Thursday, Sept. 9, 1999 | 11:02 a.m.
Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at ron @ lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.
The K-Car was pretty much a joke, and so is the K-Ball, according to most NFL kickers and punters.
The K-Ball, so called because of the initial (for kicker) that will be stamped on it, will make its regular-season debut this weekend. There will be 12 such footballs delivered to the officials' locker room before each game, and, as in the past, they will be subbed in prior to kicking plays.
But unlike in the past, the home team won't have access to the balls 36 hours before game time. That allowed equipment managers, kickers and punters plenty of time to doctor them with various distance-improving remedies and concoctions.
One story even had kickers injecting the balls with helium. But most were content to use less blatant methods to soften the leather, spread the seams and expand the bladder which, in theory, makes the ball fly higher and farther.
While it seems prudent not to allow the footballs to be folded, spindled or mutilated prior to game day -- lest you think the umpires should have allowed the devious Gaylord Perry to rub up the very same baseballs he was going to pitch with -- the specialists are none too pleased.
"Personally, I think they overreacted," Minnesota's Gary Anderson told the St. Petersburg Times. "It's like telling a tennis player 'You're a real good server, so we gotta give you a soft ball so you can't serve as hard.' "
Anderson, it should be noted, was 35-for-35 in field goals last season.
Tampa Bay GM Rich McKay, co-chairman of the league's competition committee, isn't exactly sympathetic.
"I know there there's some kickers who are nervous that they actually have to kick (legal) footballs, but that's the way it's going to be," he said.
Added Raiders kicker Michael Husted: "You will see a lot of guys struggling this season. You are not going to see many 50-yard-plus field goals or even attempts. I'll tell you one thing: You won't see any 63-yarders this year."
Some kickers predict kickoffs will be 10 yards shorter and punts 5-10 yards shorter than with last year's souped-up balls.
"It'll definitely change the game," the Packers' Ryan Longwell said. "The NFL did it, I believe, to put the return back into the game and take the touchback out."
* NO PEPPER ALLOWED: They should take one of those "No Pepper Allowed" signs that you see around some major league backstops and post one in a college football end zone near you.
The Mile High Stadium security force was overzealous, to say the least, in hosing down Colorado State students with pepper spray to prevent them from tearing down the goalposts following CSU's stunning 41-14 victory over in-state rival Colorado last weekend.
Tearing down the goalposts is one of college football's most grand and time-honored traditions. I say let the kids have their fun (within reason), then bill the winning team's athletic department for the cost and installation of new posts, if you must.
It's either that, or stop hiring rent-a-cops endorsed by Daryl Gates.
* AROUND THE HORN: Nevada-Reno can't be pleased about TCU, SMU and Tulsa talking about bolting from what remains of the Western Athletic Conference to join Conference USA. Those defections would all but destroy the WAC, just as UNR is about to enter it. ... Remember Radek Bonk, the former Las Vegas Thunder heartthrob who went on to play for the Ottawa Senators? As of now, he's out of the NHL due to a contract dispute and will play this year with HC Pardubice in his native Czech Republic. ... This week marked the anniversary of the first forward pass -- and it wasn't the brainchild of Notre Dame's legendary coach Knute Rockne, as the movies would have you believe. Brad Robinson, a tailback for St. Louis University, tossed the first forward pass during the second half of a 22-0 victory over Carroll College of Wisconsin on Sept. 5, 1906. It fell incomplete. B ut on the Billikens' next series, Robinson fired the pigskin to teammate Jack Schneider for a big-gainer, and the passing game was born. ...
The most expensive ticket in college football this year is $50 for Cal at Stanford. But Chelsea Clinton will be glad to learn it's also possible to see Stanford-Notre Dame and Stanford-UCLA for a miniscule $4 with a ticket coupon. ... New direction: Northeast Louisiana and Southwest Louisiana have changed their names to Louisiana-Monroe and Louisiana-Lafayette, respectively. One of these days, the new names will seem as legit as Texas-El Paso. Today, they just seem weird. ... According to testimony in Jim Brown's domestic abuse trial, 18 cops were sent to Brown's home to quell a disturbance between the NFL Hall of Famer and his wife Monique. The dispatcher must have seen that old film clip, where 11 Philadelphia Eagles in shoulder pads couldn't bring down Brown, and figured it would take at least 18 peace officers to do the same.
archive
