Small Town USAWhen I posted the first version of this story 12 days ago, I was completely unprepared for the number of responses I would get. It seems that I overlooked two significant sports athletes from the city of Larned. Also, there were others who felt their small town should be included. I’m going to attempt to complete the Larned story here and I will do another post on other towns later on.
As I mentioned before, I moved to western Kansas when I was 12 until I graduated from high school. I went to a small school near Larned, but much of my history is associated with Larned. I always knew there was something unique about the sports in that town, but I didn’t put it all together until recently when Mitch Webster was hired by the Royals.
After my initial blog entry, many people from Larned contacted me and reminded me that I left off one very famous person (Ralph Terry) and another more recently well known person (Bruce Vaughn). Here is a little summary of each. Ironically, both involve professional golf.
RALPH TERRY (73, A's, Yankees, Indians)
Terry was a pitcher in the major leagues for a dozen years. He is best remembered for giving up one of the most famous home runs in baseball history - The Shot Heard Round The World - to Bill Mazeroski in game 7 of the 1960 World Series. He redeemed himself, however in the 1962 World Series. He pitched a 1-0 gem in game 7 and was named World Series MVP. Later in life, he qualified and played on a few events on the PGA Tour and later played on the Senior PGA Tour.
BRUCE VAUGHN (53, Professional golfer)
Vaughn spent the better part of the 1990’s and 00’s playing golf on the Nationwide Tour, South African Tour and the PGA Tour. After he turned 50, he joined the Champions Tour. He won his first Champion’s Tour event in 2008 – a major - the Senior British Open, following three-time champion, Tom Watson who won it the year before. Vaughn finished 8th in the event this season.
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If you didn't see the original post, here are the four that I listed in A Trip Down Memory Lane: Part I
GENE KEADY (73, Purdue)
Keady was a football All-American at Garden City Juco and a 3-sport letter winner at Kansas State. He was drafted by the Steelers, but had his career cut short due to injury. He coached at Beloit high school (142-47) and Hutch Juco (187-48). As an assistant at Arkansas (94-24) under Eddie Sutton (a native of Bucklin, Kansas – about an hour SW of Larned). His first Division I head coaching job was Western Kentucky (38-19). He took the head job at Purdue in 1980 – winning 512 games. He was named the National Coach of the Year an incredible six times.
GARY PATTERSON (49, TCU)
Patterson also played sports at a SW Kansas Juco – Dodge City. And, he also went to K-State. It was there that his coaching career began – first as an assistant to Jim Dickey. Eventually, he became the defensive coordinator at TCU. When Dennis Franchione left in 2000 to become the head coach at Alabama, Patterson was offered the job. Since then, TCU has appeared in eight bowls. He has won four in a row. TCU has won at least 10 games in five of the last seven seasons. A BCS bowl berth is a virtual lock for the 2009 team. If Texas were to lose somewhere along the line and with either Alabama or Florida losing to each other, TCU would likely play for the national title.
JOHN ZOOK (62, Kansas, NFL)
Zook was a stand-out defensive end at the University of Kansas. He was honorable mention All-American as a Junior and consensus All-American as a Senior - guiding Kansas to an Orange bowl appearance in 1969. He started every game for the first seven years as an Atlanta Falcon. He was selected to the pro-bowl and ended up playing a total of 11 seasons in the NFL.
MITCH WEBSTER (50, Royals)
Webster was recently hired as Midwest Regional Scouting Supervisor for the Kansas City Royals on Thursday. He has spent the past 14 years as a scout in the major leagues. Webster is one of only 73 big leaguers who have at least 70 home runs, a .262 batting average, 342 rbis and 160 stolen bases since 1983. One of 73 doesn’t necessarily make him Rickey Henderson or Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez (also on the list), but it’s pretty good company. His best years were with Montreal. In back-to-back seasons, he hit 23 home runs and 69 stolen bases while hitting for a .285 average.
That's an amazing list for a town of 4,200 people in western Kansas!