You might be familiar with a number of the 20 fellows recently inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame — such as basketball’s Lucius Allen and Charlie B. Black, trackster Wes Santee, football’s Gary Spani and baseball’s Murry Dickson and Gene Mauch.

Seventy-two-year gaps test anyone’s memories. Even some of Kansas University’s most loyal and dedicated fans may not know about the notable feats of footballer-wrestler Pete Mehringer, a new Kansas hall inductee who died in 1987 at age 77.

Pete was the ultimate team-man en route to a gold medal in the 1932 Olympic light heavyweight wrestling competition in Los Angeles. A farm boy from Kinsley, he also was an all-league football tackle for KU in 1932 and 1933 and played in the first College All-Star game against the pro champs in Chicago in 1934. He won high school wrestling titles by hitchhiking to meets because his school couldn’t afford to send him.

After KU, Mehringer played nine seasons of pro football, worked as movie extra in “Knute Rockne, All-American” with Ronald Reagan and was a stunt man in a Tarzan film and the Hope-Crosby “Road to Zanzibar.”

Pete became a noted expert in erosion control and special excavation with the Los Angeles Department of Public Works.

Thanks to Lyle Niedens and Steve Buckner via their marvelous “Portraits of Excellence” about KU sports stars, we have some intriguing details about Mehringer.

Back to that “team” concept, which Pete embodied in football as well as at the Olympics. Mehringer was edged by Northwestern’s Jack Riley for the national college heavyweight wrestling championship in 1932. Next time they met, it was for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. Pete pinned Riley twice in six minutes.

But the U.S. coach wanted Riley as his heavyweight and asked Mehringer to compete in the Games at the 191-pound level. Pete had to lose 17 pounds in 12 days using heavy doses of citrate of magnesia. He spent the last few minutes before his weigh-in in a sweat box. He barely made it. If he was weakened by the ordeal, it didn’t show. He whipped all comers to claim the light heavyweight gold medal. That included pinning the defending gold medalist.

As a junior, Pete came back to Kansas hoping to bid for the 1933 and 1934 national college mat titles. KU’s wrestling coach was gone; Pete was named to handle the team at no salary. For some odd reason, athletic director Phog Allen chose not to provide money to send Mehringer to the college championships of ’33 and ’34.

The Olympic champion had to work long hours to stay in school and was late graduating. But he posted a notable pro football career and big success in public works. His career highlight was the completion of the Sepulveda Boulebard tunnel under the Los Angeles International Airport’s runways.

Not surprisingly, Mehringer is in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, no thanks to Phog Allen. He’s a fine addition to the Kansas Hall of Fame.

The Mehringer story was only half of a major Jayhawk triumph in the ’32 Olympics. All three of the U.S. decathlon entries were from Lawrence — KU football-basketball-track whiz Jim Bausch, KU pole vaulter Clyde Coffman and Wilson “Buster” Charles from Haskell Institute.

Bausch won the event. He later played pro football and dabbled as a movie bit player. Charles took fourth and Coffman was seventh to help provide the best one-city punch the event ever has had. Bausch’s pro grid tenure was 1934-36 with the Chicago Cardinals.

l Pardon me if I continue to shake my head in amazement that Eddie Sutton of Oklahoma State has given a scholarship to six-time felonist JamesOn Curry. That’s the North Carolina kid Roy Williams dropped out of the scholarship mix after Curry had committed to UNC before his sentencing for drug troubles.

Word is that Sutton at age 68 may be heading into his final season at OSU and will relinquish his job to son Sean, 35, longtime assistant. Can Eddie work a miracle with Curry in one year, will he stay around to tutor and mentor the kid or will he leave Sean and Co. with a possible train wreck? It seems so un-Sutton-like.

Not long ago, Eddie discussed the current generation of college students in general and basketeers in particular with Doug Tucker of the Associated Press.

Sutton said he perceived that the basketball newcomers’ attention spans are shorter, that they don’t work as hard on fundamentals and, as a whole, have little respect for the people and concepts their fathers and grandfathers held dear.

“A lot of it is the parents’ fault,” said Eddie, who’s been a head coach since 1970. “The school systems are not as good as they used to be. It’s not just in athletics. Ask the counselors, the teachers, see if they don’t say the same thing.”

Sutton is perturbed that players coming into college now virtually sneer at the mid-range jump shot (something KU guys like Aaron Miles could eat opponents’ lunch with if they got a lot better at it, say, like transfer John Lucas of OSU).

“I think the biggest thing is young players today have a tendency to be very careless,” Sutton said. “I think that’s typical of our society, of the way people grow up, and it flows into athletics.”

So coaches have to change the way they prepare young players, with more fundamental workouts. Trouble is, too many youngsters don’t listen very well, and “you have to spend more time with them.”

Maybe Eddie was thinking of the project he’s taking on with JamesOn Curry. Careless is one thing, felonious is another. This will be an interesting drama in 2004-05. Maybe the problems of dealing with newcomers is why Sutton has turned to so many transfers — they know they’re at the end of the road and better respond.

But I’d much prefer the status of any of the five freshmen Kansas’s Bill Self is bringing in to the challenge Sutton faces with JamesOn Curry.