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| In Kansas, our wide open spaces give people the freedom to dream and make big things happen. Here are just a few big thinkers who hail from Kansas. |
| Check back from time to time to see more big thinkers from Kansas. | |
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Dean Smith Dean Smith’s career could have ended in 1965, when the struggling University of North Carolina basketball coach returned from a loss at Wake Forest to find himself burned in effigy by disgruntled UNC fans. |
The now-laughable event was the turning point for Smith, who soon resurrected the Tar Heels and strung together an astounding 36-year career in Chapel Hill in which he became the winningest coach in NCAA Division I men’s basketball history. While the numbers are staggering – 879 wins, 11 Final Fours, two national championships, and 27 consecutive 20-win seasons – it was Smith’s squeaky-clean program and off-the-court commitment to the integrity of college athletics that made him a legend. |
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Gale Sayers Gale Sayers’ nickname said it all. Dubbed “The Kansas Comet,” the Wichita native used his blinding speed and uncanny elusiveness to become an All-American football player at the University of Kansas and an eventual Hall of Fame halfback for the Chicago Bears. |
When a series of knee injuries prematurely ended his NFL career in 1971, the Jayhawks alumnus embarked on an equally successful career in athletic administration and sports marketing. In 1984, he launched a computer supplies business that developed into an industry leader in the distribution of high-tech products and services. Sayers is also a noted philanthropist and a highly coveted public speaker. |
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Paul Rudd From the University of Kansas drama department to the big screens of Hollywood, actor Paul Rudd has won over countless audiences with his thespian talents and boyish good looks. |
Raised in Lenexa, Rudd studied theater in Lawrence before attending Pasadena’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts on a Spencer Tracy Scholarship. He also spent a semester at Oxford’s British Drama Academy, where he appeared as Hamlet in scenes directed by Ben Kingsley. Since returning to the United States in 1990, he has appeared in a number of big-screen hits, including Clueless (1995), The Cider House Rules (1999), Anchorman: The Legend of Run Burgandy (2004) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). |
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Richard B. Myers It’s hard to imagine a newly appointed official facing a more difficult first day on the job than did Richard Myers. |
On Oct. 1, 2001 – less than one month after the September 11 attacks – the Merriam native took over as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, making him the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and the lead advisor to the President, the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council while the nation entered an era of previously unthinkable security concerns. Myers served as Chairman until his retirement in 2005, completing a career that began with Air Force missions over Vietnam and concluded with his presiding over military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. |
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Jackie Stiles It didn’t take long for folks in Claflin, Kansas, to realize they had a basketball prodigy in Jackie Stiles. |
But after four record-setting years at Claflin High, the young phenom developed into a full-blown star, putting together an outright unthinkable college career at Southwest Missouri State in which she became the NCAA’s all-time career scoring leader – punctuated by a senior-year scoring average of 46.4 points per game. Stiles was drafted fourth in the 2001 WNBA draft and went on to become the league’s Rookie of the Year before a string of surgeries forced her to put her career on hold in 2002. |
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James Naismith In 1891, while working at a YMCA in Springfield, Mass., a young physical education instructor named James Naismith devised a game to relieve his students' boredom during indoor winter classes. |
The game involved a ball and peach baskets and would soon evolve into the sport now known as basketball. In 1898, Naismith moved to the University of Kansas to become a professor and the first basketball coach at the school, which went on to develop one of the nation's most storied basketball programs. Naismith later assisted in the formation of the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball, the organization that eventually became the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. |
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Bob Dole With a record of public service spanning more than 60 years, Bob Dole stands among the most enduring and respected statesman in American history. |
From the battlefields of Europe to the inner circles of the nation’s capital, Dole’s heroism, commitment to principle, and devotion to country have forever earned him the admiration of the nation he has so graciously served. His legacy includes a 28-year run in the U.S. Senate, which ended in 1996 when he resigned to run as the Republican presidential nominee. Dole was twice the Senate Majority Leader and was the Minority Leader from 1987-1995, providing him a platform to fight for the disabled, farmers, and a more fiscally responsible government. |
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Melissa Etheridge Winning over fans with edgy lyrics, raspy vocals, and a unique pop-based folk-rock sound, Melissa Etheridge has sold more than 30 million records en route to becoming one of the most popular female recording artists of her generation. |
Born in Leavenworth, Etheridge’s accomplishments include eight major albums, including three multi-platinum works, two platinum records, and one gold record. She has twice won the Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, most recently for the song Come to My Window in 1994. With her music earning comparisons to such legends as Bruce Springsteen and Janis Joplin, Etheridge has also achieved fame as a gay rights activist and a crusader in the fight against breast cancer. |
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Jack Kilby It is the most fortunate of ironies that Jack Kilby’s desire to make things smaller improved the world in such enormous ways. |
In one of the most influential technological breakthroughs in history, Kilby in 1958 unveiled the world’s first microchip, thus laying the conceptual and technical foundation for the entire field of modern microelectronics and high-speed computers of today’s Information Age. Although it was his Nobel Prize-winning brilliance that made him famous, it was his modesty and plainspoken Kansas style that won the hearts of friends and colleagues. “For guys like me,” he said, “the prize is seeing a successful solution.” From cell phones to calculators to computers, Kilby’s solutions are everywhere. Kilby International Awards |
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Dan Carney In 1958, Dan Carney and his brother borrowed $600 from their mother to open a pizza parlor in their hometown of Wichita. |
It was a gutsy move for the brothers, who weren’t even sure how to make a pizza, let alone run a pizza business. Almost 50 years later, Carney today is credited with developing a Pizza Hut empire that boasts stores in more than 80 countries and territories around the world, making it the largest and most successful pizza franchise on Earth. “I think I'm an entrepreneur,” Carney once said. “I enjoy building things up or trying to build them up.” KTWU Interview |
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Kevin Willmott A popular University of Kansas film professor and screenwriter, Kevin Willmott is best known for his controversial film, CSA: Confederate States of America. |
A satire on how America would be if the South had won the Civil War, CSA was featured at the Sundance Film Festival and purchased by IFC films. A product of Junction City, Willmott has worked as a peace and civil rights activist, fought for the poor, created two Catholic Worker homeless shelters, and forced the integration of several long-standing segregated institutions. Also on Wilmott’s resumé are Shields Green and the Gospel of John Brown, Little Brown Brothers, and an adaptation of Marching to Valhalla done for Oliver Stone. KU Film School |
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Check back from time to time to see more big thinkers from Kansas. |