Brubacher's TC tenure turns oddly

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Wednesday, 06 February 2008 17:28

On the surface, all that was left to complete the storied history of Don Brubacher’s tenure at Tabor College was the final chapter. Considering that Don and Janette recently finished building a new home, it was generally assumed they would start and finish their careers in Hillsboro.

All bets are off. Now that Brubacher’s duties have been reassigned and he is athletic director in name only, the final chapter is yet to be written.

Here’s what we know. Brubacher gave his heart and soul to Tabor College for the past 32 years, most notably as a teacher, men’s basketball coach and more recently as athletic director.

His men’s basketball teams won the KCAC title 10 times and two tournament championships. On five occasions his...

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Officials try hard but are not perfect

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Thursday, 31 January 2008 03:37

Officials aren’t perfect. It’s not for lack of effort. More people are working harder than ever before to help officials improve, even those of us who have been officiating for 34 years.

At least one high school league in Kansas uses evaluators to observe the performance of officials. That report gives the officials an unbiased view of how they performed and can be used as a learning tool.

Officiating camps are now the norm. Unfortunately, most camps are geared toward officials interested in working college basketball. More camps are needed for novice officials who want to learn the game and officiate at the high school level.

And camps won’t solve everything. You can teach an official the proper mechanics, but a camp can’t...

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A few resolutions made to be broken

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Wednesday, 09 January 2008 18:37

Resolutions are made to be broken. Maybe that’s why it isn’t my style to make New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps it’s the fear of failure. I don’t know. But I have a hunch that a lot of coaches, athletes and administrators treat resolutions the same way I do.

So, without further adieu, here are New Year’s resolutions that probably will never be made or kept.

Barry Bonds resolves to donate the last year of his salary to the cause of eradicating performance-enhancing drugs in athletics.

Former Atlanta Falcons coach Bobby Petrino, who quit with three games left in the regular season to take the head coaching job with Arkansas, resolves to stay at Arkansas for the rest of his career.

KU basketball coach Bill Self resolves to...

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Bad press is better than no press for college football post-season

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Thursday, 27 December 2007 04:40

The college bowl season may give Excedrin headaches to many pundits, but not for my agent I.M. Slick.

It’s not that Slick believes the Bowl Championship Series, aka BCS, is agreat method for determining a national champion in football, but hebelieves there’s nothing that contributes more to college footballstaying in the news than the BCS.

Joe: Another year of college football; another year of controversy.

Slick: Yeah. This is about as good as it gets. It’s in the news all the time.

Joe: I figured that you’d prefer a playoff system to determine a national champion.

Slick: Nope. The messier, the more political and confusing it is, the better it is for college football. Besides, never has there been this much parity. You used...

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