Kansas Athletics to Honor 1961 Team During Homecoming/K Club Weekend

Sept. 26, 2011

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Kansas Athletics and K Club will honor its 1961 Bluebonnet Bowl team at Saturday’s Homecoming game against Texas Tech at 11 a.m. The team, which defeated Rice 33-7 in that year’s bowl game in Houston, Texas, provided KU with its first bowl victory. Members of the team will be recognized after the first quarter of the game.

The 1961 Jayhawks finished with a 7-3-1 record, winning six games in a row, including a 34-0 rout of Kansas State in KU’s Homecoming game that year. The team featured the Hall of Fame backfield of John Hadl and Curtis McClinton.

K Club will also recognize its 25 and 50-year letter pin winners as well as two standout athletes – baseball’s Don Czyz and track and field’s Amy Linnen – as they are inducted into the Kansas Athletics Hall of Fame.

K Club will hold a ceremony to officially induct Czyz and Linnen into the Hall of Fame on Friday at 11:45 a.m. at the Booth Family Hall of Athletics. The Hall of Fame inductees along with the 1961 team and football manager Todd “Leaper” Williams will be honored again that evening in a private ceremony.