Kansas Celebrates 100th Year in Grand Style

If Kansas’ players were nervous before Sunday’s game against Missouri at Lawrence, Kan., could anybody have blamed them?

There was more than just a national television audience watching as Kansas beat Missouri, 80-70. In the audience at Allen Fieldhouse to help celebrate 100 years of Jayhawk basketball were almost 300 former players and coaches.

They included Dean Smith, who played on Kansas’ 1952 NCAA championship team and then coached North Carolina to 879 victories; Larry Brown, who coached Kansas’ 1988 NCAA championship season, and Danny Manning, the star of that ’88 team and perhaps the greatest Jayhawk of all time next to Wilt Chamberlain.

Include NFL Hall-of-Famer Gale Sayers, an All-America running back for the Jayhawks in the mid-60s who was sitting in the sixth row, and Allen Fieldhouse was filled with celebrities. One who was missing was Chamberlain, who recently was in Allen Fieldhouse when his jersey was retired.

“It was amazing,” said center T.J. Pugh. “Those are some really great figures of the history of this place. Seeing all those people up close that you’ve always heard about, getting to meet them--it just gave me chills.”

The former coaches and players, some of whom took part Saturday in a “Kansas Legends” game that sold out the 16,300-seat Allen Fieldhouse, were paraded onto the court and introduced during timeouts and halftime of the game. There also was a banquet Saturday night in which the current players got to attend.

Ages of the former Jayhawks ranged from 23-year-old Jacque Vaughn to 88-year-old Ted O’Leary.

Final Four and NCAA championship teams were led onto the court during each timeout and introduced by name, starting with the team that reached the 1940 Final Four.

The most poignant moment was probably when the 1957 team that lost to North Carolina in triple-overtime in the NCAA championship game came on to the floor. Everyone walked except Johnny Parker, who was pushed along in a wheelchair. As the fieldhouse rocked with applause, everybody smiled but Parker, who had tears streaming down his deeply lined face.

“It was great to meet them all and talk with them at the banquet,” said point guard Ryan Robertson. “But it is kind of a relief now that it’s all in the past.”