Further Review

“The KU alumni — as much as they love Kansas basketball — if Roy [Williams] doesn’t get to the Final Four this year, they are going to call for his head. They’re going to say the same old thing. ‘Roy can get us there, but he can’t win the big game.’ I have 104 wins in the ’90s [with the Chiefs]. Big freaking whip.”
— Tim Grunhard, WHB 810

“What might be upsetting [Nolan Richardson] is that they’re doing a story on ESPN’s Outside the Lines about the graduation rate at Arkansas for black athletes. It’s zero.”
— Wally Hall, sports editor of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, after the Razorbacks’ basketball coach threw a tantrum during a recent press conference, 810

“It will be hard [for the Royals to recapture the magic of the ’70s and ’80s]. Allard Baird has worked his soul out, but having to dump Johnny Damon and Jermaine Dye and soon Mike Sweeney is tough — they are impossible to replace. The owner last summer ripped me for suggesting that they were marketing Dye. Gee whiz. Read his lips.”
— Peter Gammons, baseball analyst, ESPN.com

“The impact [that losing Damon and Dye] has on this season is the reality of knowing you could be next or you could lose another teammate. It’s sad, and hopefully it doesn’t happen, but it’s the reality of a small-market team. It’s the reality of the Kansas City Royals, knowing that the stability of our team is not great.”
— Joe Randa, KMBZ 980

“You can’t ask your fans to go ahead and be optimistic and be excited unless the organization is moving that way — and I think we are, within the financial boundaries that we have to work with. You don’t use those as excuses; you use those as challenges.”
— Allard Baird, 980

GH: While expectations for the Royals were at a ten-year high last spring, they may never have been lower than they are this March. Maybe that’s a good thing; we’ve seen how these guys play when the pressure to perform is on.