Why it hurts so bad...
A KU Story
KU (University of Kansas) has just signed a top ten recruit for the upcoming year. This is a very big deal. Recruiting is essential to maintain a top tier program. As a modest fan, I try to follow what is going on up on the hill even though I am a thousand miles from the Campanile. (The modest thing is an understatement, I am a fanatic!!)
When I first went to KU, the team was ranked #1 in the nation. The 96-97 team was loaded with stars. Jacques Vaughn, Scott Pollard, Paul Pierce, Raef Lafrentz, and Billy Thomas are all alumni of that team who are currently in the NBA. As I watch them play now, I have a connection to them, but not the same that I have to more recent players.
During my student days, I played in the basketball band. We got to travel with the team and to all the tournaments. When the team lost, the band lost. When the team won, we got to travel…and travel we did!! Courtesy of the basketball team, I got to go all over the nation as a student performer. These trips were all expenses paid and even a little extra some days!! A winning team was more important to us than any other students on campus, our spring breaks all hung on the balance teams success. We were more informed than the opposing coaches. We studied every recruit and their potential to take us to the elusive Final Four. One of my good friends and I took it to another level as we would rate each player as potential on & off court stars and how that might affect our potential if a “thug” type player would affect the team. (See Lester Earl & Jeff Graves) Doing hours of research on people you have never met, gives you a relationship with these student athletes before they even step foot on the campus. We know their tendencies more than opposing coaches. At the school’s first practice, “Late Night”, we got to see them up close and personal.
Right now KU has a great incoming freshman and sophomore class of students that can take us far. The past two years we had exited in the first round of the tourney much to the dismay of the Jayhawk Nation. Both teams were whispered to be a championship caliber team and lost to schools ranked in the lower echelon of the tournament. With each loss, a group of seniors or outstanding underclassman will depart and make it to the NBA. This hurts as you never really get a chance to say goodbye to them as the walk through the tunnel for the last time of that season.
Recently, Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison, Drew Gooden, Wayne Simien, and Aaron Miles have been the latest Jayhawks to make the jump NBA. All of these players took KU to the final four in consecutive years and nearly won the championship in 2002. I was extremely close to this group as I would work with them in the summer at basketball camps. I managed the dorm where they held the camp and would have to sneek the players in and out the back door at times to avoid the mobs of screaming kids hovering for an autograph. I got to know a few of the players pretty well and created an even closer bond with them. Each of these players was a true class act and were genuinely good guys. During the off season I would play lick up games at the gym and realize just how good they are…(and how bad I was).
When the team loses in the tournament it is like getting a unexpected phone call from your girlfriend saying she is breaking up with you. Your plans are suddenly thrown out the window as you have just been dumped for a school that has 4 scholarship players (@#$% Bucknell)!! With a loss like this though, it is worse because you have to say good bye to guys you get to know and feel like you have known since their junior year in high school when they were first recruited. You even know their middle names, favorite movies, and meals. You see them go from boys to men in the span of four years, and even though they may not know your name, they are a big part of your life. KU is ready to make another run starting this fall, I just hope that next March is the year the pain goes away.
KU (University of Kansas) has just signed a top ten recruit for the upcoming year. This is a very big deal. Recruiting is essential to maintain a top tier program. As a modest fan, I try to follow what is going on up on the hill even though I am a thousand miles from the Campanile. (The modest thing is an understatement, I am a fanatic!!)
When I first went to KU, the team was ranked #1 in the nation. The 96-97 team was loaded with stars. Jacques Vaughn, Scott Pollard, Paul Pierce, Raef Lafrentz, and Billy Thomas are all alumni of that team who are currently in the NBA. As I watch them play now, I have a connection to them, but not the same that I have to more recent players.
During my student days, I played in the basketball band. We got to travel with the team and to all the tournaments. When the team lost, the band lost. When the team won, we got to travel…and travel we did!! Courtesy of the basketball team, I got to go all over the nation as a student performer. These trips were all expenses paid and even a little extra some days!! A winning team was more important to us than any other students on campus, our spring breaks all hung on the balance teams success. We were more informed than the opposing coaches. We studied every recruit and their potential to take us to the elusive Final Four. One of my good friends and I took it to another level as we would rate each player as potential on & off court stars and how that might affect our potential if a “thug” type player would affect the team. (See Lester Earl & Jeff Graves) Doing hours of research on people you have never met, gives you a relationship with these student athletes before they even step foot on the campus. We know their tendencies more than opposing coaches. At the school’s first practice, “Late Night”, we got to see them up close and personal.
Right now KU has a great incoming freshman and sophomore class of students that can take us far. The past two years we had exited in the first round of the tourney much to the dismay of the Jayhawk Nation. Both teams were whispered to be a championship caliber team and lost to schools ranked in the lower echelon of the tournament. With each loss, a group of seniors or outstanding underclassman will depart and make it to the NBA. This hurts as you never really get a chance to say goodbye to them as the walk through the tunnel for the last time of that season.
Recently, Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison, Drew Gooden, Wayne Simien, and Aaron Miles have been the latest Jayhawks to make the jump NBA. All of these players took KU to the final four in consecutive years and nearly won the championship in 2002. I was extremely close to this group as I would work with them in the summer at basketball camps. I managed the dorm where they held the camp and would have to sneek the players in and out the back door at times to avoid the mobs of screaming kids hovering for an autograph. I got to know a few of the players pretty well and created an even closer bond with them. Each of these players was a true class act and were genuinely good guys. During the off season I would play lick up games at the gym and realize just how good they are…(and how bad I was).
When the team loses in the tournament it is like getting a unexpected phone call from your girlfriend saying she is breaking up with you. Your plans are suddenly thrown out the window as you have just been dumped for a school that has 4 scholarship players (@#$% Bucknell)!! With a loss like this though, it is worse because you have to say good bye to guys you get to know and feel like you have known since their junior year in high school when they were first recruited. You even know their middle names, favorite movies, and meals. You see them go from boys to men in the span of four years, and even though they may not know your name, they are a big part of your life. KU is ready to make another run starting this fall, I just hope that next March is the year the pain goes away.
posted by O King at
12:04 AM
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