Volume 124 Issue 104
kansan.com
Friday, February 24, 2012
Stepping on Tiger tails for the very last time
LUKE RANKER/KANSAN
From the left to the right: Sam Kovzan, sophomore from Leawood and Tansey Schoonover, a freshman from Roswell, Georgia, work on speeches for their communication class while Emi Pfeifer, a freshman from Hays, studies biology. Kovzan said they had been camping for about 30 minutes when several basketball players came out for a press conference.
"I think it's pretty crazy," Colin Vipond, a freshman from Omaha, said. "Being from Nebraska, it's all about football. Now it's all about basketball. I was in shock when I even first heard about camping."
"I just know usually within the first few days people drop like flies, but only one group has dropped out ahead of us so far," I said.
Normally, the camping is not as intense. But for Missouri, everyone is trying to get the best seats possible.
students descend on the north concourse of Allen Fieldhouse to ensure their camping group keeps its spot in line for the Missouri game. With this contest set to be the last tilt in the foreseeable future of a rivalry that predates the advent of collegiate athletics, students are desperate to secure their seat and witness history.
"It was good," Kyle Haley, a junior from Hays, said about interacting with the players. "It's different I guess, knowing they're my age. It's kind of unique that they're as popular as they are."
Haley got to split a Pizza Hut cheese pizza, delivered to him by junior guard Elijah Johnson, with another camper. But pizza time is not the only time the campers can catch a glimpse of the players.
SPORTS 1B
SUDOKU 4A
pushed junior forward Thomas Robinson around in a laundry hamper as the players delivered pizza.
"I'm looking at the gods of our school," Tansey Schoonover, a freshman from Roswell, Ga, said as students gathered to watch the men's basketball team walk to practice.
Worse than waking up early is the fear that a camper might oversleep his or her shift. In her freshman year, Maggie Hirschi, a senior from St. Louis, Mo., woke up at 5:55 a.m. for her 6 a.m. camping shift at the Fieldhouse before a game against Texas. She rushed over from her Oliver Hall dorm room but arrived too late, and her group lost its number three camping spot.
CRYPTOQUIPS 4A OPINION 5A
surf the Internet. Sometimes I sleep, if you have an early shift, but it's really hard on this floor"
Students try to maintain sanity during hours of camping. Vipond's group pitched in together to purchase an air mattress that
The north concourse will continue to bustle with student activity until numbers are handed out three hours before tip-off on Saturday.
the men's and women's bas-
CLASSIFIEDS 2B
CROSSWORD 4A
"Mizzou ones just are always fun because you see the dedication students have to come to these games," Hirschi said.
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Index
— Edited by Ian Cummings
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Both teams will continue winning basketball games. Missouri might even win a championship in the SEC. But left in the wake of Saturday's game will be a tremendous void that a hundred games against West Virginia or South Carolina could never fill.
Kansas without Missouri is like Batman without The Joker or the Hatfields without the McCoys. Would anyone really care about one without the other? Thanks to a need for attention from one side and a stubbornness from the other, we are about to find out.
tents, unless stated otherwise, © 2012 The University Daily Kansan
When the game ends, win or lose, take one last mental picture of the aftermath. Because if the powerholders get their way, that memory is all your children and grandchildren may ever know of one of the greatest rivalries ever played.
Edited by Taylor Lewis
Get your ticket for the Campus Movie Series at the Kansas Union. Tonight's featured film is "The Muppets."
Today's Weather
Strong winds, mostly cloudy.
Gone with the wind.