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Tuesday, December 26, 2000

By Shelly Anderson, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

PHOENIX -- Pitt's top tailback, the one with the promising future in the pros, wants to set the record straight.

His name is Kevan Barlow, the first name pronounced the conventional way. It is not Kee-van.

At least, that's his preference.

"It's really pronounced 'Kee-van,' because 'Ke-vin' would be spelled with the 'in,' " Barlow said yesterday. "But ever since I was a kid everybody has been calling me Ke-vin, so I go by that."

During at least one game telecast this season, announcers referred to Barlow as "Kee-van." That's wrong, Barlow said.

"Coach [Walt] Harris keeps teasing me about that every five minutes," he said.

It's not something that peeves him, but Barlow wants to correct anyone with the wrong idea.

"I go by Ke-vin," he said. "I want to make that clear to everybody."

Got it?

Back to business

Other than a couple of team managers wearing Santa caps, there was nothing special about Pitt's practice.

The team had celebrated Christmas the night before at the team hotel with a party for all the players, the staff and their children.

So practice was all business.

"Seeing as how today is Christmas day, I thought they practiced very well," Harris said.

Crowd control

With the disparity in ticket sales -- Iowa State has sold at least 16,000 tickets, and Pitt expects around 4,000 fans -- the Cyclones could have a partisan crowd for the Insight.com Bowl game.

Harris said that gives Iowa State some kind of benefit.

"I'm sure it does," he said. "I don't know if it will be a home-field advantage, but I'm sure it will make it a lot louder, and I'm sure it will give them something to be very proud of.

"I also know that our fans have a little farther to go to get here from Pittsburgh than their fans do, and it hasn't been as long since we've been to a bowl as it has been for Iowa State."

Pitt played in the 1997 Liberty Bowl. The Cyclones are making their first postseason appearance in 22 years.

Majors' impact

Johnny Majors, who has twice coached Pitt and led the Panthers to the 1976 national championship, is very popular around Iowa State.

Majors coached the Cyclones from 1968 to 1972, leading them to their first two bowl games. It's believed the momentum he built there helped get Iowa State a new stadium just after he left. Jack Trice Stadium, opened in 1975, is actually one of the more recent college football stadiums constructed in the country.

More recently, Majors was remembered when Iowa State named its outdoor practice area, with artificial and grass fields, the Johnny Majors Practice Fields.

Quick hits

Majors isn't the only coach to work at both Iowa State and Pitt. The legendary Pop Warner was Iowa State's first official football coach in 1895. Warner coached the Panthers to three national championships between 1915 and 1923. ... When Warner's 1895 team, then known as the Cardinals, notched a 36-0 upset at Northwestern, the Chicago Tribune's headline read: "Iowa Cyclone Devastates Evanstontown." The moniker, Cyclones, stuck. ... Iowa State offensive tackle Andy Stensrud's father, Mike, was an All-America player for the Cyclones and played on two of the school's previous four bowl teams, in 1977 and 1978.