Tom Benjey's Weblog

With the release of a new book starts another adventure – radio interviews. The first one I’m doing for Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs is with Warner Lewis on his Lewis at Large Smart Talk Radio show out of Lawrence, Kansas. The interview is being taped and will be aired the week of August 25 to 31 on KLWN Lawrence, KFRM Clay Center, KLKC Parsons and possibly other stations in eastern Kansas. Warner interviewed me two years ago on his sports talk show after Keep A-goin’: the life of Lone Star Dietz was released. It was a great experience. There are strong ties between Carlisle, PA and Lawrence, KS beside the fact that Lone Star Dietz played for Carlisle Indian School and coached Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) in Lawrence. When athletics were deemphasized at Carlisle, the leadership mantle was passed to Haskell where, during the 1920s and very early 1930s, the Fightin’ Indians were, as Ray Schmidt described, the lords of the prairie.

But more than the mantle passed from Carlisle to Haskell. Students also transferred to Haskell as well, Nick Lassaw for one. Nick was perhaps better known by the moniker given to him when he played for the Oorang Indians: Long Time Sleep. However, transferring between the two government Indian schools did not start at that time; it had a long tradition. The most notable example was after the 1904 Carlisle-Haskell game held at the St. Louis World’s Fair, the only time the schools played each other, when eight football players including the Guyon and Hauser brothers and several others came east to play for the stronger team.

There are other reasons that make Lawrence an appropriate to kick off my radio tour. Bernie Kish, Executive Director of the College Football Hall of Fame, 1995-2005, now lives in Lawrence. Bernie wrote a forward for Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs and I’m waiting for him to write a history of Haskell.

Tags: Bernie Kish, Haskell Indian Nations University, Haskell Institute, KLWN, Lawrence Kansas, Lewis at Large, Ray Schmidt, Smart Talk Radio, Warner Lewis

This entry was posted on August 21, 2008 at 6:52 pm and is filed under Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Joe Guyon, Lone Star Dietz, Nick Lassa, Pete Hauser, Wauseka. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.