A new ‘Title’ for Lawrence?

By Case Keefer

Thursday, June 26, 2008

ESPN set out two months ago to find America’s best sports town and crown it “TitleTown USA,” basing the distinction on five categories – heritage, history, tradition, passion and performance.

Between basketball legends such as James Naismith and Wilt Chamberlain, Lawrence has always possessed the heritage, history and tradition. Passion wasn’t much of a question either, considering every home Kansas basketball game for nearly a decade has sold out.

But performance – that’s where Lawrence had to earn it this year. After the Jayhawk football team won the Orange Bowl and the basketball team added a national championship, Lawrence was an obvious choice as a ‘Titletown’ finalist.

“The current success is fresh in everyone’s mind,” said Glenn Jacobs, ESPN Senior Coordinating Producer. “Certainly the dramatic win in the NCAA Tournament and the bowl.”

The network announced Tuesday on SportsCenter that Lawrence was the 17th of 20 finalists in the Titletown competition. An ESPN crew will come to Allen Fieldhouse Friday at 9:00 a.m. to film a segment that will air on SportsCenter sometime in July.

The segment’s purpose is to share Lawrence’s uniqueness as a sports town. Jim Marchiony, Kansas associate athletics director, said ESPN’s descension upon Lawrence was exciting because it gave life to what’s usually an uneventful time of the year for college sports.

“The University of Kansas athletics is already nationally known during the school year,” Marchiony said. “But this adds to the aura because it’s during summer.”

Marchiony said any exposure by the national media was beneficial to the athletics department and promised a great morning at the shoot.

ESPN has already filmed in three cities this month. Jacobs said the network had gone to Pittsburgh, Boston and Chapel Hill, N.C., and received outstanding responses.

The features on each city will begin airing on SportsCenter July 4th and run for 20 days, giving viewers an opportunity to see all of them. Then, a three-day fan vote on ESPN.com will determine the winner.

“Titletown USA is another great opportunity for SportsCenter to interact with sports fans,” Mark Gross, ESPN senior vice president and managing editor, said in a statement.

Fans were able to nominate cities throughout April and May to be finalists. Jacobs said ESPN received 2,000 nominations and began trimming the list immediately.

When the Titletown producers narrowed the list to 40 cities, a panel of ESPN personalities and national sports columnists selected the 18 best. ESPN gave Green Bay, Wisc., an automatic bid and fans were left to vote on the final city included.

The final list combines everything from primarily professional sports hotbeds, such as Chicago, to dominant high school sports towns such as Parkersburg, W.V.

Jacobs said Lawrence was an elite college sports town and perfectly fit the criteria for what type of place ESPN looked for in the competition.

“The way the fans are part of the community and the kids are all into it,” Jacobs said, “it totally represents everything that is right about sports.”

— Edited by Rustin Dodd

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