March moment with a legend-to-be

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Daily Capital
March 19, 1958

Adolph Rupp, Kentucky basketball coach, has a particular fondness for Kansas as a state and for Kansas State. He’s a native of Halstead, Kansas. The last time he won a national basketball title, he whipped Kansas State in the finals. And the last time he was anywhere near K- State, he bought some of the cattle he likes so well near Manhattan.

“Fine cattle, too,” he said Tuesday. “I’ve got about 350 head of registered Herefords now. They’re nice to have, except when there’s snow on the ground and you have to feed them.”

Rupp, the Bluegrass Baron, is both a basketball Baron and a cattle Baron. He’s more concerned now, however, with the basketball squad he’ll send after his fourth national title this weekend in Louisville. He plays Temple first, and if he wins he gets the Kansas State-Seattle winner.

“This team isn’t like the others we had that won national tiles,” he said. “The others had big stars. This team doesn’t have a single boy who made all conference It’s the first time in Southeastern Conference history that Kentucky didn’t have a boy on the All-Conference team.

“We don’t have an All American or anybody who was even mentioned for All-American. We’re just a bunch of country boys that nobody has paid any attention to.

This is a unique role for a Kentucky basketball squad in the national playoffs. Kentucky has won more titles – three – than any other school, and has won more NCAA playoff games. But this is the first team to surprise Rupp. “Nobody down here expected this team to go anywhere,” he said. “Certainly, nobody expected us to get to the national semifinals. But we’ve just kept knocking along, and here we are.

“It has been a tremendously satisfying season for me, because we just don’t have the personnel to get this far. But we’ve had tremendous effort, and our last two games (victories over Miami and Notre Dame) were as well played as any games we ever played in the NCAA.

“The effort and performance of this team have been far above the level anybody had any right to expect. My satisfaction comes from seeing that effort.

Rupp’s squad was unranked in preseason polls. But it finished the season with a 19-6 record, won the conference by a slim one-game margin, and wound up 9th in the final polls. Rupp can’t help laughing about this.

“North Carolina and Kansas were ranked 1-2 at the start of the season,” he said. “We weren’t ranked at all, but we’re here and they aren’t. All season, we kept hearing about Kansas, but nothing about Kansas State.

“We honestly don’t know a thing about Kansas State or Seattle, except what we’ve heard in the past couple of days. We know they are both great teams, but we’re not worrying about them.

“We’re worrying about Temple. And this thing, you lose one game and school’s out, So we’re not looking ahead. We’ll worry about Kansas State or Seattle after we beat Temple Dash or if we do.

“From what we’ve heard in the last couple of days, Kansas State must have the best team in the tournament. Cincinnati’s not far from here and we know they are no pushover, so if Kansas State beat them, they’re pretty good.

“It’s a good thing Kansas State did win that one. If Cincinnati was playing in Louisville, I don’t know where we’d put the people. We’d have to play this thing at a race track – and we’ve got some of those, too…

“We’ve had a good year and played probably the toughest schedule in the country. We played five teams in the top ten and seven in the top 15. Who else has done that?

“We’ve got a fine defense. The Big 10 is supposed to be a good league, and Notre Dame took care of them this season. We took care of Notre Dame. They got 56 points against us to our 80.”

(Ed. note – In the semifinals, Kentucky beat Temple by one in overtime and despite a 39-36 deficit at the half in the national title game, cruised to an 84-72 victory over Seattle. Rupp, who played basketball at the University of Kansas under Phog Allen, retired in 1972 after 41 years coaching Kentucky with a winning percentage of .822.)

 

 

Down but probably not out

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Capital Journal
February 24, 1988

Jimmy Swaggart isn’t the biggest sinner of his time; he’s just the most visible, and he has television to thank, or blame, for that.

He built a “television ministry” that caused him to be seen and heard all over this nation and much of the world. It was hard to miss him.

He set himself up as a prime target and then was done in when another preacher, who was after revenge, tracked down his indiscretions and then ran to church authorities with the scandal.

Swaggart isn’t even alone in his misery. Not that he’ll get much comfort from it, but on the same cable newscast that nailed him there were stories of two more ministers who had been caught up in sexual adventures, some much more serious than anything Swaggart had done. Continue reading →

Winter Morning Diary

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Daily Capital
Feb. 8, 1961

You get out of bed slowly, taking your time, but your wife, looking out the window, tells you it’s bad out and that you may have some trouble getting to work. You look out. Snow is heavy on the ground and more is falling.

Some people, you say, may have trouble, but not you. You are an experienced snow driver, cool as the ice on the streets and steady as the snowfall. You know, too, that your trusty car will not fail you. Continue reading →

Seems Christmas journey from the west (Texas) was unwise

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Metro-News
December 20, 2002

It’s only about 275 miles from Borger, Texas, to Oklahoma City, and the logical way to make the trip is to drive. It’s true today, just as it was in 1948, when I was a hot-shot sportswriter-police reporter-obituary writer for the Borger News-Herald, thinking about going home to Oklahoma for Christmas.

Driving was a scary option. For one thing, my car was a pre-war Pontiac, one of the last to roll off the assembly line before the factory was converted to tank or truck production, or whatever. You could say it wasn’t ready for the open road, since it had a radiator leak, an oil leak, a cranky transmission and slick tires. Continue reading →

This family had Jack on the rocks

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Daily Capital
Nov. 2, 1960

This is a strange election. Many men who state their choice of either candidate feel compelled to immediately explain that the choice isn’t based on religion. Pollsters and political prophets say in the first paragraph which candidate will win, then use the next 20 paragraphs explaining why the other man could win.

I read a lot about the election, and I gather that it hinges on the “undecided,” vote. You can read that from 6 percent clear up to something like 30 percent of the voters still are undecided. That’s strange to me, too, because I haven’t met a man in weeks who says he is undecided.

My wife is so firmly decided on her vote that she might classify as undecided. She started in the Nixon camp, switched to Kennedy after the first debate, moved back to Nixon and then back to Kennedy in later debates, and now is pretty solidly behind Nixon.

Of course, I haven’t been home in four hours, so that this could have changed. I’m glad, for her sake, that she didn’t see the television programs Sunday afternoon when a lot of the candidates of minor parties were on . . .

In various places, at various hours and with varying degrees of interest and boredom, I’ve heard lively political arguments and seen sizable bets made. Most of these arguments follow the same format. Continue reading →

Stirred but unshaken, cocktails and controversies

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Metro News.
October 14, 2005.

As you know, this column is dedicated to research, and this morning, we turn our attention to the intriguing question of how various alcoholic mixed drinks got their names. It is a worthwhile pursuit. Even teetotalers should want to know the name of the drink they’re not drinking, and how it got that name.

Some, like the Harvey Wallbanger, are easy. Some years ago, the makers of Galliano liqueur, figured out they would sell more of it if it were incorporated into a popular drink. So they invented one, made of Galliano, vodka and orange juice, and called it a Harvey Wallbanger. Continue reading →

Kemper Peacock and the overnight highlights

Posted on by
Reply

Kemper Peacock (second from left), Dick Snider standing

Topeka Capital Journal
Sept. 27, 1985

The College Football Highlights show that appeared on Sunday mornings for 15 years on ABC was one of the most unlikely offerings ever to find its way to television. For one thing, if you understood the logistics, you would say it was impossible.

For another, when it all started, the two men primarily responsible for getting it on the air were TV’s original Odd Couple. One was yours truly, who knew nothing about film or television, and the other was Kemper Peacock, who knew even less about football.

To eliminate confusion, let me say here that Kemper Peacock is not an advertising agency, a law firm, a London park or odd strain of strutting bird. He is a man – a remarkable man. Continue reading →

Uncle Bill, Mr. Braniff and the aviation bug

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Capital Journal
July 10, 1987

Judge Roy Bulkley showed up at the Loafers lunch the other day wearing a new pair of suspenders. He said he’d gone to the Alco store in North Topeka to buy them, and they were such a bargain he bought two pairs.

The pair he had on were wide, and gaudy. But they were doing an admirable job of doing what they were designed to do, which is hold up his pants. He had such confidence in them, he wasn’t wearing a belt.

Still, some smart aleck at the table looked at them and asked, “if you bought two pairs, why are you wearing those?” He was implying, of course, that the other pair had to be better looking.

All this brought on a general discussion of suspenders, and some of the elderly in attendance recalled they once were called galluses. The dictionary says the word comes from gallows, and I suppose the idea there is that pants hang from the end of your suspenders.

Only a couple of us real experts, however, Remember that they also were known as braces. I qualify as an expert because my uncle, Bill Garthoeffner spent much of his life selling them. Continue reading →

Fast food isn’t the part that changed

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Capital Journal.
July 9, 1986

There is a popular notion that the great wide world of grease and salt, known as fast foods is something relatively new, But that is not so. Fast foods have been around a long, long time.

There are more of them now, and they are served in a variety of more attractive places, particularly if you like glitz, But most of them offer basically the same old fare. Fast foods have been around as long as I can remember. Continue reading →

Boggs and Hentzen and stories of the game

Posted on by
Reply

Topeka Capital-Journal
July 26, 1991

Before Frank Boggs retired, every newspaper columnist in the country who knew of him envied him If for no other reason than the fact he wrote seven columns a week and usually was two or three weeks ahead. He could turn on the creative tap and write a week’s worth of stuff in one sitting.

Old timers here will remember him as a member of the Capital-Journal sports staff in the 1950s. He moved on to sports jobs in places like Dallas and San Diego, but then became a newspaper executive who wrote columns as sort of a hobby.

He wound up his career where it started, in Oklahoma City, and he seemed to run things with one hand and write columns with the other. While most columnists sweat blood and wring their hands in despair, Boggs would run them off the assembly line without even a furrowed brow. And, what really burned up his colleagues was that the columns not only were numerous, but also good.

Boggs was in town this week, visiting Bob Hentzen. We played golf Tuesday, and then young insurance mogul Matt McFarland chauffeured us to a Royals game. It was a nice, long day, really spoiled only by having to sit through a sloppy 8-7 contest that lasted more than three hours.

We swapped a lot of stories, and along the way Boggs talked about the fine art of writing a column. He said he actually studied the subject, and said one of the best tips came from Russell Baker, the outstanding humor columnist for the New York Times. Continue reading →