When I saw the artistic depictions of the four finalists for the new Kansas University logo, I couldn’t help but think of the immortal words of legendary sports writer Grantland Rice:

“Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again,” Rice poeticized for the New York Herald Tribune following a Notre Dame football victory in 1924.

“In dramatic lore,” Rice continued, “they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.”

With apologies to Rice, who probably doesn’t care anyway since he died in 1954, my reaction to those unremarkable logos goes like this:

“Outlined in mandatory KU blue against a pale white background, the Four Logos rode into our senses. In official lore, they are known as Trajan, The Hill, Goudy and Volta. These are only aliases. Their real names are Mundane, Insipid, Bland and Dull.”

At least, the university allocated only $89,000 for the designs.

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Kansas University will be losing one assistant athletic director and adding another July 1. Gary Kempf, whose title has been assistant AD for traditions, will become athletic director at tiny Asbury College in Wilmore, Ky., on the first day of the fiscal year. Kempf has been with the Jayhawks for nearly three decades, primarily as a swim coach.

Meanwhile, KU is advertising for a new position as assistant AD for equipment services. The new hiree will be responsible for the ordering, inventory, issuance, use and maintenance of athletic equipment for assigned sports and supervising an equipment staff.

The changes will leave the athletic-department hierarchy with eight associate athletic directors and six assistant athletic directors.

On the Street: Which new Kansas University logo do you like best?

Woodling: KU logos no cause for verse

KU has designs on new logo (05-17-05)

6News video: KU officials finalze choices for new logo

Comment: KU’s finalists for official university logo

Campanile likely won’t be finalist for new KU logo (12-02-04)

Provide feedback to KU

Survey seals deal for KU, Moses (09-16-04)

6News video: KU releases preliminary results of marketing study (09-15-04)

Hemenway leads charge for KU’s image control (09-10-04)

KU surveys best uses for school’s numerous logos (06-03-04)

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Have you been wondering what the new Booth Family Hall of Athletics will look like? Have you been curious how the addition to Allen Fieldhouse will change the eastern facade of the famed structure?

You’re not the only one. Architectural renderings of the $6 million-plus add-on have been kept under wraps by the KU athletic department. However, the drawings are supposed to be made available in conjunction with Saturday morning’s groundbreaking.

As anyone who has driven along Naismith Drive knows, bulldozers already are rumbling at the site, and the signature Phog Allen statue has been temporarily moved about 50 yards to the south outside the construction fences.

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After the Big 12 Conference baseball season ends Sunday, the annual league all-sports compilations will be complete. The women are already done and, according to my figures, the Jayhawks will finish sixth by the slender margin of a half-point over Texas Tech.

After years of lower second-division finishes, a first-division finish is something to crow about. Soccer obviously put Kansas over the hump. In sharing the league soccer title with Texas A&M, KU won its first league women’s title since basketball in 1997.

The Kansas men, meanwhile, likely will wind up in the second division again. By my calculations, the Jayhawks currently are tied with Iowa State for eighth place, but ISU doesn’t have a baseball program and consequently can’t gain any more points.

There are two certainties in the men’s standings, however. Texas will finish on top — big surprise — and Kansas State will be last. The complete listings will appear in Tuesday’s Journal-World.

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Item: Kansas University basketball player J.R. Giddens is stabbed in a leg in a post-2 a.m. altercation at a Lawrence watering hole.

Comment: Giddens, who won’t turn 21 until next February, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and two wrongs don’t make a right.