If you had asked me what players on the two Wichita State basketball teams I covered from 1985-87 would become successful businessmen, I’m not sure Tom Kosich would have been part of the conversation. He was an easy-going, life-of-the-party kind of guy (probably still is) who seemed to have no plan for his life, other than to enjoy it. And now? He’s president of Noodle Inc., a telecom service company with headquarters in the San Francisco area. He is also on the Board of Directors for the WSU Alumni Association and was in town last year to as part of the Distinguished Alumni Speaker Breakfast Series. On Tuesday, his company sent out a news release saying it had bought naming rights to the bullpen at Eck Stadium and would name it in honor of Shocker pitching coach Brent Kemnitz, a close friend of Kosich’s.
Not bad for a guy whose sole job the first year I covered the team (he was red-shirting because of a bad back) was to carry Gene Smithson’s dry erase board on road trips. He was a role player the next season, where his main job was trying to get new coach Eddie Fogler — a Dean Smith disciple — to lighten up a bit. The famous story that season was when Fogler was telling the team before it departed for a trip to Hawaii that “Honolulu in December is not that great.” Kosich’s reported response: “Coach, I’ve been to Terre Haute in February and it’s not that great either.”
Went to my niece’s wedding over the weekend. The service was in Junction City and the reception in Manhattan. I don’t think you can drive two miles in either of those cities without seeing new construction. A lot of it is residential, in part because of the anticipated return of more troops to Fort Riley (there also appears to be a lot of construction on base, too.) But there also is a lot of retail and commercial, including a mixed-use development planned near the Manhattan mall.
Some locals think developers may have overbuilt on the residential side. Earlier media reports said that returning base personnel found the new housing too expensive. Still, both towns are really hopping.
The GAO is supposed to decide by June 19 on Boeing’s protest over the Pentagon awarding the tanker contract to the Northrop Grumman/EADS team. In the interim, both sides continue their ceaseless salvo of news releases about the topic.
The latest is from the Northrop Grumman folks, who crank out material at an impressive pace. It’s a letter from Jo Bonner, a Congressman from Alabama whose district will be home to a new Airbus plant if that side holds onto the contract. (FYI, Northrop spells it “Joe” but it’s “Jo.”) Rep. Bonner, as you might guess, is feeling good about life, as opposed to Rep. Todd Tiahrt of Wichita, whose latest mission in life is to overturn the Pentagon’s decision and get the contract back for Boeing.
Bonner’s letter is to other members of Congress, telling them not to interfere with the GAO process. He also says the contract will mean great things for the Mobile area he represents, and for America (feel free to hum “God Bless America”):
Imagine, too, that an old Air Force base in your district, shuttered in 1964, will once again come alive with the sound of rivet guns in the cause of our national defense.
One curious thing about Rep. Bonner’s letter: He doesn’t mention that EADS or Airbus will build the tanker along with Northrop Grumman. Why is that?
I drive by the Intrust Bank Arena every morning on my way to work. It’s neat to see the progress being made on the structure and realize this thing is finally going to get built. It also strikes me as odd every morning that tucked in next to the arena is Ray Sales, the little mom-and-pop grocery store.
The differences are striking: massive $200 million arena next to neighborhood grocer with handmade signs in the window. Is there another arena in America that has a business next store advertising cans of pop for 40 cents?
As the city puts together its development plan for the arena neighborhood, how will a grocery store fit in? Will it?
One of the interesting sidenotes to come out of the Bill Warren/Old Town saga last week was the mention by Mayor Carl Brewer that he knew Oscar’s — Warren’s sports bar that is attached to the theater — was in trouble because, “I took an Indian delegation in there and it was empty.†I love sports bar (I’m particularly fond of Players) but I don’t think I would take a visiting foreign delegation there. Was Larkspur that crowded? Or was there a cricket match the delegation wanted to watch?
So if you were in charge of a foreign delegation for lunch, where would you take them? Or not take them?