Driver joins KU on road to Final Four
Retiree proud 'Hawks ride his bus
Atlanta ? It’s the team bus. But you could call it the d vu mobile. And Bruce Guffey of Lawrence is the driver.
When the Kansas Jayhawks earned a trip to the Final Four, KU officials asked Arrow Stage Lines to deploy Guffey to Atlanta to squire the basketball team through the remainder of the NCAA Tournament. He had been behind the wheel for the Jayhawks at Midwest Regional ports of call in St. Louis and Madison, Wis.
Bruce Guffey, of Lawrence, has been driving the Kansas University basketball team throughout the NCAA Tournament in St. Louis, Madison, Wis., and now Atlanta. The Jayhawks hope their bus driver will continue to be a good-luck charm as they enter the Final Four.
If this bus business sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a replay of the 1988 tournament, when then-coach Larry Brown latched on to a lucky bus jockey and KU won the national championship.
In ’88, the supremely superstitious Brown stuck with Greyhound driver Jimmy Dunlap, who drove the team around Pontiac, Mich., prior to and after the Jayhawks’ victories in NCAA Midwest Regional competition.
Brown had Dunlap flown to Kansas City, Mo., to drive the team’s bus for the Final Four at Kemper Arena.
This time, Guffey was the Jayhawks’ choice.
1988 hero
J-W Staff ReportsThere’s no longer any doubt a Washington, D.C., radio stunt man defiled Allen Fieldhouse early Wednesday.If you want proof, go to www.hot995.com, where photos of radio personality Teapot Tim show him apparently relieving himself on the fieldhouse. There also are photos of him putting a University of Maryland T-shirt on KU’s Phog Allen statue.Tim drove 20 hours with a Maryland couple from Washington to Lawrence for the radio gag. Although a morning show host said Wednesday that Tim was dressed as Testudo the Terrapin Maryland’s mascot his “costume” was a shell-shaped trash can lid that he apparently wasn’t even wearing during the stunts.”As practical stunts go, it was pretty lame,” KU spokesman Todd Cohen said. “To say he was a turtle was an insult to turtles.”
“It is a thrill for me to be selected. They’re a great bunch of guys,” said Guffey, who drove 13 hours over two days from Lawrence to Atlanta to meet the Jayhawks there on Wednesday.
Consider this exquisite gig a birthday present for Guffey he turns 61 today.
Back in ’88, Dunlap was welcomed into the KU fold because of Brown’s appetite for good omens and because Dunlap developed a friendship with Ryan Gray, a Lawrence teen-ager, legendary fan and the team’s unofficial mascot. Ryan had an inoperable brain tumor and died in 1990.
Dunlap didn’t surrender his driver’s seat until he jumped in the back of a convertible for the Jayhawks’ victory parade down Massachusetts Street. People sought his autograph and posed with him for pictures.
Chuck Gunnels, general manager for Arrow Stage Lines in Kansas City, Mo., paid close attention 14 years ago to hoopla surrounding Dunlap’s travails.
As a coach driver, Gunnels dreamed of savoring a moment like Dunlap’s. When Gunnels moved into management at Arrow, he ached for the day one of his drivers would buckle into an appointment at the Final Four.
‘A privilege’
Two teams. Two forums. One click.The Lawrence Journal-World and the Hoosier Times have teamed to bring together Kansas and Indiana basketball fans in cyberspace. With their “Cheer on the Team” split-screen discussion forums, the two newspapers are providing a place for fans to share comments and information with one click.At cheer.kusports.com, fans can keep up with the conversations on both teams at the same time.”It’s great when the Internet can be used for something it is so good at doing,” said Bernie Re, online general manager at the Journal-World and World Online. “And the fans should love it.”Also available are e-postcards that feature images of all the Final Four teams, players and mascots that can be e-mailed. See the link in the “Cheer on KU!” box at the top of the main page.
“Ever since all that happened with Larry Brown, if it’s sports (business), we go after it,” Gunnels said. “We’ve worked for KU basketball for many years. It’s obviously been a privilege.”
Guffey, who has logged more than 500,000 miles with Arrow during his 11-year career, has driven for Kansas basketball in the past. And he added 855 miles to his log book on the drive from Lawrence to Atlanta.
“KU called before they left Madison and said, ‘Can Bruce go to Atlanta?'” Gunnels said. “Bruce told me, ‘Let’s go.'”
Guffey took off Tuesday in his eight-wheel, 50-passenger cruiser. He spent the night in Nashville, Tenn., before pushing on.
Until catching up with the team in Atlanta, he was the bus’ lone occupant. His base of operation is the JW Marriott Hotel, the team’s home away from home on Lenox Road.
No tomfoolery
Guffey said the 2001-2002 edition of Jayhawks was the most pleasurable group of young men he had encountered as a professional driver, and he’s not talking just basketball skills.
The following Kansas University streets will be closed beginning about 7:45 p.m. Saturday:Jayhawk Boulevard, from West Campus Road to Oread Avenue and 13th Street.Sunflower Road, from Sunnyside Avenue to Memorial Drive.Mississippi Street, northbound lanes closed from Memorial Drive to the entrance of the stadium parking lots. Both directions of the street will be closed from the parking garage entrance to Memorial Drive.Memorial Drive, from Mississippi Street to West Campus Road.
Roy Williams and Co. are polite, good-natured passengers, he said.
“There’s no tomfoolery that goes on,” Guffey said. “This is the best team that I’ve hauled.”
Guffey got into the bus business after retiring in 1991 from Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. He enjoyed driving and traveling, and decided a job at Arrow might complement those interests.
“It’s been a God’s blessing to me,” he said.
He said interacting with KU players and coaches in informal settings was a treat.
“On the road, I take them out to eat,” he said. “I get to go in and be a part of that.”
And he’s not stuck in the rig listening on a radio when KU takes the court.
“I go in and see the games,” Guffey said. “Roy makes sure that I have a ticket. They’re very good about that.”