Saturday, September 02, 2006

An hour before kickoff in Kansas

There's a lot of excitement from people wearing purple here in Lawrence. Of course, purple isn't the favorite color here - in fact, it's the most hated color, worn by arch-rival Kansas State. Folks here are nice but you do get a few double takes as you walk around historic Memorial Stadium -- the first collegiate stadium built west of the Mississippi River.

Quick notes ... assistant track and field coach Mike Heimerman, a native of Kansas, helped equipment guru Chuck Bourg drive the equipment truck up from Natchitoches. Mike is very excited, to say the least ... former NSU athletes here include former football players Dan Chase, Shelley Dickie and Gil Gilson (and, of course, Britt Brittain with the Demon Sports Network) and former Demon baseball pitcher Will McGuffey, who has been working with a minor league baseball team in Nebraska just eliminated from the playoffs last night in St. Paul, Minn.

Demon Sports Network engineer/stat guru Davey Antilley and I had the chance to tour fabled Allen Fieldhouse where the Jayhawks basketball team plays ... one of America's great sports venues. It sits on James Naismith Drive -- the inventor of basketball coached here, and is buried here. His successor was Phog Allen, for whom the fieldhouse is named.

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