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Prince of YouTube
Published 10/2/2007 in Sports : Columns By Mike Kessinger
With so much of what the internet has to offer is there anything better than YouTube?
Hours upon hours, someone can search the website and find all kinds of entertaining videos, even if they are more often than not useless.
It's one of those things someone like myself, at the age of 30, wishes would have been in existence 10 years ago. I know there's several things I would have probably tried to get on YouTube.
Now, though, it's the latest phenom, and it gives us all something to enjoy.
Without it, we probably couldn't watch University of Kansas head coach Mark Mangino scream at his punt returner, Raimond Pendleton, for diving into the end zone over and over again. Nor could we enjoy watching Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy become one step short of turning into the Incredible Hulk, over and over again.
And of course, without YouTube, we certainly couldn't watch with a smile as Kansas State coach Ron Prince stomped around in joy after James Johnson's kickoff return for a touchdown Saturday.
If you haven't seen it, Prince is marching down the sideline stomping and throwing his arms up and down.
It kind of resembled an entrance to the ring by an old WWF tag team, or maybe the way Jim Duggan use to do it with a 4x4 in his hand.
Whatever it looked like, there is no doubt it tells a story about Prince. Which is something everyone kind of misses when they watch things over and over if you're not watching close. Especially on YouTube.
What I see from it is a coach who loves what he does, and he's doing it to be a little entertaining. In today's Topeka Capital Journal there's a story about how the shot of him stomping down the sideline has become a hit with viewers. The coach's reaction when asked about it was telling.
"It's no fun just to stand there like a statue," Prince said. "It's a game. We're not curing cancer."
There's no question Prince knows the x's and o's of football, just ask Telegram sports reporter Marshall Moore for clarification. But he also knows how to have fun. He's a 'so-called' players coach that high school and junior college athletes of today demand more of. It's why he has Kansas State pointed in the right direction.
Former Wildcat coach Bill Snyder did things his way, and he won. Of course, when everything started to go south in Snyder's last two years, he stepped down. Some of it may have been that he knew he was losing the attention of today's athlete. Prince is a guy who understands that to get today's athlete to pay attention and buy into what you're doing, fun has to be a part of it.
Watch the way the players respond to Prince as he stomps in excitement or high steps down the sideline, and you see why he is on his way to being a success.
And with that, it won't be hard to find several more scenes of Prince enjoying those same type of moments in the future. All you need is a little YouTube.
Reach assistant sports editor Mike Kessinger at mkessinger@gctelegram.com
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