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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 8A FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12,1997
EVENTS • ENTERTAINMENT • ISSUES • MUSIC • ART
ONE TEAM HAS TO LOSE
BATTLE
OF THE
Dislike, anger emerge on field as bitter rivalry hits the gridiron
BORDER
By Kristie Blasi
kblasi@kansan.com
Sports editor
The 1980 Kansas squad matches up against its Missouri counterpart in Columbia. The Tigers trampled the Jayhawks 31-6 in the midst of a 4-5-2 season. Missouri fared better than season, finishing with an 8-4 record.
top me if you've heard this:
A Kansas graduate and a Missouri graduate were convicted of felonies and sentenced to
death. The warden decided to have both executions at the same time. He asked both men if they had a final wish. The KU graduate asked if he could hear the "Alma Mater" and the Rock Chalk chant before the executions. No problem, the warden said. He then turned to the Missouri alum and asked the same question. Shoot me first, he said.
The Kansas-Missouri football rivalry is the second-oldest in Division I, and the bitterness of the matchup must compete with the nation's longest rivalry — the Minnesota-Wisconsin series.
"The they say it's a rivalry," said former Kansas coach and player Don Fambrough. "To me it's war. It started a long time ago. My first experience was in 1946 as a player. I started a tremendous dislike for those people then and it's gotten stronger since then."
Fambrough was a team captain and played guard in 1946 and 1947. He coached the Jayhawks from 1971-74 and from 1979-82.
Kansas' All-America halfback and quarterback in 1960 and 1961, John Hadi, shares Fambrough's disdain.
"I tried to pass my dislike for those people to my players," he said. "And I think I did a pretty good job because most of them hate Missouri as much as I do."
"I can't stand them to this day," said Hadl, now an associate athletics director. "I wish I could play Saturday. Those people are short on class.
"When I was in school during the '60s and then in the '70s and most of the '80s it was the big rivalry," he said. "It was big for alums in Kansas, Missouri and Kansas City. There was a lot of competition both ways. The press worked both sides really good. And it was the last game of the year so it usually meant something for a bowl bid or conference placing."
Bill Skepnek was a defensive tackle on Fambrough's teams from 1970 to 1973 and remembers the Missouri games well.
"When I was playing, we beat Missouri all four years," he said. "My senior year when we beat them, we were both headed for bowl games. Their kicker had never missed an extra point and they were up by three touchdowns. But he missed the extra point on their last touchdown and we came back to beat them by one point so that was especially sweet.
"I absolutely hate those folks," he said. "I take a historical perspective. It goes back to the Civil War. We condescend to K-State people and take mercy and pity on them because they are people of the book who have gone astray. Missouri people are heathens and barbarians. They sacked Lawrence in the 1860s and it hasn't gotten better. They are horrid people."
The game has a stake for non-athletes as well.
"I was in Columbia, Mo., from 1959 to 1966 but I've been a Jayhawk for a long time," he said. "It was a little easier to switch in basketball than it was in football."
James Carothers, professor of English, attended Missouri and earned his undergraduate and master's degrees. He said he began following the game in 1955.
Carothers has attended all of the games in Lawrence since 1970 except for one. And in 1973 he became the Memorial Stadium statistician for rushing vards.
Kansas football captain Otto Rost (76) shakes hands with Kansas Gov. Harry H. Woodring as Missouri captain Frank Bitmiter looks on before the 1931 game. Kansas beat Missouri 14-0.
"I think for a lot of us it is the biggest rivalry because it's its interstate," he said. "KU has K-State but there is no Missouri State. It goes back to the border warfare between Kansas and Missouri in the 1850's.
'Kansas City Star' and 'Times' favored Missouri and vice versa."
"Kansas City has always been a battleground," he said. "KU always thought the
Carothers said he thought the rivalry had maintained intensity because it is evenly matched.
The series record is 49-47-9 in favor of the Tigers. In the last 10 years the teams are 5-5, and the longest victory streak for both teams is five seasons.
Tomorrow's game will add a new twist to the rivalry. It is the third game of the season for Kansas and the second for Missouri instead of the traditional last regular-season game for both teams.
"I'm awful sorry to see it as the third game this season," former coach Fambrough said. "I always used to say that we had two seasons — we played everybody else and then we played Missouri.
"I'm not sad that it was moved because both teams have been out of contention recently so people have lost interest," he said. "And bad weather is more likely at the end of the season so that just adds to the reasons not to come to a game."
they have to do these things now," he said.
But John Hadl said that the schedule change could have a positive effect on the rivalry.
"In a way, I'm a traditionalist and I have liked the fact that it's the last game of the season," he said. "Having said that, I think that having it early in the season like this may be kind of fun. Neither of our expectations are tarnished. We're not both limping into the game with five or six losses. We both think we're pretty good. It's a heck of a time to play the game."
Bill Skepnek agreed that change was positive and negative.
"I understand that it's for TV and that they have to do these things now," he said.
Regardless of the change, Hadl, Skepnek and Fambrough said they would attend.
"I'll sure be at this one." Fambrough said. "I understand we're going to play a little after sunrise, but I'll be there."
The 106th Kansas-Missouri game will begin about 11:30 a.m. tomorrow—and like the last 105 meetings, the joking will stop at kickoff time.
Norris Banks, running with the ball, sprints through Missouri's defensive line in the 1977 matchup. Banks rushed for 1,862 yards and four touchdowns from 1975 to 1977. All photos courtesy University Archives
After 106 years and 105 games the Jayhawks battle Mizzou
By Penny Walker sports@kansan.com Kansan sportswriter
here was no band at the rally for the first Kansas-Missouri football game, but that doesn't mean it was quiet.
On Oct. 31, 1891, before the University band had even been organized, hundreds of Kansas fans gathered before the game that would start a 106-year-old rivalry, chanting the Rock Chalk cheer and waving crimson banners. They were ready for the competition to begin.
The game was at the Exposition Baseball Park in Kansas City, Mo..neutral territory for this border rivalry. Missouri won the toss and chose the south goal. Kansas ran the ball in for a touchdown on the fourth down of the first drive, and the game was afoot.
One hundred six years and 105 games later, the oldest rivalry west of the Mississippi is still moving strong. Through bad weather and even worse wars, the Jayhawks and the Tigers have met at center field where players clash — and so do uniforms.
Missouri turned out to be a greater foe than those early reporters predicted. It has won 49 of the 105 games; Kansas has won 47; and nine games have ended in a tie.
Reporting that first game, which ended in a 22-8 Kansas victory, "The Weekly University Courier" stated, "The game that our boys put up still needs some improvement before we play Baker, for Baker knows a little more about football than M.S.U."
Sometimes the headlines trumpeted Kansas victories. Sometimes they didn't. In 1930, the front page shouted, "Kansas Wins Greatest Missouri Victory, 32-0." But in Kansas' 1898 victory, when a driving snow storm and a field covered in snow and ice made end plays and fakes impossible, "The Kansas University Weekly" simply sighed. "Same Old Storv."
Weather conditions did more than make some games difficult to play. Sometimes it stopped them completely. On Nov. 30, 1894, the ball was within four yards of the Missouri goal. With 7 minutes left to play, the game was called because of darkness. Luckily for Kansas, the score was already 18-12.
Earlier in that game, though, Missouri had possession of the ball almost the entire time. One of the Missouri reporters heard a Rev. Cowan murmuring, "The good Lord have mercy on us, and deliver the ball from the hands of the Missourians."
"The Students Journal," a University of Kansas publication, read "Whether or not the prayer was answered, we are not prepared to say, but the ball soon changed hands and the score was tied."
The annual Kansas-Missouri game was played in Kansas City until 1907, when it moved to St. Joseph, Mo. Kansas fans, however, complained that it was a partisan territory, and the game was back in Kansas City the next year.
Columbia was host to the game for the first time in 1911. In Lawrence, 1,200 students attended a rally in front of Old Fraser Hall. With a goal of a "Fighting 500" in the stands at Columbia, cheerleaders urged the students to travel to the game. An effigy of a tiger was burned in a bonfire in front of Fraser as the Rock Chalk chant rose with the smoke into the sky.
The year before, Chancellor Frank Strong had telegraphed the heads of Nebraska and Missouri to make sure that there were no "training tables" at the other universities. He was assured that the men always paid their own way at meals — the schools were not picking up the tab for the athletes.
Even with all those self-supported meals, the athletes of yesteryear were not heavyweights, compared with today's standards. The tallest Kansas football player in 1899 was 6 feet 1-1/2 inches, and the weights of
See KANSAS on page 6A