Monthly Archives: September 2008

Turn on the lights at Eck Stadium

Sept. 29, 20087:33 p.m.

I am back from a week’s vacation, which I needed to prepare for the Shocker baseball fall series. I spent the week selecting canned foods for my donation to the Kansas Food Bank, the traditional price of admission to the fall series at Eck Stadium. Read More »

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Baseball | Comments (4)

Little bit of basketball

Sept. 19, 20086:45 p.m.

Here’s some basketball stuff while dodging volleyballs courtside at Koch Arena: Read More »

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball | Comments (0)

Q&A with Lindsey Eckenrode

Sept. 17, 200812:59 p.m.

Wichita State outside hitter Lindsey Eckenrode, a junior from The Woodlands, Texas, leads the team with 14 service aces and her average of 2.59 kills a set is second.

Q: You’re in the starting lineup and you have your mini-volleyball ready to throw during introductions – how do you decide where in the arena you are going to aim?

A: If I have family there, they’re first choice. After that, whoever I see that I know first, I try to throw it over there. It usually doesn’t make it.

Q: Guess the crowd for Friday’s match against Missouri State at Koch Arena.

A: I’m going to go with 4,500. Hopefully, it will be more.

Q: Which is the best match played by WSU this season?

A: That’s hard. Cal Poly (a 3-2 victory in August). We never gave up and we had to play hard through that entire thing.

Q: What’s the best thing about being ranked No. 16 in the nation?

A: It being school history, in the record books.

  • WSU says about 500 advance tickets have been sold for Friday’s match against Missouri State. A large walk-up crowd is expected. The first 1,000 fans receive a free WSU volleyball T-shirt. WSU set a school record with a crowd of 6,122 against MSU last season.
By Paul Suellentrop | Tags: Filed under volleyball | Comments (0)

Wu under attack

Sept. 16, 200812:29 p.m.

A Web site called Ugly Fugly judges Wu-Shock the nation’s worst college logo. SI.com calls attention to the site.

Is this news? Does it matter, other than to prove too many people know how to work the Internet? Let’s just point out Shockers is short for Wheatshockers (the original nickname) and it is STALK of wheat not STOCK of wheat and move on. Wu can fairly be called weird, bizarre, even ugly to some tastes. There are reproduction issues when it is used in a small size. However, as a logo, it is unique and memorable (same thing goes for the Jayhawk).

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Start the hypin’ and hatin’

Sept. 16, 200811:41 a.m.

Athlon’s won the race to get its college basketball preview magazine on the shelves first. I think I fell in love with preview magazines the first time I saw Darnell Valentine on the cover of Street and Smith’s. I still own that magazine.

I learned to hate preseason magazines soon after, when Street and Smith’s (for reasons I still don’t understand) put Notre Dame’s John Paxson on the cover in consecutive years. One time, OK. Twice? What a disappointment. Street and Smith’s All-America team included Ralph Sampson, Cliff Levingston, James Worthy and Dominique Wilkins (in addition to Paxson). Why not one of them?

Stupid Notre Dame. It’s not even a basketball school.

So now you understand that I am invested in preview magazines, probably to an unhealthy degree. Even given their limitations, they are a sign basketball season is coming. In the pre-Internet, pre-ESPN age, those magazines provided a rare glimpse into strange and wonderful teams from across the country.

Athlon’s is out. I know this because I did the MVC preview for the magazine and I spend free time moving Athlon’s to prominent spots on shelves, in front of Wrestler’s Digest and Teen Beat.

My picks:

  1. Creighton
  2. SIU
  3. Illinois State
  4. Drake
  5. Northern Iowa
  6. Bradley
  7. Wichita State
  8. Indiana State
  9. Evansville
  10. Missouri State

You will have to buy the magazine (get two at the low, low price of $6.99) to get the whys. Writing these things is an interesting exercise, largely because of the July 10 deadline. A lot can happen in July and August, and it is easy to look out of touch. You push the button to send the stories, and cross your fingers nobody gets hurt or booted in the next three months.

The other issue is audience. Are you writing an MVC preview for the hard-core MVC fan? Or are you writing the MVC preview for the Big East fan who wants a quick look at who matters in the Valley? I think there is some of both. In the space allotted, there is not much I can tell the passionate Creighton fan he or she doesn’t already know. I can give the Drake fans a summary of what is going at Creighton. I can give fans an idea about where their team might sit in relation to other teams.

Regardless, the basketball season is near and the arrival of the preview mags is one bright-and-glossy sign. What are your MVC picks?

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball | Comments (0)

Fall series schedule

Sept. 15, 200811:47 a.m.

Here is your fall series schedule:

October 1 – 7 p.m.

October 4 – 2:30 p.m. (alumni/parent weekend)

October 7 – 7 p.m.

October 9 – 7 p.m.

October 12 – 7 p.m.

October 14 – 7 p.m.

October 15 – 7 p.m.

As always, a donation of canned food is appreciated.

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Baseball | Comments (0)

P.J. off to Europe

Sept. 12, 200812:00 p.m.

Former Shocker P.J. Couisnard leaves Wichita today on his way to Hungary, where he will play for Soproni. Karon Bradley played for this team last season, but apparently has left the team.

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball | Comments (0)

Don Haskins vs. the Shockers

Sept. 12, 200811:35 a.m.

Former UTEP coach Don Haskins, 78, died Sunday. Most of his memorials focused on the 1966 NCAA champion Miners, who have been the subject of several books and the Disney movie “Glory Road.” That road passed briefly through Wichita, where UTEP (then Texas Western) played Oklahoma City at the Roundhouse on March 7, 1966 in a first-round NCAA Tournament game.

In Wichita, Haskins started a lineup of five blacks, just as he famously did in the championship game against Kentucky.  Star guard Bobby Joe Hill did not start as punishment for missing bed check (according to “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down” by Frank Fitzpatrick, an excellent book on the season). Harry Flournoy, David Lattin, Nevil Shed, Orsten Artis and Willie Worsley (in place of Hill) started. Hill came off the bench to lead the Miners with 24 points in the 89-74 win over Oklahoma City. Houston (with Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney) beat Colorado State 82-76 in the first game of the doubleheader.

1966 Texas Western Miners

Mike Kennedy, now radio voice of Wichita State athletics, was a student at Southeast High and attended the UTEP-Oklahoma City game. Read More »

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball | Comments (0)

It’s September, where is our football team?

Sept. 11, 20083:46 p.m.

I like football. Most people like football. Most people think football would be fun to have at Wichita State, especially if it didn’t cost any money. There are some who feel WSU will never be “whole” without Saturday afternoon football. There are others who remember an empty stadium and losing seasons and, frankly, don’t miss it a whole lot.

Football advocates point out the positives, real and imagined, of reviving the sport. No doubt, there are some positives. We just don’t know if the positives are enough to make it worthwhile. We do know WSU’s athletic department is in fine shape, financially and competitively, without football these days.

Here is the reality at two schools in similar positions to WSU: San DIego State and Memphis. Those stories sound a lot like the WSU football story in 1986.

Links courtesy of The Wiz of Odds.

Totally by coincidence, a site devoted to reviving Shocker football is up and running today after an earlier aborted start. Brad Justice, a former WSU student, has put together a nice website (I wonder what game the lead picture is from) and makes a passionate plea.

Some of the arguments are flawed (football advocates never mention WSU’s highest enrollment came in 1989, three years after the program folded). There is no mistaking some people remain interested in WSU football. Is it enough?

Power to the people. I don’t expect Eric Sexton to start ordering pads and helmets soon, but you never know.

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Football | Comments (2)

Brent passes around his brain

Sept. 3, 20087:56 p.m.

Tuesday’s pitchers meeting represented a chance for Wichita State pitching coach Brent Kemnitz to revamp and revitalize his approach. New pitchers packed the team room in Eck Stadium for the first meeting of the fall with Kemnitz. It was the closest thing to a fresh start in Kemnitz’s 31 seasons at WSU. If anything needed an overhaul, here was the opportunity.

Nonsense. Why change a thing? Read More »

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Baseball | Comments (1)