motta and hired Jim Cleamons, who was an assistant with the Chicago Bulls.
Miami, Ohio, alumni sue to stop nickname change
OXFORD, OHIO —A group of alumni sued Miami University and its board of trustees yesterday to try to block the university from adopting a new nickname to replace Redskins.
Redskins has been the nickname for 68 years. Critics said it was disrespectful and politically incorrect.
The lawsuit accused the board of secretly discussing the proposed nickname change, even though the change had been the subject of months of public dialogue. The lawsuit demands that the board conduct a public hearing before changing the name.
School administrators narrowed the list of new names to three choices. Officials won't disclose the final three, but released a list of 18 names from which the three came.
The names:
The 1809ers (or 'Niners') Thunderbirds; Bison; Thunder; Red Arrows; Red and White; Legends; RedHawks; The Miami (or Miamis); ThunderHawks; War Hawks; Arrows; Pride; Fire; Buckskins (or 'Skins'); Mighty Red; Ohioans; Big Red or (Red)
Three agents free no more after signing with Chiefs
Defensive tackle David Barnard and wide receiver Terence Davis also signed. Both spent time on the Chiefs practice squad last season.
KANSAS CITY, MO. — The Kansas City Chiefs announced yesterday the signings of three free agents, including former New England Patriots safety Eddie Cade.
Cade, 6-foot-1 and 212 pounds joined the Chiefs after spending the 1996 season with the Patriots. Cade, 23, played safety in 10 games and finished the year with eight special teams tackles.
Barnard, 6-2 and 310 pounds, spent the final 15 weeks of last season on the Chiefs practice squad. Barnard, 22, of Miami, entered the NFL as a rookie free agent with the Baltimore Ravens before joining the Chiefs practice squad last season.
Davis, 5-10 and 191 pounds, worked with Kansas City's practice squad during the last eight weeks of the '96 season.
The Associated Press
Ignore roar of Tiger fans
By Craig Lang
Knappson editor
KU-MU rivalry intense, taunts become personal
Kansan editor
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Kansas basketball fans expected the crowd at the Hearnes Center to act differently than crowds at Allen Field House.
But some KU students were disap
But some KU students pointed with the conduct of Missouri fans on Tuesday night.
"Their fans are just crude," said Mark Wilkerson, Sedalia, Mo., senior.
Several KU students attended Tuesday's game, only to hear the No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks get booed by Tiger fans as Kansas lost in double overtime to Missouri, 96-94. All 13,300 seats at the Hearnes Center were sold. Wilkerson said that the booing
BILLY THOMAS: Sports focus on sharp-shooting Jayhawk. Page 6B
aimed at individual players often stopped within a few minutes. Missouri fans, however, jeered individual Kansas players throughout the game.
Manny Ortiz, Condado, Puerto Rico, second-year law student, attended the game with Souder. He agreed that the negative remarks were more personal, but that it was still all in good fun.
Joking after the game, Kansas forward Raef LaFrentz expressed a sentiment similar to Ortiz's.
"I hate this place," he laughed. "N-
"KUfans are definitely more creative,but nobody yells louder than us."
"I think it's healthy for college fans," he said.
didn't bother him as much as the use of obscene language in Tiger fan's chants.
Souder said that Kansas fans sometimes had behaved in similar fashions at Allen Field House, but that chants
obscene language in Tiger fan's chants. Fred Souder, Bartlesville, Okla., graduate student, said that he had noticed Missouri fans were picking on individual players, rather than putting down the team as a whole. Every time point guard Jacque Vaughn had the ball, the crowd chanted "air ball," referring to his missed shot early in the game. And Tiger fans booed loudly every time the ball was touched by point guard Ryan Robertson, the St. Charles, Mo., sophomore, who passed up a chance to play for his home state.
John Wilkerson
University of Missouri student
it's a great crowd and a great college basketball atmosphere."
Many Kansas fans agreed that even though the fans at away games present a different — and more negative — atmosphere for the Jayhawks, the team probably wasn't affected by it. "Kansas has had
"Kansas has had great poise," said Derek Lind, Wichita second-year law student.
Mark Wilkerson agreed that when any athlete is concentrating on a game, it's hard for anybody off the court floor to create a distraction.
"I know it isn't hard to block out crowd noise," he said. "But I never played in the Hearnes Center either."
Mark Wilkerson's brother, John Wilkerson, is a freshman at the University of Missouri. John Wilkerson said he had attended many games at Allen Field House and noticed a difference in the way Missouri and Kansas fans acted.
"KU fans are definitely more creative," he said. "But nobody yells louder than us."
Steve Puppe / KANSAN
Kansas junior forward Raef LaFrentz rises for a shot while the Jayhawks bench looks on. The Jayhawks lost to Missouri in double overtime 96-94 Tuesday.
Allen signs recruits
National signing day yields 21 commitments
By Tommy Gallagher
Kansan sportswriter
National letter-ofintent day for college football coaches is similar to the anxiety people experience when watching "Punxsutawney Phil" on Groundhog Day. They just hold their breath and hope for the best.
1
Kansas football coach Terry Allen's first recruiting class included written commitments yesterday from 19 high school seniors and two junior college transfers. Although the class might not rank as one of the nation's best, Allen was pleased with the signings.
This year, it didn't make a lot of sense for us to jump into the junior college situation because it would have been us evaluating off of someone else's evaluation," Allen said. "It's important for us to start with the four-year players and build from there."
What frustrated Allen was a lack of recruits from within the state of Kansas. Only four of the 21 recruits played in Kansas.
"I don't think you'll ever see a time we have such
a minimum, percentage wise, of our recruits being from the state of Kansas," Allen said. "That's a large disappointment to me. It was simply a situation where we got caught timing-wise. We did not have a lot Kansas contacts since we were coming from Iowa. That's something that we will strive to do a much better job with in the future."
SIGNEES: A complete list of football players who signed with Kansas yesterday. Page 3B
Among the Jayhawks' local recruits are wide receivers Termaine Fulton of Topeka and Harrison Hill of Wichita Collegiate.
Missouri squeaks by Jayhawks
Hill comes to Kansas after breaking several Kansas state high school records, including career receiving yards, receiving touchdowns and interceptions.
Fulton was an All-America selection rated as the 89th overall prospect in the country by PrepStar Maaazine.
"Considering that we had less than 3 1/2 weeks of actual contact with the players we feel very good about our initial recruiting class," Allen said.
Garcia was rated the top place kicker in the Big 12 rotation by PremStar Magazine.
The other two Kansans, defensive back Brandon Wier and place kicker Joe Garcia, are from 6A state champion Olathe North.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri reserve Tanisha Johnson scored all of her 14 points in the second half as Missouri defeated No. 12 Kansas 68-66 last night.
The AssociatedPress
Wier had 66 tackles and seven interceptions
Johnson, who had been averaging just 4.7 points a game, entered the game with 17:20 remaining in the second half. Her layup with 11:40 left tied the score 36-36.
Kansas (16-4 overall, 7-2 Big 12) responded with a jump shot by forward Lynn Pride, giving the Jayhawks their last lead at 38-36.
Missouri's Stephanie White then hit a three-point shot to spark an 8-0 run for Missouri (9-14 overall, 2-8 in the Big 12).
With the game tied at 66-66 and 8.9 seconds remaining, Missouri guard Julie Helm was fouled by Kansas guard Tamecka Dixon. Helm went to the free throw line and sank what proved to be the winning points.
Helm scored 14 points for the Tigers and White added 11. Kesha Bonds grabbed 10 rebounds.
Dixon led all scorers with 24 points. Kansas center Nakia Sanford added a career-high 21 points and 14 rebounds.
Allen molds team against tough odds
In third grade my school had an art teacher who came in twice a month. Her goal was to take things like macaroni and dell-O and show us how to reproduce the Sistine Chapel on cardboard in an hour.
were always those
SPORTS
EDITOR
Of course, there kids who could actually make the chapel. Sadly, the closest I ever came was a pile of colored macaroni.
Have I lost my mind? No.
This all came back to me as I was sitting through new football coach Terry Allen's press conference yesterday
announcing the 1997 football recruits.
The list, while extensive, is not that impressive. But there are some who could prove to be good players.
Termaine Fulton, a wide receiver from my hometown of Topeka, may prove to be a great player. I have seen him play and he is fast. In high school, Fulton had almost 2,000 receiving yards.
Mike Lewis, a running back from Beloit, Wis., played just one-half of one game during his senior season.
Another guy who could prove worthy is quarterback Akili Roberson.
Of course there are a few guys who are questionable.
Then there's T.D. Calhoun. Perhaps the best thing about this guy is that his name is T.D. Can signees like him turn Kansas into a winner?
Roberson spent two years at Southwest Community College in California where he threw for 3,200 vards.
He went down with a leg injury and hasn't played in a game since.
Allen and his staff deserve credit for getting anybody here at all. In just one month on the job Allen was asked to convince recruits that they should come to a basketball school, with a mediocre football team and a new head coach who has never coached in Division I.
What Allen seems to have is a bunch of macaroni and Jell-O. He has a scrappy bunch of guys who he is being asked to turn into a work of art — or at least a winning team.
The question before Allen is if he can take his team of macaroni and Jell-0 and turn it into the Sistine Chapel or just a bunch of colored macaroni.
*There is another sign that the Athletic Department has no respect for students. The University of Kansas Athletic Corporation board voted yesterday to increase student ticket prices. The money raised will support renovations to Allen Field House and Memorial Stadium.
Students face a $6 increase in basketball and football tickets through the ticket package.
This is a reversal of what the department originally said. When the renovation plan was unveiled, the department said students would not face an increase.
Doesn't the Athletic Department claim that college athletics are primarily for the students? I guess it means only students with money.
Comments? E-mail Spencer at
at sports@kansan.com