Post by MizzouTiger on Feb 18, 2008 12:32:06 GMT -5
www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/blair_kerkhoff/story/493167.html
Anniversary celebrates good times for KU
L AWRENCE | Larry Brown made his way off the floor and into the tunnel where David Wiles of Leavenworth and his father, Jim, awaited. They shook hands and Brown offered encouraging words to David as he often did as the Kansas coach two decades ago.
David has used a wheelchair since a 1975 auto accident, and Jim counts three games at Allen Fieldhouse his son has missed in the last 23 years. Brown, who hasn’t been the Jayhawks’ coach in 20, remembered.
“The very first Late Night with Larry Brown, he said to Dave, ‘You don’t look right,’ ” said Jim Wiles. “So he pulled off his Kansas sweater and put it on him.
“The parade after they won the national championship? When he saw Dave, Larry stopped the car he was riding in, got out and put his championship hat on Dave. He’s always been good to us.”
Renewing acquaintances defined Saturday at Kansas, more than the uneventful 69-45 drubbing of Colorado.
The 110th anniversary of Kansas basketball carried the day and nobody throws a bash quite like Kansas. Players wore 1988 throwbacks, although Danny Manning and the fellows didn’t recall theirs hanging to the kneecaps.
All that was missing was a game clock with hands.
Players, coaches, managers all found their way back to the Fieldhouse. Even a coach, Ted Owens, who was fired, glad-handed in the corridor long after the final buzzer.
“I love the University of Kansas, and I was honored and privileged to coach here,” Owens said. “The greatest thing in sports is the relationship you forge with your players and coaches, and that’s what this is about.”
At halftime more than 200 marched in under the banner of their coach, and players from every leader in the program’s history were represented. Except James Naismith, who wrapped up his coaching career in 1907.
Phog’s guys, and those of thingy Harp, Owens, Brown, Roy Williams and Bill Self took bows. Last to take the floor was the 1988 team, and watching them from behind a television monitor at center court was none other than Stacey King, the Oklahoma star whose team that night in Kemper Arena trudged away like the New England Patriots two weeks ago.
King was visiting Allen for the first time as a broadcaster, the first time since his playing days and he learned Friday that Kansas was rolling out the 1988 team.
“That was dirty,” King joked. “Who scheduled this? But this is history. There’s so much tradition here.”
Self get its. He understood the year he tutored under Brown, in 1986, and during his five years as head coach. It’s why he invited the alumni to Friday’s practice and more than 100 took him up on the offer.
It’s why he had Brown address the team, and why he shows current players and recruits film of Kansas’ history, even the black and white reels.
“There’s something different about this place,” Self said.
Like expectation. The third-ranked Jayhawks are in the midst of one of those seasons where every game demands a conclusion.
National championship quality?
“There are about 10 teams that maybe could win six games,” Brown said. “You have to be lucky to win it all.”
Nobody knows that better than Brown, who insisted his 1986 team was “as good a team as I’ve ever been around, a pretty special group.”
That one didn’t win it all. The team that lugged 11 losses into the NCAA Tournament two years later hoisted the trophy.
This one? Getting there, Brown sees.
“There’s still time for this team,” Brown said. “They’re growing and getting better.”
Anniversary celebrates good times for KU
L AWRENCE | Larry Brown made his way off the floor and into the tunnel where David Wiles of Leavenworth and his father, Jim, awaited. They shook hands and Brown offered encouraging words to David as he often did as the Kansas coach two decades ago.
David has used a wheelchair since a 1975 auto accident, and Jim counts three games at Allen Fieldhouse his son has missed in the last 23 years. Brown, who hasn’t been the Jayhawks’ coach in 20, remembered.
“The very first Late Night with Larry Brown, he said to Dave, ‘You don’t look right,’ ” said Jim Wiles. “So he pulled off his Kansas sweater and put it on him.
“The parade after they won the national championship? When he saw Dave, Larry stopped the car he was riding in, got out and put his championship hat on Dave. He’s always been good to us.”
Renewing acquaintances defined Saturday at Kansas, more than the uneventful 69-45 drubbing of Colorado.
The 110th anniversary of Kansas basketball carried the day and nobody throws a bash quite like Kansas. Players wore 1988 throwbacks, although Danny Manning and the fellows didn’t recall theirs hanging to the kneecaps.
All that was missing was a game clock with hands.
Players, coaches, managers all found their way back to the Fieldhouse. Even a coach, Ted Owens, who was fired, glad-handed in the corridor long after the final buzzer.
“I love the University of Kansas, and I was honored and privileged to coach here,” Owens said. “The greatest thing in sports is the relationship you forge with your players and coaches, and that’s what this is about.”
At halftime more than 200 marched in under the banner of their coach, and players from every leader in the program’s history were represented. Except James Naismith, who wrapped up his coaching career in 1907.
Phog’s guys, and those of thingy Harp, Owens, Brown, Roy Williams and Bill Self took bows. Last to take the floor was the 1988 team, and watching them from behind a television monitor at center court was none other than Stacey King, the Oklahoma star whose team that night in Kemper Arena trudged away like the New England Patriots two weeks ago.
King was visiting Allen for the first time as a broadcaster, the first time since his playing days and he learned Friday that Kansas was rolling out the 1988 team.
“That was dirty,” King joked. “Who scheduled this? But this is history. There’s so much tradition here.”
Self get its. He understood the year he tutored under Brown, in 1986, and during his five years as head coach. It’s why he invited the alumni to Friday’s practice and more than 100 took him up on the offer.
It’s why he had Brown address the team, and why he shows current players and recruits film of Kansas’ history, even the black and white reels.
“There’s something different about this place,” Self said.
Like expectation. The third-ranked Jayhawks are in the midst of one of those seasons where every game demands a conclusion.
National championship quality?
“There are about 10 teams that maybe could win six games,” Brown said. “You have to be lucky to win it all.”
Nobody knows that better than Brown, who insisted his 1986 team was “as good a team as I’ve ever been around, a pretty special group.”
That one didn’t win it all. The team that lugged 11 losses into the NCAA Tournament two years later hoisted the trophy.
This one? Getting there, Brown sees.
“There’s still time for this team,” Brown said. “They’re growing and getting better.”