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Bill Guthridge, a longtime assistant to Dean Smith and former head coach at North Carolina, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 77 (Associated Press, via the Topeka Capital-Journal).
A native of Parsons, Kansas, Guthridge was a contributor to the golden years of Kansas State basketball, playing for Tex Winter from 1957 to 1960, including on the 1958 squad that only lost two games and made it to the Final Four (K-State SID).
He would return to Manhattan after graduation to coach with Winter before moving on to North Carolina to assist Dean Smith, where he came to be a gentleman coach and fiery competitor (Andrew Carter, Charlotte News & Observer). He was instrumental in recruiting star players to Chapel Hill, including one Michael Jordan. The rest is history.
Rest in peace, Coach Gut.
A pause in the football news cycle means that we get to report on former Kansas State players instead. Tyler Lockett rocked the Seattle Seahawks minicamp and caught the attention of team-leading receiver Doug Baldwin (Stephen Cohen, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Meanwhile, the B.J. Finney fanclub just keeps growing. He's a long shot to make the team, but Finney is the feel-good story of the Pittsburgh Steelers minicamp. (Chris Bradford, GoErie.com)
Freshman A'Keyla Mitchell is off to a fast start at Kansas State, and if the current trend holds, she is on track to be one of the Wildcats' greatest athletes ever. Only 19, she has already shattered four school records and been named an All-American. The future is bright and limitless, as noted in this SE feature from Kelly McHugh.