AFTER SHORT DELAY, PENNEY OPENS SOME EYES
Madison Capital Times
Jul 13, 1999
Disheveled.
Disoriented.
Dehydrated.
He was from "down under" and feeling all of the above.
In sum, Kirk Penney was feeling the effects of jet lag and the 17- hour time
difference between Madison and his home in New Zealand.
"It was about three o'clock in the morning and I couldn't sleep,"
said Penney, who was bunking in some campus housing. "I stepped outside
and I just went for a wander down the street, and I wound up on State
Street."
That was an eye-opener.
"There were so many crazy people out there - punks with crazy hair - it
was unbelievable," he recalled. "It was quite a blast. I didn't know
what to expect when I got here, but I've found out that it's quite a liberal
town."
The 18-year-old Penney will find Big Ten basketball to be far more
conservative by nature.
And during his one month layover in town this summer, he has already had his
eyes opened to what awaits him when he returns in late August for the start of
classes at the University of Wisconsin.
"I can go home now," said Penney, who was scheduled to fly out of
Madison today, "and know what I'm coming back into."
Because he's a shooting guard, Penney will be coming back into a pretty good
situation with the UW basketball team, which came up short in scorers last season.
While the expectations should be much lower for Penney than his freshman
classmate Julian Swartz - who's expected to see considerable playing time along
with junior college transfer Roy Boone - you can never have enough scorers.
One would be nice.
"He's definitely the shooter everybody said he was going to be,"
acknowledged Mike Kelley, who will be entering his junior season as Wisconsin's
starting point guard. "He has good range, and he has confidence. He's a
young kid, but he's a mature player."
Penney's reputation as a jump-shooter definitely preceded him.
"Everybody had heard so much about him that he had kind of a
mystique," Kelley noted. "We were all trying to figure out what he
was going to be like."
But they all had to wait for Penney's debut, which was delayed until he
regained his strength and checked out of the hospital.
After an awful travel odyssey between New Zealand and Madison - consuming 36
hours, 26 in the air - he was not exactly on top of his game when he showed up
for the UW's advance instruction basketball camp on June 15.
Penney made it through most of the opening session before keeling over.
Suffering from dehydration, he was hospitalized that night.
"I think they pumped me with IV for five hours," he said.
"Before I knew it, I had put on 16 pounds of fluid. It was unreal."
