KU's success is no tall tale
Toni Simmons gets paid to tell stories. Folk tales. Inspirational parables. Scary stories. Even the occasional tall tale.
Last Saturday, she spun one that was particularly relevant. It was about a group of animals, starving because of a famine, who need to get advice from a wise lion on where they can find a tree that bears fruit.
They send a gazelle that's fast but has no memory.
They send an elephant, slow and steady and with a memory, but who brags so much he forgets what he went for.
"Then they send the old tortoise, too old, too slow, but he makes it back because he's creative enough to make up a song to help him remember. And he saves everyone," says Simmons, a nationally renowned teller of African folk tales. "Everybody thinks it has to be the fastest or the strongest. But it's the one who perseveres who wins in the end.
"I think that's what happened with Kansas."
Ah, the twist ending. Or is it a tall tale? Depends on your point of view. For Simmons, mother of Jayhawk wide receiver Mark Simmons, what has happened in Lawrence during the time normally reserved for waiting on line for "Late Night in the Phog" opening of basketball practice is that rarest thing in storytelling.
A true story.
This one starts with a football team that couldn't block, tackle or catch the ball a year ago; that lost every Big 12 game by an average margin of 32 points; that had to suffer the indignity of watching the fans at Baylor tear down the goalposts.
It's got some unlikely protagonists. There's Mark Mangino, the no-nonsense coach named who juggled the patience needed to clear out the dead wood with the urgency of trying to win the favor of his new athletic director. There's quarterback Bill Whittemore, a junior-college transfer coming off major surgery on his throwing arm who signed with Kansas because it was his only chance to play against the big boys, if not with them.
The denouement came Saturday. KU, expected to play tag with Baylor for the title of worst team in the Big 12, got another strong performance from Whittemore and stunned No. 23 Missouri 35-14 to go to 4-1. The twist was that the Jayhawks' defense, little more than an inconvenience to opponents for much of the last two years, stifled Tiger quarterback Brad Smith and snuffed out any hopes of a comeback. When the day was done, it was the Memorial Stadium goalposts that were buried -- at the bottom of Potter Lake, the traditional resting place after big wins.
"I caught crap from my family and friends for keeping my helmet on for the postgame TV interview,'' Whittemore said. "But it was chaos. I had to keep the helmet on."
Mangino had been with very successful programs at Kansas State and Oklahoma, coordinating the Sooners' offense in their 2000 national championship year, but when he replaced Terry Allen after the 2001 season, he faced the challenge of getting the players to buy into the program.
"There's the old adage that you don't care about the stock market going up and down if you're not invested," defensive coordinator Bill Young said. "Well, we had to sell them some stock."
And it was a bear market.
Last year, the Jayhawks' offensive line struggled and the receivers dropped almost as many passes as they caught. Whittemore, a lightly recruited 6-foot, 205-pounder who signed with Kansas a couple of days after signing day 2002, was the sole bright spot -- until he sprained his knee with three games left in the season.
Mangino, a former line coach, rebuilt an offensive line that returned only one starter and had the receivers catch tennis balls out of a pitching machine to improve their hands. Their leader is the sure-handed Simmons, whose 26.0 yard-per-catch average puts him among the nation's leaders.
When Whittemore got healthy and the Jayhawks developed a solid runner in sophomore Clark Green, they were in business.
Whittemore, who ranks 10th in the nation in total offense, is clearly the Jayhawks' most valuable player. KU fans hold their breath when he takes off on scrambles, and Mangino has talked about getting his quarterback to slide some.
"The only time I've heard that is when he talks to the press," Whittemore said. "They don't expect me to change."
To help get the defense to come together, coordinator Bill Young tapped another storyteller -- Rudyard Kipling. Safety coach Clint Bowen, who played for the Jayhawks in 1992 when they went to the Aloha Bowl, recalled Kipling's "The Law for the Wolves", which, back in the day, was posted at the back of each defensive player's locker.
Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky.
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
The defenders were told to learn it. Memorize it. More importantly, live it. That's paid off to a point. KU's linebacking corps, led by juco transfer Gabe Toomey, who had originally signed with Oklahoma, can compare with the best units in the Big 12. The front four and secondary, though improved, cannot.
That's why any lasting high from the Missouri win is tempered with a dose of reality. The Jayhawks, who haven't won more than three conference games since 1995, are off this week and then visit Colorado before hosting Baylor. Getting that first winning season since 10-2 in 1995 will be tough -- the Jayhawks' stretch run includes games at Kansas State, at Texas A&M, at home against Nebraska, at Oklahoma State and at home against Iowa State.
"We'll find out real quick how good we are,'' Young said. "We're not under the impression or false illusion we're a great football team. The bubble can burst at anytime."
"We've got a long way to go," Mangino said.
Should the Jayhawks hold it together and get the two wins necessary to make their first bowl game in eight years, it would make a heckuva story.
"I'm sure I'll look in my repertoire and find one," Simmons said. "Maybe the Tortoise and the Hare. Right now, people are sleeping on Kansas. Hopefully, if they do well, I'll find one at the end to tell."
Mark Wangrin covers the Big 12 for the San Antonio Express-News.
- Rumors: MSU coach jabbing Ole Miss
- Feldman: A Week 12 wrap-up
- Heisman Predictor: McCoy is the favorite
- Tools: Game Predictor | PickCenter
- Draft: Mel's Big Board (11/18) | NFL draft blog
