KU fights give new meaning to lack of control

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – So, the Jays and the Hawks – Lawrence’s version of the Sharks and the Jets – took their long-standing feud to the University of Kansas streets, bringing to the surface more than a year’s worth of tension between the men’s basketball and football teams.

Three incidents at three separate campus locations in less than 24 hours.  Police called.  Pictures snapped of players being escorted away by athletics administrators in university vehicles.   KU spin control immediately minimizing everything, and several members of the media quickly buying into it because they either can’t or don’t want to understand the entire scope of what transpired on Mount Oread.

Don’t be fooled.  This is big enough to scare the pen right out of a vest-wearing, rich-living, check-writing athletics donor’s hand.

There is an element of “street” as the athletes involved showed that anytime, anyplace, anyone is part of the equation.   Thug-like behavior, a definite turn-off for donors, goes without saying.  And, yes, there are slight racial overtones, though those have been brought on by onlookers (both media and generally speaking) who are throwing darts in an attempt to neatly label and dismiss the ordeal with a headshake.

No matter the overtones, the bottom line is that this is embarrassing.  Oh, is it embarrassing.  It is a national story.  It is fodder for rival schools.  It leaves the storied Jayhawks with a black eye or, in this case, a dislocated thumb.

As it relates to the big-check writers, you can be sure this ordeal has been the source of a few red faces.  People who can afford to write the multi-million dollar checks have egos that KU’s student-athletes only wish they possessed.  Those egos don’t like to be shown up or be the subject of ridicule – especially by the actions of a bunch of 18-22 year old kids who are fighting over nothing more than who gets to wear the Big Man on Campus crown.

The financial feathers have been ruffled, and from that standpoint, this whole thing matters.  It matters a lot, and the administration has acted in line with that thinking.

Pressure has been applied, and athletic director Lew Perkins, himself embarrassed to a degree by having his written statement immediately trumped by the third fight on Wednesday morning,  has finally decided all of this should end. 

He met with both teams for a spirited chat.   Head basketball coach Bill Self had to cut short a recruiting visit, so he could start “conditioning” a little earlier than anticipated.   Both he and football coach Mark Mangino gave statements that seemed to share the same general sentiment that it was an isolated group of athletes, that the fight wasn’t the blowing up of a long-simmering conflict, that support of the other’s team would continue, any discipline would be an internal matter and it was time to move on.

The timing of events making up the entire two-day drama was bizarre, and there is a perfectly legitimate reason for that – contrary to the point some made that this happens everywhere, it doesn’t.

There was no protocol for handling multiple breakouts of teams-sponsored violence on campus within a matter of hours – no handbook to follow when the institution truly demonstrated a lack of control.

If a plan did exist, an iron-fisted, administrative and public relations pro like Perkins would have been able to put the kibosh on it immediately.  He couldn’t, however, which showed that, for a short time, and maybe for the first time in his tenure at Kansas, Perkins did not have control of his department.

The money let him know that isn’t acceptable, and judging by Perkins’ history and style, he won’t disappoint the money again.


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