Category Archives: Football

Fun with lists

June 18, 20094:40 p.m.

If you don’t read Joe Posnanski of The Kansas City Star, you should. His blog is great fun. He is talented, unbelievably prolific and loves Springsteen. Mark Turgeon told me he is the only writer Turgeon ever called to thank after a story. Posnanski wanted something like an hour. Turgeon (without consulting me, obviously) gave him about 20 minutes. Posnanski turned into a story that Turgeon loved.

Posnanski (and readers) are choosing the best basketball, football and baseball player from schools, as well as a wild-card selection. It’s quite a task. I didn’t see any MVC schools represented, so here goes:

Wichita State

Basketball: Dave Stallworth (X will get many votes. People who I know who watched both usually go with Dave.)

Football: Linwood Sexton (Tough one. Sexton and Prince McJunkins are the only Shockers to with numbers retired. Several Shockers had longer pro careers than either.)

Baseball: Joe Carter

Wildcard: Bill Parcells

Bradley

Basketball: Hersey Hawkins (Chet Walker?)

Football: Marcus Pollard (played hoops at BU before going to the NFL)

Baseball: Kirby Puckett (played one season at BU (1981) and hit .378)

Wildcard: Charley Steiner

Creighton

Basketball: Paul Silas

Football: Johnny Knolla (great pizza, for a bonus)

Baseball: Bob Gibson (No. 18 on Creighton’s basketball scoring list)

Wildcard: ??? (Need some help)

Drake

Basketball: Lewis Lloyd

Football: Johnny Bright

Baseball: Lee Stange (Pitched for 10 seasons in the majors)

Wildcard: Zach Johnson (2007 Masters champion)

Evansville

Basketball: Jerry Sloan (Larry Hume?)

Football: Sean Bennett (Former Giants running back. FYI: Evansville won the 1949 Refrigerator Bowl)

Baseball: Andy Benes

Wildcard: Steve Welmer (NCAA basketball referee)

Illinois State

Basketball: Doug Collins

Football: Boomer Grigsby (Help)

Baseball: Dave Bergman

Wildcard: John Malkovich

Indiana State

Basketball: Larry Bird

Football: Vencie Glenn

Baseball: Wallace Johnson

Wildcard: Bruce Baumgartner (Two-time Olympic gold-medal wrestler)

Missouri State

Basketball: Curtis Perry

Football: Brad St. Louis (Help.)

Baseball: Ryan Howard

Wildcard: John Goodman (Kathleen Turner)

Northern Iowa

Basketball: Jason Reese (This is not a school overflowing with basketball tradition)

Football: Kurt Warner

Baseball: Ryan Brunner

Wildcard: Bryce Paup

Southern Illinois

Basketball: Walt Frazier

Football: Jim Hart

Baseball: Dave Stieb (Steve Finley??)

Wildcard: Jim Belushi (Jenny McCarthy, Dennis Franz, Richard Roundtree – MVC’s strongest list of acting alums by a nose over Missouri State)

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Baseball, Basketball, Football | Comments (0)

Q&A with Jim Benson of the Pantagraph

Feb. 18, 200910:25 a.m.

Jim Benson covers Illinois State for the Pantagraph of Bloomington, twin city to Normal, home of the Redbirds.

Q: Have the Redbirds emerged from a tumultuous week a better team, as the win at Drake might suggest? Or are the Redbirds in a bad spot after the Lloyd Phillips leave of absence and return?

A: I definitely saw a better team in the last week. With the Phillips leave of absence and Sead Odzic’s knee injury, the team found some depth it didn’t seem to have a week earlier plus it played more as a team. There was a chemistry on the court that was missing. Whether it had anything to do with Phillips is the big question.

Q: How do you expect coach Tim Jankovich to handle his starting lineup when Phillips returns?

A: Jankovich will probably keep Shipley in the starting lineup and bring Phillips off the bench for the next couple games and maybe the rest of the season. Phillips probably will get Odzic-type minutes, which is about 10-15 minutes a game. The interesting part will be if the game is close down the stretch, whether Shipley or Phillips get the call. Not sure right now how that would play out.

Q: WSU’s bench outscored Illinois State’s bench 23-2 in Koch Arena. Will the ISU reserves play better at home, or is that still a problem for the Redbirds?
A: Brandon Sampay has really played well in the last three weeks or so, plus now Brandon Holtz and Alex Rubin had good games last week without Phillips around. If Phillips come off the bench, that should give the Redbird reserves even more punch. ISU looked like a seven-player rotation two weeks ago, but now it could be 9-10 deep the rest of the season, especially when Odzic returns in a couple weeks. Jankovich has more confidence in some of his subs now.

Q: How much enthusiasm is there for the BracketBusters trip to Niagara around the Redbird basketball office?
A: Actually, the Redbird coaches seem to like the idea of going to Niagara. I think some of them haven’t seen Niagara Falls, so that’s one perk to the trip. Plus, they like getting on ESPN2. ISU volunteered to play on Friday night so it could have an extra day of rest because the Redbirds play Northern Iowa on the following Tuesday. ISU really has nothing to lose at Niagara. The only way the Redbirds go to the Big Dance is by winning the Valley tourney, so a loss won’t bust anything.

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Basketball, Football, MVC media | Comments (0)

Shocker football Q&A

Oct. 15, 200812:01 p.m.

Former Wichitan Brad Justice is the man behind the Website bringbackshockerfootball.com. His goal is to use the Internet to document demand for football at Wichita State. It seems like a quixotic task (tilting at goalposts), but you can’t fault Justice’s enthusiasm. He appears to be going about it the right way, in contrast to attempts to bully WSU’s administration into reviving football. Justice and his partners are determined to keep their efforts positive and work with WSU, should WSU be interested. Justice lives in Kansas City. Read More »

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

For entertainment purposes only

Oct. 9, 200811:01 p.m.

This recent rise in Shocker football interest is a tricky one to handle from a journalistic standpoint.

On one hand, it is a topic that always grabs the attention of people. It’s an interesting and worthy topic to discuss. Some people, for good reasons, take the subject seriously and think WSU desperately needs football. Read More »

By Paul Suellentrop | Filed under Football | Comments (5)

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)