Need points? Kansas University’s Spencer Research Library has ’em.

They’re in old football programs lodged at the university’s archive.

“We’ve had probably two or three people a week come up and ask to see the old programs,” said librarian Bill Crowe.

They’re asking because under KU Athletic Department’s new priority point system, points are awarded for past contributions to the department’s Williams Education Fund and its fund-raising predecessor, the Outland Scholarship Fund. Those with the most points will be assigned the best seats.

But the department’s Williams Fund records only go back to July 1,1978. So those wanting points for contributions made before then are expected to a produce a receipt, canceled check or ticket stub — anything that will prove they, in fact, contributed to either fund.

For some, that proof lies in the old football programs, which, starting about 1971, included listings of Outland Scholarship Fund donors.

The Outland Scholarship Fund, created by Lawrence banker Dick Williams and his sons, Skipper and Odd, in 1949, was renamed the Williams Education Fund in 1974.

Under the point system, donors are eligible for two points for every year they donated to either fund, and one point for every $100 contributed.

So someone listed in the 1971 program could be eligible for an additional 21 points, assuming they contributed $100 a year between 1971 and 1978.

Kansas football programs in the early 1970s listed contributors to the Outland Scholarship Fund, which later was renamed the Williams Fund.

J.R. Waymire, former Lawrence grocer and longtime Williams Fund donor, is trying to hold onto his two center-court, fourth-row seats. He’s looking for all the points he can muster.

“I plan on checking out these programs,” said Waymire, 76. “I’ve got a card from the Williams Fund that shows I was a member in 1977. It has a coded number that shows how much I’d given up to that point, but I haven’t been able to find anybody at the athletic department who knows how to read it. So these programs might help.”

Waymire said he and his wife have been sitting in the same seats since the early 1960s. The couple moved to Leavenworth in 1971.

Point potential

It’s unclear who first recognized the old programs’ point potential. Library officials are prohibited from saying who asked to see them.

At the athletic department, Jennifer Berquist, assistant director at the Williams Fund, confirmed some season-ticket holders have been awarded additional points because their names appeared on the pre-1978 listings. But ticket holders’ names and point totals are not considered public information and are not being released.

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KU Associate Athletic Director Jim Marchiony said the department was not in a position to automatically award additional points to donors cited in the programs.

“If their names are on the list and if they request additional points, then, certainly, they will get additional points. But they’ll need to ask for them,” Marchiony said.

“Ours hand are already full — no, more than full — trying to address the issues that have already been brought to our attention,” he said. “And I suspect that a lot of people on these lists are either no longer with us or are no longer donors. So for us to sort through that and then to figure out who’s really who would not be efficient at this point.

“But I also think that people whose names are on those lists already know their names are there,” he said. “If they call or come in, we’ll be happy to adjust their points.”

The 1971 listing includes about 1,200 names.

It’s not the only list.

“It’s the first that I found, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the first. I may have missed some,” said Kathleen Neeley, a reference coordinator at Spencer Research Library.

Neeley said that while leafing through dozens of football and basketball programs from the 1950s and most of the 1960s, she found no reference to the Outland Scholarship Fund.

“But in one of the 1970 programs there was an ad that asked people to donate,” she said. “And then in 1971, the list appears.”

Similar lists were printed in subsequent years’ programs. Some are complete, others list different levels of donors in different issues.

Ledger book

Neeley also found an article on Dick, Odd and Skipper Williams’ fund-raising efforts in the May 1968 issue of Kansas Alumni Magazine.

In the article, Skipper Williams is described as having a “neatly kept ledger book that details every contribution” to the Outland Scholarship Fund, which the trio started.

Kathleen Neeley, a reference coordinator at Kansas University's Spencer Research Library, shows off some old football programs that list contributors to the predecessor of the Williams Fund.

And Dick Williams is quoted: “I think there are three main reasons why this program has been so successful. First, because we keep a permanent record. Second, because every penny that’s collected goes for the purpose it’s collected for. And third, the contributions are tax deductible.”

Today, no one knows the ledger’s whereabouts.

“I have some of the old ledgers but they’re farm-management records,” said Evan Williams Walter, a daughter of Odd Williams. Her father, uncle and grandfather managed farm property on behalf of KU.

Sean Williams, one of Skipper Williams’ four sons, doubts he has them.

“I’ll have to look,” he said. “If I find it, I’ll give it to the athletic department right away. But I suspect — as hard it may be to believe — they got thrown out somewhere between (the Williamses) moving out of the old second-floor office in what’s now the Watkins history museum (1047 Mass.) and into the office at 901 Kentucky.”

Skipper and Odd Williams died in 1974 and 1982, respectively. Dick Williams died in 1970.