Gill Bans Phones/Girlfriends

Turner Gill has banned players from not only using cellphones on game days, but the day before kickoff . When the team plays on a Saturday, players turn in their phones to KU coaches on Friday morning. They get them back after the game.

Also in the players’ manual is a rule that states that KU’s players cannot be with girls past 10 p.m. on any night. That means either having a girl over or being at her house.

Though Gill told the players that the rule was difficult to enforce, he explained the penalty would be more severe if a KU player was involved with an incident and it was discovered that the player had broken the policy.

Player reaction to Gill’s policies haven’t exactly been overwhelmingly positive. Veteran KU receiver Daymond Patterson said, “I think everybody was just like, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it without my cell phone. I think everybody was just kind of in shock, because we hadn’t had anything like that here in the past years.”

Mark Mangino, who led an astonishing revival of the Jayhawk football program, until he was unceremoniously fired by now-ousted athletic director Lew Perkins, did not have such restrictions on players the previous eight seasons in Lawrence.

Last season Mangino actually addressed the girlfriend issue to McCollough:

“We don’t talk to players about who their girlfriend should be, what they should look like, all that. I’m telling you, our coaches aren’t sitting up here until 10:30, 11 o’ clock at night worried about our players’ girlfriends.”

Jayhawk player Lubbock Smith also noted at the time, “I don’t listen to my girlfriend when it comes to football. I listen to my coaches.”

The funny thing about Gill’s phone ban is that he has no such embargo on computers, so players can while away their time on laptops - communicating every bit as readily as they do on cellphone. Including in the locker room.

While there’s nothing wrong with Gill installing a curfew for player social activities and instituting what is largely a symbolic ban on cellphones to promote team unity, the moves might not go over too well with recruits.

And so far KU’s results on the field give no indication that policing the data plans of players is of much use.