Tag: athletics

Baseball Shockers

By Connie Kachel White

Wichita State’s baseball complex now has a name almost as long as its storied history: Eck Stadium, Home of Tyler Field at Gene Stephenson Park.

Sean Johnson, first year as a Shocker: 1996

“If I didn’t have the experiences I had at Wichita State, I’m not in the position I’m in today. I’d have a very different life.”

Sean Johnson ’99, a back-up catcher for the Shockers under head coach Gene Stephenson from 1996-98, graduated with a degree focused on sports management and served as the team’s director of operations for the 2000-01 season before making his 2002 Major League Baseball debut as a rookie scout with the Minnesota Twins. This January, he was promoted to assistant general manager after rising through the organization’s front-office ranks.

Johnson is one of many, many former Shockers who’ve made a name for themselves in professional baseball after their playing days at WSU. The university’s earliest predecessor, Fairmount College, first fielded a team in 1899. The debut game was played on April 14 against Southwestern College. Although the program launched two players, Claude Hendrix and Lloyd Bishop, into successful MLB careers, the sport was discontinued after the 1923 season.

The University of Wichita picked the sport back up in 1948 after joining the Missouri Valley Conference. The program gained a modicum of success and produced more MLB players, including Don Lock ’70, who started his Shocker collegiate career in 1956. But the program was disbanded again after the 1970 season.

Then, seven years later, Stephenson arrived on the scene. “In the beginning in 1977, there were no facilities of any kind, no team, not even a baseball,” he says. A 2014 inductee of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame, Stephenson was inducted into the Pizza Hut Shocker Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 for his career achievements, including being named NCAA Coach of the Year three times and MVC Coach of the Year 11 times. He guided the Shockers to 27 NCAA Regional appearances, two NCAA Super Regional appearances, 20 MVC regular-season titles and 17 tournament championships. He led the team to seven appearances in the College World Series, winning the national championship in 1989. He also coached 33 of the program’s 42 players who went on to notable MLB careers, including Joe Carter, whose three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1993 World Series is considered one of the greatest moments in baseball history, and Darren Dreifort ’95, a power pitcher known for his “good fastball and nasty slider,” who was the second overall pick in the 1993 MLB Draft.

After Stephenson left the program in 2013, WSU baseball continued its tradition of turning out pro players. One of them is Alec Bohm, who arrived from Omaha, Nebraska, to play for the Shockers as a freshman in 2016. Since 2020, he has been third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. Known for strong defense and an uncanny aptitude to produce RBIs, Bohm was selected as a pro All-Star for the first time in 2024 – which just happens to be the same year two other key Shocker plays were made. First, after being hired on June 7, 2023 as the fifth head coach in the modern era of Wichita State baseball, Brian Green started his first season with the Shockers in 2024, coaching the team to a 32-29 record. With the 2025 season just underway, one early highpoint was sophomore outfielder Lane Haworth’s two-out, two-run, walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift Wichita State to a 5-4 win over Cal State Fullerton in the home opener at Eck Stadium, Home of Tyler Field at Gene Stephenson Park – that last part is new, thanks to Stephenson, who, in 2024, contributed to the program he helped build into one of the nation’s most respected with a $600,000 planned gift restricted to future support of the program.

In addition to the planned gift, Stephenson has committed $20,000, as an annual gift to the Wheat Shock Collective, intended to supplement Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) opportunities for student-athletes, which in the long-run will help ensure the program can retain and recruit elite-level talent, say Stephenson, Green and WSU Athletics Director Kevin Saal. Collectively, they add: “We are so thankful for fans and the greater Wichita business community for embracing our mission and providing vital assistance in achieving the support essential to past, present and future success. We know that Wichita will accept the challenge of NIL/Revenue Share, as we have, providing championship-level resources for our program. Yes, ‘Through These Portals Pass College Baseball’s Greatest Fans.’ Go Shocks!”

Shocker hoops great mentors schoolkids “one step at a time”

Lynbert “Cheese” Johnson ’79 is a big name in Shocker basketball. Johnson helped lead Wichita State to the 1976 NCAA Tournament, for starters, and went on to rep WSU in the pros. These days, this multiple Halls of Fame athlete is scoring name recognition with a totally new audience — Wichita-area middle school students.

“I’m at Collegiate today,” Johnson says over the phone while in action for his UJUMP Inc. mentoring and entrepreneurial program, which he founded in 2020. The program, a 501(c)3 non-profit, centers on providing participating 4th-7th grade students guidance, support and a variety of learning experiences. He and other program administrators work closely with parents, school principals and teachers to develop individual and small-group game plans to help students gain success both in and out of the classroom.

“Our UJUMP classes are small, just about five students per school,” says Johnson, who visits each school in the program once a week and meets with students individually and as a group. “We also go on field trips and visit local businesses and colleges and sports facilities. We try to show students every point from A to Z for them to be successful.” Students are selected by school principals, with feedback provided by teachers and parents. UJUMP is supported by community sponsors, which allows student participation at no cost the school districts, schools or families.

As a high school senior in his native New York City, Johnson was rated among the top 15 high school basketball players in the nation in 1975. Recruited by Ralph Miller, he chose to play college ball at Wichita State and helped lead the team to the NCAA Tournament and a Missouri Valley Conference title in 1976, the same year he garnered MVC Newcomer of the Year accolades. The 6-5 forward earned all-conference honors in 1977, 1978 and 1979. During his career, he averaged 17.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game, amassing 1,907 career points, which still ranks 7th in Shocker sports history, and 1,027 rebounds, which stands at 3rd in WSU record books.

After graduating, he was selected in the third round of the 1979 NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors. He played nine games for the Warriors during the 1979-1980 season and went on to play two years in the Continental Basketball Association. He was inducted into the Shocker Sports Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2023.

After basketball, Johnson worked in Atlanta, Georgia, for 18 years as a manager for Whole Foods. In 2016, he teamed up with two fellow Shocker greats — Aubrey Sherrod ’86 and Xavier McDaniel ’96 — to return to Wichita and host a free-of-charge basketball camp for local youngsters. The Future All-American Basketball Camp, Johnson is quick to share, will be celebrating its 10th year next summer.

In 2018, he made Wichita his home base again with a focus on giving back to the community he had grown to love. “Wichita has so many nice, friendly people,” he says. “This is where I want to be.” Plus, there’s far less travel time involved in attending basketball games at Koch Arena, where he most recently watched the Shockers defeat their old conference rival Northern Iowa, 79-73. As excited as Johnson can get about Shocker basketball, his long-term vision is on UJUMP and its mission of serving Wichita-area youth — as he puts it: “shaping the future” by helping boys and girls get a good start on their futures, “one step at a time.”

Too Big to Dream Small

Ronald Baker ’15 is a big-time team player, no matter what team he’s on. Today, armed with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, the former Shocker basketball standout and NBA pro is setting up plays as a project manager in sports medicine for the strategy and business development team at Wichita’s Ascension Via Christi.

“The most valuable concepts and skills I learned while at Wichita State were teamwork, communication and networking,” Baker says. “Of course, we use teamwork and communication in sports, but it wasn’t until I joined Ascension Via Christi in 2021 that I truly saw how important these skills are in the business world.” Today, three years into his post-basketball career, Baker focuses on advancing projects for the Via Christi Foundation and Children’s Miracle Network and helping with the medical center’s programs in orthopedics, sports and occupational medicine. He also assists with Via Christi’s sponsorship of WSU athletics.

One of the most popular Shockers to ever wear WSU’s colors on the basketball court, Baker came to WSU from the small, western Kansas town of Scott City (population 3,816), where he played basketball, football and baseball in high school. Aided by a Citizen Potawatomi Nation scholarship, he arrived in Wichita in 2011. One of his first memories of campus was moving into Fairmount Towers. “My parents and two siblings helped me move in,” he says. “They could sense the nervousness I had pouring out of me. When we said our goodbyes, my dad gave me a hug and told me how much fun I was going to have that semester. He said the dorms were one of his favorite things about college. I didn’t know what to expect, but that semester I met two of my closest friends today.”

From that point on, Baker’s story as a WSU student-athlete has become part of Shocker basketball history and resonates with fans far and wide. A walk-on redshirt freshman, he was joined on the WSU team by fellow guard Fred VanVleet ’16 in 2012. By the time Baker and VanVleet were seniors on the Shocker squad, they had played in four NCAA Tournaments, including a storied run to the Final Four in 2013, and contributed to Wichita State’s winning three Missouri Valley Conference titles. In 2013-2014, they were key to the Shockers’ record-setting streak of 35 wins before losing an epic battle to Kentucky for a 35-1 season. They had become the highest profile duo of WSU All-American guards – ever.

“You could probably guess that my favorite memories as a college student took place on the basketball court. A day doesn’t go by where I don’t reflect back and truly miss playing with my WSU teammates,” Baker says. “Something I love more than our team’s success was sharing it with my friends and family. Seeing others who you truly care about be a part of your college experience — that’s a memory Wichita State provided, and I will always cherish.”

Baker played in the NBA Summer League to showcase his talents and signed with the New York Knicks for the 2016-2017 season, inking a two-year deal with the team that August. He spent three seasons in the NBA, playing for the Knicks and later for the Washington Wizards. He says his most satisfying accomplishment as a pro player “was getting my first NBA start in Madison Square Garden for the New York Knicks.”

Playing pro ball in the Big Apple was a big leap from growing up playing sports in the rural environs of western Kansas, Baker points out. Before he moved with his family to Scott City when he was in middle school, he lived on his family farm in Utica (population 158), a town where classes typically totaled not more than 10 students. “I was born and raised in Utica,” he says. “My grandparents still reside there and continue to farm and raise cattle.”

Now fully ensconced in a career outside of basketball, Baker says the most rewarding part of working at Ascension Via Christi is knowing that he is working with a genuine group who serve and care for their community. He values time spent with his wife, Olivia, and their daughter, Scottie, attending yoga, playing pool, golfing and spoiling their two dogs, Daizy and Sunday.

When asked about future hopes and dreams, the 2024 WSU Young Alumni Award recipient answers: “When I daydream about myself, I think of being successful within the Wichita community, raising a beautiful family and making the city better than we found it.” He adds, “This award brings to mind my parents, all my role models, coaches, professors and current peers. It simply shows that I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by high character and service-minded people throughout my life.”

Sportscaster Mike Kennedy ’71 writes about being a Shocker

Voice of the Shockers

BY MIKE KENNEDY ’71
HALL OF FAME PLAY-BY-PLAY SPORTSCASTER

My love affair with Wichita State began at the age of nine, after I received my first basketball and radio for Christmas. I began listening intently to Shocker football and basketball games, and occasionally had an opportunity to attend games with my father. I followed all of the state universities, but WSU soon became my favorite. When Dave Stallworth arrived a few years later, my loyalty to the Shockers was forever secured.

By the time I was in high school, I had decided to attend Wichita State. Unfortunately, my passion for sports was not matched by my athletic ability, so I was not destined to be a Shocker student-athlete. My college years were some of the most fun times in my life, hanging out with friends at the Cedar and the Y-Not, attending Shocker athletic events, and seeing acts like Peter, Paul, and Mary, Sly and the Family Stone, and Simon and Garfunkel at Koch Arena.

In addition to the typical college life, however, my years at WSU coincided with one of the most turbulent and challenging eras in our nation’s history. I was at WSU from 1966-71, and the issues swirling around us included the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and the proliferation of “pot” and other drugs. We witnessed events like the assassination of Martin Luther King, the National Guard shooting of students at Kent State, and Woodstock. It was a time which pretty much forced you to take stock of what you believed. For that reason, I wouldn’t trade the years I was a student at Wichita State for any other period in our history because, hopefully, I am a better person for it.

In my last year-and-a-half at WSU, I decided to pursue the possibility of becoming a sports broadcaster at campus station KMUW-FM. It only took doing a few sportscasts of Shocker home football and basketball games to verify what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was during this time that I handled the most difficult assignment of my career, covering an event which none of us who were at WSU will ever forget, the football tragedy in Colorado.

Following my graduation in 1971, I worked in Chanute and Pittsburg, Kansas, with the Wichita Aeros baseball team, and KAKE Radio and TV, before becoming the full-time “Voice of the Shockers” in 1980. In the 45 years that I have been honored to be in that role, I have had the opportunity to describe some of the most significant athletic achievements in Wichita State history, including the baseball team winning the College World Series in 1989, and the men’s basketball team making its run to the Final Four in 2013.

Far more significant than the events, however, are the relationships which have developed over the years. Last year, when I made it public that I was battling cancer, the response from fans and former student-athletes was overwhelming and heartwarming. I felt like George Bailey at the end of “It’s A Wonderful Life.” I have learned that people who haven’t experienced Wichita State have no idea what a special place it is. I have been blessed to experience it my entire life, and I am proud to be, and will always be, a Shocker.

Shocker football alums return to campus

Last Friday’s kick-off event to the WSUFAE-hosted All-Years Shocker Football Reunion was a night of smiles, handshakes, hugs and plenty of gridiron memories. Former offensive lineman and key reunion organizer Jay Hull ’83, along with Reuben Eckels ’91, who during his four years as a starter for the Shockers (1980-1983) caught a school record 11 touchdown passes, welcomed more than 80 former players back to campus.

“I wouldn’t have missed this,” said James “Jumpy” Geathers fs ’84, who traveled from his home in South Carolina to be with his fellow teammates. Geathers, a defensive tackle, is one of several Shocker players who went on to impressive careers in the National Football League. He played 13 seasons in the NFL as a member of the New Orleans Saints (1984-1989), Washington Redskins (1990-1993), Atlanta Falcons (1994-1995) and the Denver Broncos (1996). He was a part of the Redskins team that won Super Bowl XXVI and was on the roster on injured reserve when the Broncos won the Super Bowl in 1997 for the first time in their franchise history.

Geathers wasn’t the only Shocker at the reunion with at least one Super Bowl win to his credit. Anthony Jones ’84 is another. After his senior season as a tight end with the Shockers, Jones was picked in the 11th round of the 1984 NFL draft by the Washington Redskins and went on to play eight seasons for the team, helping to win the Super Bowl championship in 1987. He finished his pro playing days with the San Diego Chargers in 1988 and then entered the coaching field, serving as head coach at Morehouse College, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University and, most recently, for the Elizabeth City State University Vikings in North Carolina.

Mike Kriwiel ’83, Kelvin Middleton ’88, Dave Newcomer ’73, David Unruh ’84/88, Bobby Weston ’83, Todd Wessel ’90 and Chris White ’81 were just a few of the other Shocker football players among reunion-goers at the opening get-together on the lower level of the Rhatigan Student Center. After dinner and reminiscing, attendees viewed a screening of the documentary “Success Has No Zip Code,” about Willie Jeffries, who was head coach for five seasons at Wichita State (1979-1983). When hired at WSU, he became the first Black head coach of an NCAA Division I-A football program. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2010.

“Seeing so many Shockers here tonight is truly heart-warming,” Stacie Williamson ’05 said. Reunion festivities continued on Saturday with campus tours, golfing and a formal dinner at which a commemorative Shocker football timeline was presented to players in attendance. The timeline opens with these words:

“Few collegiate sport histories can match the highs and lows of Wichita State University’s football program. For 90 years, from 1896 to 1986, fall football games were rallying points for many in the Shocker community. Although the sport is no longer played at WSU, football still holds a very special place at our university. Football, and all those who played and coached it, are still on the Shocker playing field.”

Breaking ground at Wilkins Stadium

September 14, 2024, leadership across the university and Shocker Athletics officially broke ground on the renovation of Wilkins Stadium, a priority capital project for the university.

The ceremony marked the beginning of the first of four phases for the $19.85 million renovation. The WSU Foundation and Alumni Engagement is halfway through its goal of raising $9.65 million for Phase 1 by the end of the year.

When completed, the stadium will include an indoor practice facility, team facility, press box and seating areas, additional seating including event pavilions in the outfield. The project represents the university’s outward commitment to the Shocker softball program which has grown tremendously in the last decade.

“These ladies have put in a ton of work, and they’ve evolved this program and made it a national standard,” said Kristi Bredbenner, WSU softball head coach. “To see something big, new and state-of-the-art is huge for our program, and it will help us not only entice student-athletes to come to Wichita State, but to stay.”