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Fortunately, one of Esau Smith's two horses died right there in Pawnee County in the 1870s.

Otherwise, Smith and his family would have kept pushing on with the wagon train. One horse won't take you very far, so they decided to plant their roots in western Kansas.

"I was always glad they didn't keep going," said Tom Smith, Esau's great grandson. "We might all be living in southeastern Colorado now."

Or maybe even Denver. Imagine that. Christian Smith -- Esau's great-great grandson -- might have grown up a soft city kid instead of a disciplined, hard-working farmer's son.

There wouldn't have been those demanding 10-mile runs from the family farm to Pawnee Heights High School in Rozel. He wouldn't have to have had the discipline to play 8-man football on Friday nights and run cross-country races on Saturday mornings.

Jeff Klauk walked up the 18th fairway on a golf course just outside of Washington's Capital Beltway 10 weeks ago with an opportunity to win a tournament.

It was the type of chance that automatically locks and loads the cliche "stay in the moment" for many professional golfers.

Yet Klauk allowed his mind to wander almost five years and 1,300 miles away to the 2003 Preferred Health Systems Wichita Open at Crestview Country Club.

"It was a par 5 and I needed a birdie to win, just like Wichita," Klauk said. "I went back to that time and told myself to picture what I did in Wichita. Just get a good thought and try to reproduce it, and I did."

Klauk rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the Melwood Prince George's County Open in May for his second Nationwide Tour title. This year, he's complemented the victory with a strong enough body of work to secure a spot on the 2009 PGA Tour, meaning Klauk's seventh Wichita Open might be his last when it begins Thursday on Crestview's North course.

It doesn't take much to get Edward Fox talking about cricket. He'll tell you when cricket started in the United States, how many Americans are registered players, and on and on.

His passion for the sport, which he grew up playing in Sydney, Australia, is so strong that he's got a cricket field in his back yard.

Yep, he bought 15 acres of land and used four acres of it for a cricket field, called Foxfire Field. Two Wichita teams play there in the Tri-State Cricket League; Fox is the president.

Cricket isn't just his thing, though. It's a family affair.

Edward, his wife, Alice, and their three children all have worked on the cricket field since starting it in late 2002.

Kansas is ranked 13th in the USA Today coaches football poll released Friday. The Jayhawks are one of five Big 12 teams in the top 14.

It's the first preseason ranking for KU since 1996 (24th, AP) and its highest preseason ranking since being tabbed No. 8 in the preseason 1961 AP poll.

The Jayhawks finished last season 12-1 and ranked No. 7 after beating Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

Other top 25 teams from the Big 12 are Oklahoma (4), Missouri (7), Texas (10) and Texas Tech (14).

Brent Robison pitched to 40 batters on Friday. Against 24 of them, he was pitching from the stretch. That may have been the best position for Robison, though. The Park City Cowboys got on base plenty against Robison, but most often they stayed there.

Robison allowed nine hits, walked two and hit four batters, but Park City stranded 11, including eight in scoring position, and South Tulsa held on for a 2-1 win at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in the opening round of the National Baseball Congress World Series.

The Diamondjaxx advance to the second round and will play on Monday, while Park City will play in the losers bracket on Monday.

"You've just got to keep making pitches," Robison said. "I don't worry about the runners getting on base too much. You've got to get the batter. If he doesn't get a hit, they can't score. I just bear down on the batter, I guess."

Robison completed the game in 146 pitches and allowed a baserunner in every inning. Park City finally pushed a run across in the ninth, perhaps justice since Robison's statistics didn't lend themselves to a shutout -- except for his 11 strikeouts.

Minor league baseball's reputation for good, clean family entertainment might require a stronger rating.

The sport has taken a hit over a bench-clearing brawl in which a player has been charged with assaulting a fan. And the trouble doesn't end there.

The Midwest League suspended and fined 15 players and both managers Friday for the July 24 fight between the Class A Dayton Dragons and Peoria Chiefs.

"It's certainly a black eye for the industry, but unfortunately altercations on the field are part of the game," said Joe McEacharn, president of the Double-A Eastern League.

That latest skirmish in Dayton led umpires to eject 15 players and the managers. Pitcher Julio Castillo was later arrested, accused of throwing a ball into the stands that hit a fan in the forehead and sent the 44-year-old man to the hospital.

z-clinched title.

y-clinched second and automatic berth into NBC World Series.

Before Dustan Mohr left the Wingnuts after being sold to the Colorado Rockies on May 28, doctors found a nodule on the right side of his thyroid.

Because he was leaving and it wasn't a pressing issue, Mohr decided not to have the nodule removed then. But when he returned to Wichita after being released by the Rockies last month, Mohr opted for a procedure to remove it.

The routine surgery turned out to be anything but -- the nodule proved to be cancerous. Mohr had his thyroid removed and was told he is cancer-free.

"Everything's good, they got it all out," Mohr said. "I did a lot of research about thyroid cancer. They said if you want to have cancer, that's the one you want to have. It's curable and it's not one that's slow-growing and will spread."

The operation was performed by Whitney Vinzant at Wesley Medical Center on July 23. The thyroid is a gland in the neck that controls the body's energy and protein levels.

Phil Mickelson has won 35 times around the world, starting with a PGA Tour event when he was still in college. His collection includes three major championships, and he is solidly entrenched at No. 2 in the world rankings.

That must make him the best player to have never won a World Golf Championship.

Mickelson got a chuckle out of the playful suggestion after making a mid-round adjustment Saturday at the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, that led to three straight birdies and a 2-under 68, giving him a share of the lead with Vijay Singh and Lee Westwood.

It's not quite the same burden as "best to have never won a major," the label he shed in 2004 at the Masters. And the WGC events are not nearly as prestigious as the majors.

Even so, he has never had this good an opportunity to win one.

1990

Tom Lehman -- Lehman earned his first pro victory in the Reflection Ridge Open, withstanding a final-round charge by Greg Whisman for a one-shot victory. Lehman began his second stint on the PGA Tour two years later and was the player of the year in 1996 after winning the British Open and Tour Championship.

1991

Eric Hoos -- Hoos fired a 61 in the opening round and finished with a 17-under 199 total, the lowest 54-hole score in the three years before the tournament went to four rounds. It was the only tour victory of Hoos' career.

1992

KRIS BLANKS

Age: 35

Residence: Bluffton, S.C.

Note: Has three top-10 finishes this season, including a win at the Bank of America Open.

FABIAN GOMEZ

City Junior Boys

Wednesday and Thursday at Sim G.C.

10-year-olds (9 holes off No. 10 tee)

7:30 a.m.-- Alec Wilbert, Nicholas Wagner, Trent Paske; 7:40--Jacob Wilson, Thomas Wells, Max Iseman.

11-year-olds (9 holes off No. 10 tee)

Jeff Klauk will play in the Preferred Health Systems Wichita Open for the seventh time this week. Here's a look at his past finishes:

Fred Funk still has the lead and Wichita pro Rod Nuckolls has two more rounds to play at the U.S. Senior Open in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Funk overcame difficult pin placements and faster, drier greens to shoot a 1-under 69 on The Broadmoor's East Course. His two-day score of 6-under 134 is two shots ahead of Eduardo Romero (69) and four ahead of Mark McNulty (70), Tom Kite (71) and John Cook (72).

Nuckolls, playing in his first Senior Open, followed his opening-round 74 with a 2-over 72. He made four birdies on the 7,254-yard layout and will play with Champions Tour member Loren Roberts in today's third round.

Stealing the show, however, was a black bear that ambled out of the mountains in the morning and crossed the 13th fairway before checking out spectators outside the ropes.

Nobody was harmed, and neither was the bear.

Little has changed for Kasey Kahne in the last six weeks.

After winning the June race at Pocono Raceway, the NASCAR Sprint Cup star sat in ninth place in the season standings, exactly where he remains heading into today's Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 in Long Pond, Pa.

The big difference now is that the Chase for the championship is looming on the horizon and Kahne has not yet nailed down a spot in the 10-race stock car postseason.

"We had an awesome Dodge Charger back in June here at Pocono," Kahne said. "I hope that we can run well again this weekend. It's going to be a real battle to make it in the Chase these next six races, so it's real important to run consistent and stay up front."

The top 12 drivers after the first 26 races of the season qualify for the Chase and right now drivers in positions seven through 14 are separated by just 154 points.

El Dorado 8, San Antonio 6

Community Bank 4, W. Texas 3

For the most part, Rick Dutrow has kept a low profile since Big Brown's inexplicable last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes nearly two months ago.

The time has arrived for Big Brown's return -- in today's $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park -- and the trainer was chattering again this week. While exuding his usual confidence, Dutrow's tone was far from boastful.

After all, he still finds it hard to believe his Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner was completely off his game in the Belmont, where the big bay colt was uncomfortable at the start and later was pulled up around the far turn by jockey Kent Desormeaux, the Triple Crown quest over as a crowd of 94,476 looked on in stunned silence.

"From what happened in his last start, it's kind of hard to feel as confident as I was for the Derby and those other races," Dutrow said. "But I feel as confident as I can be that he's going to run his race."

Then again, without a definitive reason to pin on Big Brown's only loss, it's easy to see why Dutrow is anxious to see which Big Brown shows up in the 1 1/8-mile Haskell in New Jersey.

It's hard to believe that a game that ultimately featured 15 runs and 31 hits appeared headed toward a pitchers' duel after four innings.

Colorado Sox starter Bob Moller and Newton Rebels counterpart Brent Ebinger each held the opposition at bay in the opening innings, but the offenses eventually took control.

It was the Sox' lineup, particularly the middle of the order, that proved to be more dangerous -- barely. A five-run sixth helped the Sox hold off Newton for an 8-7 win in the National Baseball Congress World Series on Saturday at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

Colorado became the first team to win two games in the tournament, as the Sox beat the Wichita Sluggers' 18-and-under team in the tournament opener on Friday. Colorado plays next on Thursday while the Rebels drop to the losers' bracket and meet the Houston Apollos today.

Moller held the Rebels hitless through 3 1/3 innings, allowing only a walk among the first 11 batters he faced.

The Olympics begin this week in Beijing. What are you looking forward to most?

• Tyson Gay and the 100-meter battle vs. Jamaica's top sprinters

• The U.S. team's quest to recover men's basketball gold

• Michael Phelps' attempt to break Mark Spitz's gold medal record

• Watching 41-year old Dara Torres swim

Brad Ziegler, who is a rookie pitcher for the Oakland Athletics, pitched at what was then Southwest Missouri State.

Through Friday's games, Ziegler had pitched 32 innings without allowing a run.

Without much fanfare Ziegler broke the record for scoreless innings to start a career.

Ziegler passed the 25-inning mark held by Philadelphia Phillies' right-hander George McQuillan since 1907.

At 28, Ziegler has spent five years in the minors, before getting called up by Oakland.

Rafael Nadal's move to No. 1 will have to wait a couple of more weeks.

Looking weary after two months of non-stop winning, the 22-year-old Spaniard got run around the court Saturday and, ultimately, bounced from the Cincinnati Masters one step short of another title match. Instead, Novak Djokovic reached the final with a 6-1, 7-5 victory that delayed the inevitable.

The third-seeded Djokovic will play Andy Murray for the title today. Murray reached his first Masters series final by beating Ivo Karlovic 6-4, 6-4.

By reaching the semifinals of the $2.6 million ATP Western & Southern Financial Group Masters, Nadal piled up enough points to overtake Roger Federer as the world's No. 1 player. Given the way points accrue -- the last 52 weeks are counted -- he will surpass Federer in the Aug. 18 rankings. Federer has been No. 1 for a record 235 consecutive weeks.

• Jelena Jankovic might not feel worthy of being ranked No. 1, but she has assured herself of moving up to that spot later this month.

Kansas State junior linebacker John Houlik was arrested early Friday morning in Manhattan by the Riley County Police Department on the charge of driving under the influence.

According to department spokesman Kurt Moldrup, Houlik was spotted near the 1200 block of Laramie when his car drove up on a curb and over a sidewalk. The bottom of the car scraped the pavement, drawing the attention of nearby police officers. At 2:35 a.m., Houlik was stopped, arrested and charged. He posted bail.

Per K-State policy, coach Ron Prince didn't comment, preferring to allow the legal process run its course.

Houlik, a Wichita native who starred at Collegiate, has played in 21 games for the Wildcats, recording 76 tackles, including 4.5 for losses. According to K-State's media guide, he is expected to push for a starting spot this fall.

• Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops dismised wide receiver Josh Jarboe after the player appeared in a 74-second, profanity-laced video in which he rapped about guns and shooting people. the freshman had been arrested earlier this year on a weapons charge. The 6-foot-3, 195-pound Jarboe was one of the top-ranked wide receivers in the country.

John Paul Johnson leads a visitor into the basement of the Wichita State School of Music, to a large room filled with black and gold lockers.

"Welcome to the marching band locker room," Johnson, the school's new music director, says. "We haven't had a marching band in 20 years."

Johnson is grinning as he says this, but he's serious about making the Duerksen Fine Arts Center better serve students and faculty.

His wish: a music library five or six times as big as the school's present one, a technology lab (replacing the locker room) filled with computers and electronic keyboards, refurbished practice rooms and more.

All that's missing, he concedes, is money. Just last month, WSU and other state universities were asked to cut their budgets by 7 percent over the next two years, although Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has since said the cuts may not take place.

Delno Ebie has been an actor for 15 years, from local stage productions to Eddie Murphy's "The Haunted Mansion," and is a familiar face on local TV through commercials for Cox Communications and the Wichita River Festival.

Now, Ebie is leaping into what he considers the future of television by writing, directing and starring in a Web series -- filmed in and around Wichita -- that he hopes to launch for worldwide attention in late September.

"Everything has been leading toward this," says Ebie, who launched Little Warrior Films LLC in 2006 with his wife, Valorie, and business partner, Ginger Bynorth, who is also his chief photographer.

"I've been keeping track of the trends. More people are watching television on their PCs. I believe that television and PCs will become one and the same for most people. I want to get my foot on the first rung of that ladder. Now that I'm in my late 30s, it's time to get serious."

Ebie's project, called "The Raven," is a sci-fi tale involving a mysterious woman in her early 20s searching for her biological parents after being raised -- and abused -- by foster parents.

RICK SPRINGFIELD

'Venus in Overdrive'

(Wingdings 171) ½ (New Door/Universal)

The buzz isn't deafening but the new Rick Springfield CD could be his biggest hit in quite some time. He's back on the daytime soap "General Hospital" in a dual role (Dr. Noah Drake, rocker Eli Love) and sings this disc's first single, "What's Victoria's Secret?" on the show. Plus, the song itself is such a blatant musical rewrite of his most famous hit, "Jessie's Girl," with its similar chunky guitars and catchy chorus hook, Springfield's bound to tap into fans' nostalgic groove.

Despite its clever title, "Victoria's Secret?" leaves less of an impression than "Jessie's Girl" did in 1981 because its lyrics are muddled by comparison. The rest of "Venus in Overdrive," written by Springfield with bassist Matt Bissonette, darts between familiar and likable '80s-style rockers and some less-than-thrilling attempts at contemporary rock.

Music Theatre of Wichita's summer finale, "Les Miserables," is a soul-stirring, goosebump-inducing spectacle that ranks with the best versions I've seen on Broadway or London and just may be the best production in MTW's 37-year history.

Boublil and Schoenberg's 1985 masterwork, based on the 1842 novel by Victor Hugo about an ill-fated student rebellion in 19th century Paris, has the grandeur and import of opera but the approachability of Broadway. You don't just see this show, you experience it.

MTW's version is one of only 12 authorized regional theater productions this year. Director Joe Locarro and set designer Bruce Brockman have reinvented the look with a dark, moody street set that proves versatile enough to go from dusty slum to rowdy tavern to elegant wedding to even the drippy Paris sewers -- all thanks to clever lighting design by David Neville, who makes good use of a blue back spotlight for individuals to define their various little spheres of influence.

Music director Thomas Wesley Douglas led his 23-piece orchestra (bigger than those used on Broadway these days) through three concentrated and hauntingly lovely hours of nonstop music.

But it is the voices that send this production to the top of the ranks. Nicholas F. Saverine, a Wichita State alum who has sung the lead, Jean Valjean, on Broadway, in Vienna and on national tour, has a powerful tenor that can rattle the back walls with his soul-searching "Who Am I?" but can also rise to impossible heights with the haunting "Bring Him Home."

BY COLIN COVERT

You say stately, I say stagnant. The lush big-screen version of "Brideshead Revisited" is mummified by good taste, swathed in so many layers of posh art direction and somnolent performance that its life force all but flickers out.

A languid, melancholy teacup drama, it should be ingested only by fervent Anglophiles or when Seconal is unavailable.

The novel's author, Evelyn Waugh, was an elitist worshipper of wealthy aristocratic layabouts; when he expired in 1966 one writer said he "died of snobbery." His greatest novel is a reverie about the relationship of the narrator, middle-class artist Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), with the Flytes, an aristocratic Anglo-Catholic clan.

This loose adaptation opens during World War II as Capt. Ryder moves among squads of British troops billeted at Brideshead Manor, the Flyte family estate, which commoners would never have been permitted to enter a decade earlier. The film then travels wistfully back to days of hedonistic indulgence in the decadent 1920s and '30s, as the odd but alluring family beguiled Charles.

Playing middle pairs can be a tricky proposition, especially when the board pairs or an overcard comes, but if you can figure out what specific bets mean from specific players, you can make the most of a so-so hand.

At the World Poker Tour's $15,000-buy-in Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Las Vegas' Bellagio in 2007, Erick Lindgren picked up pocket 9s under the gun. With blinds at $800-$1,600 plus a $200 ante, Lindgren, an aggressive pro known to chop at a lot of pots, raised to $4,500.

"I was raising to thin the field and mix it up," said Lindgren, winner of two WPT titles. "I didn't want to always limp in under the gun."

Surprisingly, three players in late position called, as did Raymond Davis in the big blind.

"When I got four callers," Lindgren said, "I wanted to flop a 9."

As an archery contender at the Summer Olympics lines up a shot, an American TV viewer sits squarely in the bull's-eye. When the arrows fly in Beijing, the view from tiny high-definition cameras is sure to jolt some folks right out of their recliners.

With the Olympics set to start Aug. 8, NBC is gearing up to provide 3,600 hours of coverage from 35 venues with nearly 1,100 HD cameras and an arsenal of digital gadgets that will not only make the games more fun to watch, but simpler to grasp.

"For us, it's all about making sports easier to understand," says David Neal, NBC's executive vice president in charge of Olympics coverage. "But the best technical innovations are the ones that take the viewer on a magic carpet ride. They transport the television viewer out of their easy chair at home and give them a sense of what it's like to be on the field of play."

Neal recalls watching ABC's Olympics coverage in the 1960s and '70s and being fascinated by the technical innovations of the day, many of which were implemented by the legendary ABC Sports producer Roone Arledge.

"I remember as a kid watching and saying, 'Wow -- how do they do that?' The Olympics were always the showcases for all of the newest technology. Roone set the gold standard."

Never mind the marathon, high dive or shot put: The fuzzy, tail-wagging athletes in the inaugural "Puppy Games" are busy with their own version of Olympic events, including a parade of nations to kick off the festivities.

Rob Burk, Discovery Studios executive producer, said 15 nationalities represented are represented, including the pug and Shih Tzu for China, the dachshund for Germany, the Dalmatian for Croatia and the English bulldog.

Like the network's popular "Puppy Bowl," the games feature both privately owned and animal-shelter pups (all of which have been adopted) at play in a setting resembling a stadium. The games were taped in April at a production studio in the District of Columbia, with staging for puppy gymnastics, boxing, swimming and soccer.

Using five cameras simultaneously to capture multiple angles, the production team recorded 75 hours of tape, edited to three hours. The broadcast airs opposite NBC's Summer Olympics opening ceremonies and will be rebroadcast Aug. 23, the night of the closing ceremonies.

The program "looks deceptively simple, but it is one of the most challenging productions to do," said Animal Planet Media executive producer Melinda Toporoff. "Puppy Games" has "a cuteness factor that is relatable to most people," she said.