Some Kansas City History in The New York Times Today

The Vision of Walter Byers, a Flawed Leader, Still Shapes the NCAA

Associated Press

Walter Byers, the first executive director of the N.C.A.A, at his desk in Kansas City in 1961.  
Associated Press

Now if we could just get them back, eh?

Kansas' WuShock and WSU in today's NYT

Big sports article:

The Pride of Wichita State, Whatever It May Actually Be

Local basketball player makes waves nationally

A local basketball player made big headlines and national news this week and was on MSN Fox Sports:

 

 

College hoopster opens up about coming out

 

Benedictine hoopster is happy to make closet less crowded

 

Benedictine College's Jallen Messersmith adjusting to becoming a national story

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With each passing day, the closet becomes a little less crowded, a little less scary, a little less dark and sheltered. Jallen Messersmith isn’t doing this for applause or a shoe deal or a reality show or martyrdom. This isn’t about being the wrecking ball; it’s about being another link in the chain that swings it. It’s about a cycle in which the news isn’t news anymore.

“I think it’s just inevitable for it to happen everywhere,” says Messersmith, a 6-foot-7 sophomore forward at Benedictine (Kan.) College, believed to be the first active openly gay player in U.S. men’s college basketball.

“At this point, it’s just going to happen (where) it slowly becomes less and less of a (newsworthy) thing, and people are becoming more and more comfortable with it. And I think it’s just a matter of time before it happens in every sport.”

Messersmith, a native of the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs, Mo., came out to his teammates last fall, and then to the rest of the world on Tuesday, via Outsports.com, a story that has since gone national. To Jallen, the point wasn’t the trailblazing, but the trail itself. After all, what good is carving a path that nobody else has the stones to follow?

And good--no, great, for him.

Are we Americans or not? Are we about equality or not? Isn't that who we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to be about?

And the thing is, if you're under, say, 30? 35 years old?  maybe even older--it's not even an issue.  Not remotely.

Education on public employee spending

Check out what position, by state, is the highest paid position for publicly-paid employees:

More of our priorities. This time, by state as well as the entire nation.

They make great points on this, too, naturally:

There are at least three problems.

 

--Coaches don't generate revenue on their own; you could make the exact same case for the student-athletes who actually play the game and score the points and fracture their legs.

 

--It can be tough to attribute this revenue directly to the performance of the head coach. In 2011-2012, Mack Brown was paid $5 million to lead a mediocre 8-5 Texas team to the Holiday Bowl. The team still generated $103.8 million in revenue, the most in college football. You don't have to pay someone $5 million to make college football profitable in Texas.

 

--This revenue rarely makes its way back to the general funds of these universities. Looking at data from 2011-2012, athletic departments at 99 major schools lost an average of $5 million once you take out revenue generated from "student fees" and "university subsidies." If you take out "contributions and donations"—some of which might have gone to the universities had they not been lavished on the athletic departments—this drops to an average loss of $17 million, with just one school (Army) in the black. All this football/basketball revenue is sucked up by coach and AD salaries, by administrative and facility costs, and by the athletic department's non-revenue generating sports; it's not like it's going to microscopes and Bunsen burners.

 

Way to go, Amerikuh.

 

We're number one.

Link to original post here:

Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

Gonzaga loses?? To who??

Number one seed Gonzaga loses, that's big news but to whom??

Wichita State knocks out top-seeded Gonzaga

One of the few times they're all on the same side

The mascots of the Big 12 Basketball Conference all got together and visited the children patients at Children's Mercy Hospital today.  Pretty fun. Very cool.  Good for the kids and them and all involved.

More here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151544515710915&set=a.10151544301070915.1073741830.51136075914&type=1&theater

Link:

Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics

8 year old KU fan goes viral

This little guy, above, is 8 year old Palmer Kiefer of Wichita, Kansas, and all of a sudden, he's gone a bit viral. He was highlighted in an article in The Wichita Eagle-Beacon and now he's gone out across those pesky internets. He's on Yahoo! News, the LostLetterman.com website and another site called The Dagger. It seems young Mr. Keifer there just won't take off his trusty, lucky KU jersey: "He's only 8 years old, but Kansas super fan Palmer Kiefer already knows that you never mess with a winning streak.

"And with his beloved Jayhawks in the Final Four on Saturday, the second-grader from Wichita, Kan., is closing in on two weeks of wearing his lucky No. 15 Kansas jersey, the number of former KU star Mario Chalmers and current guard Elijah Johnson. Palmer has worn it every day since Friday, March 16, when Kansas defeated Detroit in the NCAA tournament's second round — and it's not coming off for good until the Jayhawks lose or win it all Monday night in New Orleans." That is one devoted fan. And who's to say it hasn't helped? Links: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/eight-old-kansas-jayhawks-fan-refuses-off-jersey-224641404.html; http://www.lostlettermen.com/ku-fan-8-wont-take-off-luckey-jersey/; http://www.kansas.com/2012/03/26/2273534/second-grader-hasnt-taken-off.html

KU B-ball Player Voted Best

From the news--Yahoo! News and the AP--today: Kansas’ Thomas Robinson leads AP All-America team "Kansas forward Thomas Robinson has even more in common with Blake Griffin now. Not everything, though. Robinson, who played through personal tragedy as a sophomore reserve, capped his junior season by being a unanimous selection to The Associated Press’ All-America team Monday, a day after leading the Jayhawks to the Final Four. The 6-foot-10 Robinson averaged 17.9 points and 11.8 rebounds this season and he was a first-team pick by all 65 members of the national media panel that selects the weekly Top 25. The last unanimous pick was Griffin in 2009." Very cool. Link to original story: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=ap-mensall-america

That ugly, racist chant at KSU last Thursday?

Last week, when Kansas State played Southern Mississippi, the Souther Miss crowd rather famously now chanted out "Where's your green card" at Puerto Rico-born Kansas State guard Angel Rodriguez. As it turns out, there's some "hell to pay": "School president Martha Saunders announced Tuesday that five band members have had their scholarships revoked, have been removed from the band and will have to complete a two-hour cultural sensitivity training course this week." If there's a downside to it, their names weren't released to the public. Personally, I think they deserve some rather public shaming to go along with this punishment but at least they got this. The irony to the whole, ignorant, ugly thing? Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States so Rodriguez diddn't need a green card. Idiots. Racism must end. Link: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/southern-mississippi-punishes-band-members-ignorant-chant-170125916.html

President O on Mizzou's B-Ball

This President, it is well-known, follows NCAA basketball and its corresponding "March Madness", going so far as to annually do his own brackets. While he picks North Carolina to win it all, he has this to say about our very own Mizzou: "The perimeter play of Missouri right now is outstanding." So, fight on, Mizzou. This is the same President who picked KU to win it all last year. Link: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/president-obama-picks-north-carolina-win-ncaa-tournament-135225878.html

How did I not know that?

Listening to NPR yesterday, I learned Wilt Chamberlain once scored 100 points--100, for pity's sake--in one basketball game. Holy cow. It happened 50 years ago yesterday that Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain made this record. Holy cow. How huge is that? He's even more an incredible player than I ever even knew. Nearly needless to say, not only has it not been broken, no one's even gotten close to it. What a shame it wasn't televised. Great on you, Mr. Chamberlain. (You may want, especially, to listen to the report in the first link as it gives incredibly good--and also brief--background information on Wilt and the times in which he lived. He was a far bigger man than in just physical height alone). Links: http://www.npr.org/2012/02/29/147561743/100-points-one-game-a-basketball-record-turns-50; http://www.npr.org/2012/03/02/147830374/50-years-later-no-one-rivals-basketball-scoring-record

Now the NBA: It's the rich and fatcats against the poor slobs again

First it was Wall Street, screwing us all with their bad mortgage loans they created but sold as AAA rated material. We all know what that got us--the 2008 financial collapse that went worldwide. Then, on a far smaller scale, it was the NFL owners, trying to grab yet more money for themselves, from the players. Fortunately that got worked out. Now? The NBA owners--rich as they are--just don't feel they have or get enough so they're putting another infamous squeeze on their players so the schedule for this year has been put back at least a week. Forget that in both the NFL and NBA--all sports, really, of course--the players are only able to play for a few years, make what they can and then get out. Of course, they also have to hope, especially in professional football, that their health isn't wrecked. The owners? They're there ad infinitum--nearly forever, raking in millions and millions of dollars annually yet these greedheads think they need yet more money. Is it any wonder the "little guy", the "person on the street", the working people of America are finally fighting back, since our wages have been falling for more than a decade? We're fighting for our lives while the wealthy and uber-wealthy are just fighting--us--for yet more millions for themselves. Links: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/07/25/138671825/reports-nfl-owners-players-agree-to-new-deal-ending-lockout; http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ycn-10181629

Not a good sign for sports at the Sprint Center

Plog (The Pitch Magazine blog) reports that the "NBA cancels preseason game at Sprint Center". Not good news, not good news at all. Between the national and international economy and possible strike in the NBA looming, it doesn't look as though our Sprint Center will have a national sport team in there any time too soon, if ever, no matter how beautiful a facility it is. Link: http://www.pitch.com/plog/archives/2011/09/23/lebron-james-wont-be-coming-back-to-kansas-city-nba-cancels-preseason-game-at-sprint-center

Has the time finally come for gays in American sports?

Could this finally be the tipping point, so to speak, for gays to "come out" in American sports?

First there's this about a week ago from The New York Times :

Rangers' Avery Joins Campaign for Gay Rights

By JOHN BRANCH

Since September, advocates for same-sex marriage in New York have released 30-second videos of celebrities endorsing their cause. More than 30 have taken part, including the actors Julianne Moore and Sam Waterston, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the former first daughter Barbara Bush. On Thursday, former President Bill Clinton released a written statement of support, too.

Until now, supporters have come mostly from the worlds of politics, entertainment, theater and fashion. One type of New York celebrity was conspicuously absent: the athlete.

Enter Rangers forward Sean Avery.

He recently recorded a video, becoming one of only a few active athletes in American team sports to voice support for gay rights, and is believed to be the first in New York to publicly advocate for same-sex marriage. No active male player in a major American team sport has declared his homosexuality, and homosexual slurs remain in use to insult opponents and officials.

So that was some pretty big and welcome news.

Next up was this, yesterday:

Charles Barkley: In sports, ability to play should outweigh sexual orientation

If "Mr. Macho" Charles Barkley can have an open mind on this, can that many people be far behind?

Finally, that was followed closely by this, late yesterday:

NBA executive Rick Welts comes out gay

Sure, there have been people in American sports who have come out but it's been extremely rare and very isolated cases.


So we'll see, of course.  It's a good beginning.  This seems like a groundswell of support for equality and getting over our former neanderthal closed-mindedness and bigotry.

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for the ugly, punishing silence up to now required for professional athletes in the US.

PRESIDENT PICKS KU!

How cool is that?

And President Obama’s choice to win the NCAA tournament is …

Rick Chandler     Mar 16, 2011

President Obama filled out his NCAA Tournament bracket today, picking Kansas — that’s a red state! — as his eventual tourney champ.


And Mitch McConnell says the President isn't willing to work with the other side.


Here's hoping the President is right.


Link to original post:  http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2011/03/16/video-and-president-obamas-choice-to-win-the-ncaa-tournament-is/
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=President+Obama's+bracket&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=87b61fcb467d95

Who is Gov. Nixon trying to "zoom", here?

I personally don't follow "Pac 10" or "Big 12" or "Little Bighorn" or whatever those football and basketball groups are that much. I mean, come on, life is too short. But listening to the news the last few days, I was bound to hear and learn some things about all these groups and that there were possibly going to be some dissolution of some and creation of new ones. Then, yesterday, the big news. Texas and Texas Tech (I think, right?) thought about it and decided they'd stay right where they are. And that's great for Kansas City, because we get to keep some tournaments and their requisite dollars right here, thank you all very much. But the "frosting on the cake" for me was hearing, today, that our own Governor Nixon had to blast Colorado and Nebraska and their teams by saying "the remaining Big 12 schools are in better position to make the NCAA tournament because the conference lost its 'the two weakest basketball programs' when Colorado and Nebraska left." If I were the Governor's best friend, I'd be telling him, "Dude, SHUT UP. LET IT GO. The right thing happened for the state of Missouri--can you not just let well enough be?" But then, we wouldn't have as entertaining a moment out of all this trivial, inconsequential nonsense right now, would we? Thanks, Gov! Link to original story here: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/campusrivalry/post/2010/06/missouri-governor-nixon-takes-shot-at-basketball-programs-of-colorado-nebraska/1