Jay Hinrichs will sit with his son, Jared, and wife, Julie, behind the Northern Colorado bench during tonight’s men’s basketball game at Allen Fieldhouse.

The three will have mixed emotions – one member of the group wearing his emotions on his sleeve.

“My son is really looking forward to the game. He can’t decide if he’ll wear a Jayhawk jersey or Bears’ jersey, so I told him to wear one each half,” Hinrichs, the second-year Northern Colorado athletic director and former director of Kansas University’s Williams Fund, said of the 7-year-old.

Hinrichs is tickled to be bringing his family and the 0-13 Bears -off to the worst start in school history – to play the Jayhawks (5-4). Tipoff is 7 p.m. at the fieldhouse, with a live telecast on channels 38 and 49 (Sunflower Broadband Channels 15 and 12) and a replay at 10:30 p.m. on Channel 6.

“I know that our student-athletes, coaches and staff, and some of our donors, are really looking forward to the trip to Allen Fieldhouse,” Hinrichs said.

“It’s a chance for our student-athletes to play in a great historic venue against a very, very good team.”

It’s a venue Hinrichs knows well. He worked at statistician at KU men’s basketball home games during his 18-year stint in the front office of the Kansas City Royals.

“I’ve seen quite a bit of basketball there since my freshman year at KU in 1976,” Hinrichs said. “You don’t have an opportunity like this every day where your current program will go against your alma mater and the place you had the privilege of working at. We appreciate coach (Bill) Self, Lew Perkins (AD) and senior administration for allowing us to set this game up.”

Proud of his alma mater, Hinrichs will play the role of tour guide for the Northern Colorado team today after its shootaround.

“I’ll take the players to see the Hall of Athletics,” Hinrichs said. “I’ll show them the fieldhouse and follow it by a tour of athletic facilities for donors and university administration. I will make comparisons talking about improvements made (at KU) in baseball, the Anderson Strength and Conditioning facility and Allen Fieldhouse that weren’t in place a couple of years ago. It shows everybody can improve.”

Hinrichs at Northern Colorado is overseeing a $16 million athletic facility renovation that includes a practice facility for basketball and volleyball, a soccer complex, and two new, lit synthetic turf multipurpose practice fields.

He’s also taking the program into the Big Sky Conference, directing the NCAA reclassification process from Div. II to Div. I in basketball and Div. I-AA in football.

“Every day we transition we walk like a Division One program, talk like a Division One program and try to compete at the Division One level, even though the entire program isn’t quite ready to do that yet,” Hinrichs said.

He recently made a major change in the Northern Colorado athletic program, firing football coach Kay Dalton. KU grid assistant Earnest Collins has been interviewed for the vacancy and is said to be a leading candidate, as are Colorado School of the Mines head coach Bob Stitt and Iowa State assistant Tony Alford.

“In the transition and system change, change in the program is always hard on everybody,” Hinrichs said. “It was a point in time we had to change the direction of our football program. We had over 100 applicants for the position.”

As far as basketball, the Bears have tackled an ambitious schedule, already having played nine road games. The Bears, who receive $50,000 for playing at KU, also have lost guarantee games at Air Force (73-48), Wyoming (83-70) and Oregon State (70-52), with upcoming guarantee games at Northwestern on New Year’s Day and Jan. 3 at Nebraska.

Northern Colorado also opened the season dropping games against Lipscomb (72-60) and South Dakota State (61-59) at the Guardian’s Classic in Lexington, Ky., and dropping two more against California (83-59) and Cal State Northridge (82-73) at the Golden Bear Classic in Berkeley, Calif.

All told, Northern Colorado will make $340,000 in basketball guarantee games this season.

“I feel the coaching staff has done a great job with a young team,” Hinrichs said of seventh-year coach Craig Rasmuson, who has a 58-118 record at the Greeley, Colo., school. “They care about the university and community and really care about themselves as a team. We’re playing an independent schedule against some of the top teams in the country (awaiting next year’s entry into the Big Sky).”

The Bears are led by sophomore guard Sean Taibi and soph forward Kirk Archibeque, who average 13.2 and 11.8 points.

“We haven’t had a victory at this point, but I think our team has made some great strides to improve as a team, and some individuals have shown they are able to compete at this level. Coach would tell you we hope to get Kirk active in the middle, and we hope to have some of our outside shooting get better than it’s been the last couple days.”

Hinrichs hopes this isn’t the last time the two teams compete in basketball. KU and Northern Colorado will play in baseball this season, and the Jayhawks and Bears are talking about perhaps playing a football game.

“We’re looking forward to playing them. Hopefully, Jay will be in town,” KU coach Bill Self said of the game. “He is a KU guy, worked in the Williams Fund. That was the primary reason setting the game up, to help them out.

“This also gives us another chance to try to get better, try to go into the Christmas holidays with three wins under our belt, hopefully set the stage for not the stretch run, but a chance to practice and playing some real big ballgames right after Christmas.” be reached at 832-7186.