Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

You know, I did this type of post last week and here I am doing it again. Am I in a rut already? Can’t be true.

But here we go

• The KBCA all-star game is tonight in Topeka. Our own Jonathan Long will bet there, checking out the games. I know one reader who e-mailed me was especially interested in watching the final high school game for Southeast’s Jordan Cyphers, Adonis Gantt and Cortez Barnes — and they’ll be playing for Carl Taylor. Can’t beat that.

Will you go to the game? Do you care about all-star games?

• OK, on to Joe Brown. I talked with Carroll football coach Alan Schuckman (an admitted reader of the blog, mind you) this morning because I had a question on his football survey. (Aside: Schuckman is always one of the earliest to send in his survey, another reason to like him, but he was the second one this year. The honor of being the first goes to Campus’ Tom O’Connor, a former assistant under Schuckman. Alas, when I opened up the Campus survey yesterday, it was all jibberish — and that’s not what O’Connor intended. So he sent me a new one.)

Anyway, Schuckman had listed on his survey the first practice time as 3:30 a.m. on Aug. 18. I was blown away. I mean, there are those programs that have midnight madness on the night that they can start wearing pads, but this was amazing. While I know football coaches are a little on the crazy side, I did think it was a typo. Sure enough, it was.

But during the course of the conversation, Schuckman said that Joe Brown was hurt in June at the KU camp. He broke a leg, had a plate and screws inserted and won’t be back until probably midway through the season. Most of you know about Joe Brown. He played at tight end last year and was honorable mention All 5A. Rightfully so, he was expected to be a huge part of this team, athletically and leadership-wise.

Now, he still can be, but this does hurt Carroll early. Carroll’s first two games? Heights and Northwest. Whew.

How will Carroll handle this loss?

• I saw a story on the Associated Press wire about the lack of Hispanics on the U.S.  Olympic team. Hispanics are 15 percent of the country’s population but about four percent are on the team.

There was an interesting quote from distance runner Jorge Torres, who said: “We’re still a young culture — many of us are first-generation Americans. The priorities for my parents weren’t sports — they were to put bread on the table, to move ahead and become good American citizens.”

I think it’s only a matter of time before more hispanics start playing sports. I know some coaches from Garden City, which has a large hispanic population, who have worked especially hard to get those kids out for sports. Wrestling is a good example.

I do think that the large hispanic population, which didn’t have many kids playing football, in Liberal was a key to that program not being so dominant as it was in the past. When a large portion of your school’s population doesn’t play, it does affect how many athletes you have.

Your thoughts?

Onto the Olympics. I can’t wait. I love the Olympics, even in the prettily packaged format that NBC brings us. I love track and field (specifically the sprints), men’s and women’s volleyball, beach volleyball, swimming. And while I want to see the U.S. kick some serious butt, I like to hear the stories of athletes from other countries.

So, will you be watching the Olympics?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 12:42 p.m. and is filed under Basketball, Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.