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On the Front Lines
Central Kansas
Two days into fall football practice at Coffeyville Community College in 1990, Travis Francis duplicated the ACL injury he had suffered in high school at Silver Lake. His brief college football career cut short, he returned home crushed.
“My goal was to play college football,” says Francis, now manager of Via Christi’s Department of Outreach Sports Medicine. “But I found out my body can’t handle this type of activity.”
... More 
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The 10 Commandments of Coaching Leadership
Central Kansas
Coaching and leadership have always been intertwined. If leadership is, as G. Yukl suggests in Leadership in Organizations, “the application of intentional influence in order to achieve a desired result,” then coaching is leadership in practice.
The universal principles that apply to effective leadership also apply to successful coaching and can be articulated as the 10 Commandments of coaching leadership.
Commandment #1: Thou shalt not blame... More
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Wendy’s High School Heisman Award Excels in Kansas
Central Kansas
For eight generations, the Heisman name has signified excellence, determination, and prestige among college football’s elite. In 1994, the next level of outstanding achievers ensconced their names into Heisman lore when the Wendy’s High School Heisman was created.
The program has set the standard for high school student-athletes and gained tremendous prestige. Each fall, the program recognizes the nation’s most esteemed high school seniors for excellence in academics, athletics,... More
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Cross Country Can Be Too Far
Central Kansas
At age seventeen, my oldest sister Liz liked to run. She had more medals dangling from her South High letter jacket than a World War II general.
Liz ran cross country. She was, you know, one of those guys and gals who could run for hours at a time with wind to spare. I, on the other hand, would run 90 feet to first base and be gasping.
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Hayes’ Kansas All-Time High School Football Team
Central Kansas
Kansas has never fallen short of producing major college football prospects. With senior running back Bryce Brown returning at Wichita East as one of the nation’s hottest high school seniors, 2008 looks to be another banner year for the Sunflower State’s reputation for being a hotbed of football talent.
Brown, who is already verbally committed to the Miami Hurricanes, ranks as one of the greatest players in state history.... More
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5,000 Teams and Counting
Central Kansas
Fifteen years ago, Greg Raleigh held a 69-team youth basketball tournament in Newton. In early June, 15 years after the first edition of the tournament, it hosted 700 teams playing at approximately 50 different sites located in the greater Wichita area. Mid-America Youth Basketball’s flagship tournament, the Summer Kickoff, has become one of the deepest youth basketball fields in the nation.
“We really had no vision for MAYB when... More
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Learning the Job
Central Kansas
When I took this job last May, I didn’t have a clue about the prep football landscape in Kansas. Absent from our state for the past decade, suddenly I was faced with putting together a preview of the 2007 season for the magazine’s first issue in August.
The most recent first-hand knowledge I had of local football was the West-Northwest matchup in 1993 at Carpenter Stadium. Nine years... More
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Memories From Our Columnists
Central Kansas
By Ted Hayes
Defending champ and perennial state powerhouse Silver Lake entered the Class 3A football state title game this past fall boasting a 27-game winning streak. But Garden Plain sent them back to Shawnee County with the streak shattered in a 48-7 blowout. For me, it was the most memorable game of the 2007-08 prep sports year, as it was a rematch of the 2006 title game and... More
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Long Way Home
Central Kansas
Do dreams come true? Well, read on.
Imagine doing undergraduate, graduate and professional schooling for a decade, then carrying out residency and fellowship work for another six years in order to enter your field of choice. Finishing such a long preparatory road might be satisfaction enough.
But what if you wanted to live in the location of your choice? Sixteen years of hard work and devotion (away from... More
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Top 5 things graduating seniors need for college:
Central Kansas
Alarm clock
This might be the most important tool that any incoming freshman can have. A good alarm clock with a good snooze feature will become very beneficial. As a general rule, the more annoying that the tone is, the better. A good alarm clock is especially necessary for those students that have 8 a.m. classes (everyone will at some point). In addition, the college life is so hectic, that... More
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Top 5 things graduating seniors need for college:
Central Kansas
Alarm clock
This might be the most important tool that any incoming freshman can have. A good alarm clock with a good snooze feature will become very beneficial. As a general rule, the more annoying that the tone is, the better. A good alarm clock is especially necessary for those students that have 8 a.m. classes (everyone will at some point). In addition, the college life is so hectic, that... More
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Parking Lot of Gold!
Central Kansas
I drove a 1976 Pontiac Trans-Am to South High in the mid-80s. It was the last of the muscle cars, a varity of which at that time lined the Titan parking lot. It seemed everywhere you looked back in the ’80s, everyone had a late ’60s or early ’70s hot rod.
Most were rusted out. If we’d known they would pull some of the dollars they are these days, we... More
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My All-Time Kansas high school all-star teams
Central Kansas
While watching ESPN count down its list of the 25 greatest players in men’s NCAA basketball history last month, I wondered what a similar list of the 25 greatest Kansas high school players would look like. Old guys and especially old sportswriters love this type of thing, and since I qualify as an old guy who still loves sports and especially the history of sports in Kansas, I decided to... More
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A New Way to Take Batting Practice
Central Kansas
A simulated figure of a pitcher appears on the mound in front of the batter via a video projector and a white screen. Soon the pitcher, right or left-handed depending on how the instructor has programmed the computer, will release a baseball through a hole in the white screen, showing its seams as a breaking ball or a blazing white fastball.
Just as in a live at-bat, the batter... More
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March can be Maddening, at least in Kansas
Central Kansas
Okay, first let me say it's just a dream. I've never looked into the ifs and ands, whats and buts, and why nots and no ways: it's just a dream of mine.
March is no doubt 90 percent of sports fans’ greatest month of the year. There is nothing – I repeat nothing – as fun and special as the NCAA Tournament for basketball players and fans. So... More
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The KSHSAA Board of Directors voted in September to permit coaches in basketball, volleyball and football to coach their teams...
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Its Own Community
by: Randy Fisher
Family. A simple-sounding word with a myriad of meanings.
People usually think of a family in the traditional...
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A collection of this month's best action photos.
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