Schimpf signs deal with Giants
Plans to renovate Memorial Stadium and build an indoor training facility are moving forward and will cost about $300 million, Kansas Athletic Director Sheahon Zenger says.
The Ka n sas City Star reported that Zenger made the announcement Wednesday night at a meet-and-greet event for the football team at a bar in Kansas City, Mo. He said architectural draw- ings are in the works and will be released to the pub- lic in September.
Zenger offered few details, saying he would speak more in the coming months after the designs are shown to fans.
Kansas football coach David Beaty said fans “deserve a really, really nice stadium.”
Beaty is trying to turn around a program that finished with a 2-10 record last season. One of those victo- ries was over Texas, and it played a role in UT’s firing of coach Charlie Strong.
Kansas officials have considered a stadium overhaul for more than a decade.
Ex-Jayhawk Loneker dies: Keith Loneker, a former Kansas offensive lineman who spent three years in the NFL before becoming a modestly successful actor, died Thursday. He was 46.
The school announced Loneker’s death in a state- ment. No cause was given, though his son, Kansas line- backer Keith Loneker Jr., said he had been diagnosed with cancer late last year.
Loneker helped the Jayhawks to a victory in the 1992 Aloha Bowl, earning first-team All-Big Eight honors, before signing as a free agent with the Los Angeles Rams. He spent three seasons with the franchise, starting five times and appearing in 19 games.
After his football career, Loneker appeared in films including “Rock Star” and “Superbad.”
Loneker is also survived by a daughter, Kylee.
Ex-Spartan faces trial:
Texas pitcher Tyler Schimpf signed with the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday, joining another former Longhorn, Brandon Belt, as part of the organization.
Schimpf, a redshirt sopho- more, was selected in the 13th round of last week’s Major League Baseball draft.
Though the right-hander didn’t play in 2016, he finished with a 1.56 ERA and 13 strikeouts in 17⅓ innings this season for the Horns.
His opponents’ batting aver- age of .180 led the Longhorns.
Schimpf was one of 11 UT baseball players drafted this year, in addition to four incoming recruits.
Golf: Former PGA Tour player Omar Uresti won the 50th PGA Professional Cham- pionship in a playoff with Dave McNabb on Wednesday to top the 20 qualifiers for the PGA Championship.
Along with the spot in the PGA Championship in August at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C, Uresti earned $50,000 and received berths in six PGA Tour events in the next 12 months.
The 48-year-old Austinite, who played for UT from 1988 to 1991, won with a 3½-foot par putt on the second extra hole, the par-4 10th at Sunriver Resort’s Crosswater course. Last year, Uresti tied for second at Turning Stone in New York.
Uresti and McNabb parred the par-4 18th on the first playoff hole, with McNabb making a 10-foot comebacker to stay alive after Uresti tapped in for par.
Uresti and McNabb each Former Michigan State defensive end Auston Robertson has been ordered to trial on sexual assault charges.
A 20-year-old woman testi- fied Thursday that Robertson raped her at her off-campus apartment in April. Robertson, who is from Fort Wayne, Ind., was kicked off the team after he was charged.
The woman said her boyfriend, a football player, told a coach, who notified police.
Defense attorney David Rosenberg told the Lansing State Journal that it’s a “weak case.” Robertson, 19, hopes to play football at a Missis- sippi community college.
Three other former players face sexual assault charges in an unrelated case. They also were kicked off the foot- ball team.
Keyshawn Johnson Jr. leaves Huskers: Nebraska freshman receiver Keyshawn Johnson Jr. won’t play for the Cornhuskers this fall.
Johnson was ticketed June 9 on a marijuana possession charge after a resident director reported suspected drug use in a dormitory room. The four-star recruit from Calabasas, Calif., enrolled early and went through spring practice.
Nebraska athletic department spokesman Keith Mann confirmed Johnson’s departure.
Johnson’s father, former NFL receiver Keyshawn Johnson, told the Omaha World-Herald he wants his son to “mature” and hopes he will return to Nebraska in January.
Illini change plans: Illinois Athletic Director Josh Whitman says plans for a $132 million renovation at Memorial Stadium are on hold and instead the school will break ground next year on a stand-alone football performance center. shot 3-under 69 to finish at 4-under 283. The 51-year-old McNabb is the PGA head professional at Applebrook in Malvern, Pa.
Paul Claxton (71) and University of Illinois coach Mike Small (73) tied for third at 2 under. Small was trying to win the event for a record fourth time.
Third-round leader Rod Perry closed with a 79 to finish eighth at even par. He won in 2013 when the tournament was last played at Crosswater.
The final two spots in the PGA Championship were decided in an eight-man playoff.
Golf: In other golf news, UT’s Doug Ghim, Scottie Scheffler and Gavin Hall all were named to the PING Division I All-America list by the Golf Coaches Association of America on Thursday.
Ghim was named to the second team, and Scheffler made the third team. Hall earned an honorable mention.
It’s the third time Ghim has been honored. Scheffler made the list for the second time. Ghim has been named to the second team two years in a row after earning honorable mention in2015. Scheffler was named to the second team in 2015.
It was Hall’s second honorable mention and third time being named to the list overall. He was on the second team in 2016. He’s highly competitive and very in touch with his players. He brings downhome wisdom and has a chance to create his own legacy.”
Here’s betting he creates a rich one and returns the Sooners to national prominence as they once were under the legendary Enos Semore.
“I don’t know why they didn’t hire me,” Johnson said of Texas. “I don’t have any animosity. I moved on. But schools don’t hire a lot of assistants.”
Well, they do in Norman. One week after Athletic Director Joe Castiglione promoted 33-year-old offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley to succeed Bob Stoops, he did the same with Johnson after pushing out Pete Hughes.
Of course, Castiglione was working off strong endorsements of Johnson from luminaries such as Garrido, DeLoss Dodds, Roger Clemens and Texas Tech rival Tim Tadlock, who just happened to play on the same Little League team in Denton as Johnson and has been his best friend ever since.
“What you see is what you get with Skip,” Tadlock said. “It’s neat to see that Joe Castiglione recognized almost 30 years of commitment to the game of college baseball. Skip is baseball all day, every day. Our league just got better.”
Besides a wealth of knowledge about pitching, Johnson knows what builds success, and that’s deeply personal relationships. He cares about his play- ers. Which is why Sooners pitcher Dylan Grove phoned him recently, wanting to share that he had zero walks in his latest start in the Cape Cod league. It made Johnson’s day.
That was typical of the wild, celebratory reaction of the team that reached this year’s NCAA regionals and gave No. 7 national seed Louisville all it wanted in a winners’ bracket game before getting eliminated. The players are on board.
“I’m the same old Skip Johnson,” he said. “I’ve just got a title in front of my name.”
And then he went all philosophical, not unlike Augie.
“Hey, Pharaoh had a good time as king of Egypt,” Johnson said. “But Moses had the testimonies.” And which are you? “I’m neither,” he said. “I’m just Skip.”
And has been since his older brother, Tony, pointed to their mother’s tummy and said, “That’s Skipper.”
I like Arthur “Skip” Johnson. A lot. And I completely respect this 50-year-old baseball lifer because he coached 32 Longhorns pitchers who were drafted, and not once did he ever puff out his chest and brag about that or working as a personal pitching tutor for the likes of three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw and Homer Bailey.
Sure, Texas couldn’t hit a lick the last few seasons under Garrido, who invented baseball, and that cost both of them their jobs. But it didn’t hit much better this season under David Pierce, either. Both Pierce and Johnson are hardworking grinders. Johnson, you should know, once spent 27 straight nights on the road recruiting and logged 370,000 miles on a green GMC pickup he was so attached to that he gave it to one of his two sons.
Garrido trumpeted Johnson’s core values and leadership abilities, but will Johnson hire Augie as an assistant?
“No,” Skip said, laughing. “He’s overqualified.”
“But,” he added, “that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t bring him in to talk to the team any day of the week.”
That’s unlikely, Garrido said, even though the two talk weekly and Garrido recommended a brand of wine that Skip gave Castiglione as a thank-you gift.
“I can root for Skip on a personal basis,” Augie said, “but I don’t think I can walk into that red stuff. I don’t think they’d embrace me much.”
But OU will embrace its new skipper. The Sooners have a much skimpier tradition than the Longhorns, with only 10 College World Series appearances and two national titles, but it’s a proud program. And Johnson will welcome back solid pitchers like Grove and Jake Irvin as well as hot-hitting center fielder Steele Walker.
“We could beat anybody in the country this year, but we had an ERA of about 9.00 after we’d make an error,” Johnson said. “You just try to put the momentum in your dugout.”
That’d be the same OU dugout with a top-notch head coach, even one who’s had to wait awhile to prove it.