If the Olympic torch relay is any indication, China faces a political firestorm as host of the 2008 Summer Games. The torch relay carriers were confronted by protesters in London Sunday and in Paris Monday, where police had to extinguish the flame several times to safeguard it from crowds protesting China’s invasion of Tibet and its human rights abuses.
China hopes the Olympics will burnish its rising stature as a world power, but the games already are turning into a public relations nightmare for China by showcasing the country’s human rights abuses.
True, the games should be about sports, but they’re also unavoidably wrapped up in global politics and prestige.
China is richly deserving of the protests.
Watch a video produced by The Eagle Opinion staff that has fun with the animosity some KU fans still feel toward former Jayhawk coach Roy Williams. Here is a sample of the lyrics (sung to tune of the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Niceâ€):
I’m not ready to make nice
To that two-timing Williams
I’m still mad as hell
At that dirty Chapel-Hillian.
Well, at least the Legislature isn’t spending all its time on the Holcomb coal-plant issue. This week, the House debated a bill to encourage the Kansas State High School Activities Association to use KU’s Memorial Stadium and K-State’s Bill Snyder Family Stadium for state championship high school football games, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. Fortunately, the measure failed on its second vote, though only by 55-68. Supporter state Rep. Arlen Siegfreid, R-Olathe, said that playing at the stadiums would “create a wonderful lifetime experience for young people.†But the association noted that it’s less expensive and more convenient to play at smaller venues across the state. The main questions are: How is this the Legislature’s business? Doesn’t it have real problems to resolve?
To prove itself worthy of hosting the Olympics, China would lay off the human rights abuses and otherwise behave itself, or so the thinking went. But as the August games approach, the Chinese government seems intent on proving itself unworthy — violently cracking down on protests in Tibet and elsewhere, denouncing the Dalai Lama as “the devil,†censoring media and threatening to ban live television broadcasts from Tiananmen Square during the Olympics. Other difficult issues have cropped up, too, including foul air, toxic toys, tensions over Taiwan and China’s support for the government of Sudan. A boycott seems an overreaction, but neither does it suffice for President Bush to argue, as his spokeswoman did last week, that the Olympics “should be about the athletes and not necessarily about politics.â€
Good for the Kansas State High School Activities Association for approving two proposals this week to prevent discrimination against sports officials. The proposals were in response to the recent refusal of St. Mary’s Academy near Topeka to allow a female official to work a boys’ basketball game, because the school didn’t want a woman to be in a position of authority over boys. Member schools are now required to accept qualified officials regardless of race, gender or any other factor that could be construed as discriminatory, Associated Press reported.
Kansas is getting another p.r. hit with the story circulating the national news and blogs this week about a private high school northwest of Topeka that wouldn’t allow a female referee to officiate a boys’ game because the school doesn’t allow women to be in authority over men. The Kansas State High School Activities Association is investigating the report and may prohibit St. Mary’s Academy from playing other teams in the association (though the small school typically only plays a couple of association schools each season).
For those interested, the New York Times has a photo slide show of the amazing play near the end of the Super Bowl when New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning somehow avoided getting sacked and then floated a long pass that receiver David Tyree caught by pinning the ball on top of his helmet. I didn’t really care who won the game, though I was pulling for the underdog Giants.
The person who fired illegally from a pickup truck into a field of goose decoys last month, killing a young hunter, doesn’t deserve to be called a hunter. He’s a poacher. A Topeka man was charged this week in the case, including for involuntary manslaughter, a felony.
This tragic story underscores the importance of observing game laws, which not only help preserve our state’s wildlife resources but also protect other hunters. Fortunately, the vast majority of hunters are safe afield and follow the law. As Eagle outdoors writer Michael Pearce recently observed, hunting is a safe sport. “Kansas sportsmen annually log more than 3 million days afield,†he wrote. “In that vast amount of time they average less than 20 nonfatal accidents and less than one fatality per year.â€
Those accidents are largely caused by people who don’t observe basic gun safety rules.
Thursday’s Orange Bowl between the KU Jayhawks and Virginia Tech Hokies put Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (in photo) in a tough spot: He grew up in Overland Park but holds a job that requires cheering for Virginia teams. He worked it out, though. “I root for the Jayhawks in basketball. I’ve never been a KU football fan,†he told the Washington Post. The KU victory left Kaine owing Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius a ham. If the Hokies had won, Kaine could be asking Sebelius now: Where’s the beef?
Congratulations to the Kansas Jayhawks for proving the doubters wrong and winning the Orange Bowl Thursday night. Many people questioned how good the team was because of its weak nonconference schedule and mediocre Big 12 opponents. But the Hawks proved they belong in a BCS bowl by defeating No. 5 Virginia Tech, 24-21, in a game KU led the entire way.
Of course, what made the 12-1 season so special was that KU wasn’t supposed to be any good this year, as is normally the case. As one fan told The Eagle Thursday, “KU, good in football? That doesn’t even make sense.”
It does now.
Last week’s Mitchell Report on steroid use in Major League Baseball told us what we already know: Athletes want to be the best, and many will do what it takes to make that happen, even if it means cheating.
While we’re conducting a steroids witch-hunt, do we also call into question exceptional athletes who, like Tiger Woods, undergo surgeries to improve eyesight, even beyond 20-20 vision? The better question: Would most people still be as excited about these sports if the participants were not so superhuman?
Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post wrote, “We, the paying customers, don’t want normal-size athletes with normal abilities. We want to see supermen and superwomen performing super feats, and we’re willing to pay these gladiators a fortune. Why should they disappoint us? Why should we expect them to?â€
Posted by Kristin Mehler
Barry Bonds doesn’t deserve to bear all the weight of scrutiny and sanctions for steroid abuse in pro baseball. The long-awaited Mitchell report on steroid use among Major League Baseball players released Thursday named plenty of other big-name stars, most notably pitching legend Roger Clemens, whose mound performance showed "remarkable improvement" after he used the drug, according to the report.
That’s why steroids hurt — they work. Players who go by the rules rightly feel that doped athletes have an unfair advantage.
As the report shows, Bonds had plenty of company. Maybe the entire Steroids Era in baseball deserves an asterisk.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
As the Missouri-Kansas rivalry plays out in an epic football game Saturday, most Americans — and perhaps some Kansans — won’t realize it also goes deep into the nation’s history of abolition. Kansas’ anti-slavery border warriors even gave KU a name for its mascot, the Jayhawkers. The fear and loathing go way back but fit the mood this week, as the Wall Street Journal found, describing a Tigers fan wearing a University of Missouri football jersey with the name “Quantrill†(named for William Quantrill, whose 1863 guerrilla raid on Lawrence left 150 dead), then a University of Kansas shirt featuring an image of John Brown and the words “Kansas: Keeping America safe from Missouri since 1854.â€
There is room for argument about the better football team, but picking the better state history is no contest (even though the bloody incursions went both ways). We’re with Heather Knox, a KU alumna and accountant in Kansas City, Mo., who told the Journal: “They’re the slave state. We’re the free state. Look who won out in the end.â€
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The Colorado Rockies are in the World Series for the first time, after coming back on a 21-1 game run. They clinched a spot in the playoffs on a whisper of a play and proceeded to sweep the division and league titles.
It leaves people wondering if Colorado isn’t getting a little boost from above.
General manager Dan O’Dowd acknowledges that he tries to populate his organization with players with integrity and values, regardless of religious preference. The team holds weekly chapel and Bible study, and adheres to what’s been described as a “Christian-based code of conduct.”
O’Dowd stopped short of saying that God put his unlikely team in the World Series, but says that if it were any other organization, “I would not be here.”
Posted by Kristin Mehler
San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds is on the verge of breaking Hank Aaron’s homerun record — but his achievement is being overshadowed by allegations of steroid use and bad personality disorder.
That’s right — Bonds apparently isn’t all that likable. Well, neither was Ted Williams, another legendary hitter. That doesn’t disqualify either man from the record books.
The doping allegation is more serious. But even with his steroid cloud, or asterisk, you have to acknowledge Bonds as one of the greatest athletes ever.
Plenty of other baseball players have used performance-enhancing drugs who haven’t begun to match Bonds’ achievements at the plate. Clearly, he has inherent skills and drive and focus that don’t come from drugs. He still has to get up there and hit the ball, game after game.
Give the man his due. He’s earned his batting laurels.
A much bigger scandal, it seems to me, is the one involving NBA referee Tony Donaghy, whose alleged mob ties and game-fixing strike at the very heart of the integrity of the sport.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Congratulations to the Wichita State University baseball team for winning its regional Monday night and getting to host University of California-Irvine in a best-of-three super regional beginning Saturday at Eck Stadium. It’s been a bit of an up and down season, but it’s certainly concluding on a high.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
If you’ve ever felt the urge to catch giant catfish with your bare hands — and who hasn’t? — then listen up. Kansas is about to open its first-ever season for hand fishing for flathead catfish, a practice commonly called “noodling.”
This is an old Midwest tradition in which fishermen search for holes in riverbanks or lake bottoms and then reach in and feel for lurking catfish, which bite down on their bare hands. Then you simply pull them out.
“If you’re not bleeding, you’re not noodling,” says one aficionado of the sport.
We’ll take his word for it.
Congratulations to Gregg Marshall, the new coach of the Wichita State University men’s basketball team. It sounds like a mutually beneficial match — a regular at the Big Dance with the small but mighty Winthrop, and a stronger conference team eager to build on its recent Sweet 16 success. Just a week after Mark Turgeon’s jump to Texas A&M, it’s hard not to share WSU athletic director Jim Schaus’ enthusiasm about the future of the Shocker brand. Maybe together, Marshall and WSU can get the glory and respect they deserve.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Major League Baseball honored trailblazer Jackie Robinson Sunday on the 60th anniversary of his big-league debut. Here’s another legend, Henry “Hank” Aaron, on why:
“They say certain people are bigger than life, but Jackie Robinson is the only man I’ve known who truly was. In 1947 life in America — at least my America, and Jackie’s — was segregation. It was two worlds that were afraid of each other. There were separate schools for blacks and whites, separate restaurants, separate hotels, separate drinking fountains and separate baseball leagues. Life was unkind to black people who tried to bring those worlds together. It could be hateful. But Jackie Robinson, God bless him, was bigger than all of that.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
In less than a week, two of the state’s three largest universities have lost their head basketball coaches. But Mark Turgeon’s decision Monday to leave Wichita State University for Texas A&M is easier to take than Bob Huggins’ departure from K-State for West Virginia — even though Turgeon will be missed more. Turgeon spent seven seasons at WSU, while Huggins was at K-State only one year. So WSU fans can appreciate how much time and effort Turgeon spent rebuilding the Shocker program. And because Turgeon is a nice person, it is difficult not to be glad for him. The same can’t be said for Huggins.
On a side note, we tried to imagine during our editorial board meeting today an English or history professor getting a front-page spread in The Eagle if he or she left for another job. Of course, English professors also don’t do Spangles commercials.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
It’s understandable how former K-State basketball coach Bob Huggins was drawn to accepting his dream job of coaching at his alma mater, West Virginia University. "I don’t know how many years I have left, and this is the job I have always wanted," Huggins, 53, told the Manhattan Mercury. "I’ve always wanted to come home."
But bolting from K-State after just one year isn’t fair to the university, its fans or the players, especially the new recruits who signed letters of intent to attend KSU and play for Huggins.
Do K-State officials share blame by hiring Huggins, who didn’t exactly have an ethical reputation? Is this another example of what’s wrong with major college sports, which is no longer about students and academics but about entertainment and big money? Do you care?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
We were pretty hard on then-Rep. Todd Novascone, R-Wichita, for introducing legislation in 2004 that would have forced the University of Kansas and Wichita State University men’s basketball teams to play each other for the first time since 1993. (One spoof headline from the time: “NEW NOVASCONE BILL REQUIRES WSU TO RESTART FOOTBALL PROGRAM, PLAY K-STATE; But to Even Things, Wildcats Can’t Wear Pads or Helmets.) It still seems like an issue way out of the Legislature’s purview. But one thing about the bill now seems prescient: It would have applied to the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons, when WSU returned to the Sweet Sixteen and surpassed KU (temporarily) in rankings, respectively.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The WSU men’s basketball team has proved that last year’s Sweet 16 finish was no fluke, having already beaten two ranked teams and another Final Four team from last year — all on their home courts. As a result, the undefeated Shockers are now ranked No. 10 in the Associated Press poll (two places ahead of KU). Hats off to coach Mark Turgeon for scheduling quality nonconference games and to the team for playing so well.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
It’s hard to argue with Wichita Wranglers owner Bob Rich’s assessment of why the city is losing the team, as finally explained via a sister publication of the Wichita Business Journal:
Compared with Wichita State University’s baseball program and Rich’s own National Baseball Congress World Series, Rich said, “The Wichita Wranglers are probably a bad third out of the three” in public support. He added: “Even when they announced the possibility that the team was going to leave, the attendance needle didn’t move at all. I really don’t think (the Wranglers) are truly part of that community.”
Makes you wonder what kind of attendance the team will manage for 2007, before it moves to Springdale, Ark.
Another cause for concern: The article’s headline said Rich is “almost certain” the NBC tournament will stay in Wichita. “I think what will happen is we’ll sign up a long-term agreement to (keep) the NBC, which they love, and they go there in record numbers,” Rich said.
It’s up to city officials to seal that deal.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
WuShock’s streamlined new look, unveiled last weekend, might disappoint some Shocker fans who liked the quirky — OK, downright weird and scary — appearance of the old Wumeister.
But face it: When the venerable Wichita State University mascot keeps falling down on the sidelines and can’t get up, it doesn’t exactly inspire fear. Something needed to be done.
The new design’s shorter head and lighter, more mobile suit should help Wu pull his weight as team mascot and cheerleader.
Still, WSU really should consider bringing back the hula skirt — that really messed with the minds of opposing teams.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
If the Olympic torch relay is any indication, China faces a political firestorm as host of the 2008 Summer Games. The torch relay carriers were confronted by protesters in London Sunday and in Paris Monday, where police had to extinguish the flame several times to safeguard it from crowds protesting China’s invasion of Tibet and its human rights abuses.
