RCW: A look back 3.6

Rock Chalk Weekly takes a weekly look back into the archives of the Booth Hall of Athletics to deliver interesting artifacts and the fascinating stories behind them. Explore Kansas history and tradition inside this edition.

 Wilt Chamberlain

Kansas’ student-athletes and coaches have hobbies and interests outside their respective sports. This week, let’s take A Look Back at someone’s in particular: coach Bob Timmons. Timmons was not only an award-winning cross country and track & field coach, he was an artist. Timmons molded clay into sculptures of famous Jayhawk student-athletes, among others. Two of his finished pieces of Jim Ryun and Al Oerter (pictured below) are displayed in the KU track & field office, but his family also donated three of his unfinished figures to the athletics department when he was no longer able to work on them. The unfinished sculptures in the Kansas Athletics collection are of Gale Sayers, Lynette Woodard and Wilt Chamberlain (pictured above). The finished sculptures are cast in bronze, while the unfinished pieces are unfired clay still attached to their support pipes.

 Al Oerter