Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports
After a few shaky performances, Jayhawks' quarterback Dylen Smith is feeling more comfortable at the helm.
Rowing
Thursday
October 21, 1999
Section:
B
Page 1
The Kansas rowing team travel to Boston this weekend to compete in the Head of the Charles Regatta the largest regatta in the world.
SEE PAGE 3B
SEE PAGE 5B
World Series
The New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves prepare for Saturday night's World Series opener at Turner Field.
SEE PAGE 4B
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KC loses Big 12 basketball tournament
Site to alternate between cities starting in 2003
By Michael Riga and Matt Tait
By Michael Rigg and Matt 1
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriters
The Kansas basketball team will be losing its home-court advantage.
The Big 12 Conference board of directors met yesterday to deter
mine where future conference championship battles would take place.
Kansas City's Kemper Arena, which attracts a Jayhawk crowd, no longer will be the lone site for the Big 12 basketball tournament beginning in 2003. The honor will be shared with Dallas' American Airlines Center, which will welcome the event for two years before it returns to Kemper Arena.
"It's probably not something I'd say I'm happy that it happened, but it's something I knew was going to happen." Kansas coach
Roy Williams said. "If the people in Dallas embrace the tournament and do a good job with it, then we'll look back on it and not have any complaints."
Although Kansas City lost one host site, it gained another. Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium will be the first outdoor venue for the Big 12 football championship in December of 2000. In 2001, the game will be played at Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas. The host site for 2002 remains undetermined.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway,
who serves as chairman of the board, said he was content with the decision.
The move will have a bigger effect on the host cities than on the teams or universities. For Dallas, the basketball tournament will increase revenue for one week in
"We are pleased with the response and the results of our search for future championship sites," Hemenway said.
March. Although Kansas City loses the basketball revenue, the football revenue provides the potential to more than compensate as Arrowhead Stadium holds 79,101 people — considerably more than Kemper Arena's 17,500.
For as long as the basketball tournament has been in Kansas City, critics have claimed that the Jayhawks' have an unfair advantage playing 40 minutes from Lawrence. Williams said that he
See BIG 12 on page 2B
Saturday's game is more than just football
Bv Michael Riaa
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
"Dan Devine is the coach at Missouri, and they are laying on KU pretty good. [Former Jayhawk coach] Pepper Rodgers says, 'My god, they are just killing us. I flashed the peace sign over to Devine on the other side of the field, and he gave half of it back to me.'"
- Former Kansas coach Don
Fambrough
But Saturday's game is much more than just football. It's about tradition and history — not to mention bragging rights.
In a fierce rivalry that started with William Quantrill's burning of Lawrence in 1863 and most recently continued last fall in Columbia, Mo., with a strange bottle-throwing incident, the annual Missouri-Kansas football game has transcended each school almost every fall since the late 1800s.
Most importantly, the rivalry has sustained changes in the two schools, changes in the game of football and changes in society.
The border war has sustained pure venomous hatred, as the rivalry reached levels of dangerous heat in the 1960s with a feud between Rodgers and Devine and has shown little signs of cooling off since, especially since the bottle-throwing incident.
Perhaps most notable is the series' longevity. The Kansas-Missouri rivalry represents the second-longest football series in the nation, and the two teams have played every season except for one — the 1918 game was canceled because a number of players had the flu
since 1891, with Missouri holding a slim 50-48-9 edge.
In the beginning...
The rivalry's roots started in the Civil War, when the state of Kansas became a battleground. Kansas had declared in 1857 that it was a free state, while Missouri adamantly remained a slave state. Missourians started to refer to the anti-slavery group in Kansas as "Jayhawkers," a name that later stuck with the University of Kansas.
In 1863, pro-slavery extremist — and Missouri resident — William Quantrill, along with his gang of 300 horsemen, ventured into Kansas and burned down the entire Lawrence business district and more than 200 homes,
while leaving more than 180 Lawrence residents wounded from gunshots.
"After Quantrill, a real anger and hate developed between the two states," said Rita Napier, professor of history. "All the Kansans thought the Missourians were these pro-slavery border ruffians, while the Missourians believed the Kansans were these liberal Jayhawkers."
Upon the conclusion of the Civil War and both schools liking the newly invented game of "foot-ball," administrators of the schools arranged for an annual football game to be played in Kansas City beginning in 1891.
Quantrill's act would become the battle cry for the Kansas community for many years to come. It was even mentioned this fall by Jayhawk coach Terry Allen at Kansas' annual traditions night, and it has laid the tracks for one of college football's most intense rivalries.
The two teams kicked off the series for the first time on Halloween weekend in 1891 in Kansas City, and Kansas started the rivalry on a winning note, defeating the black and gold 22-8. However, not everyone was
impressed by the Jayhawkers' victory. The Weekly University Courier, a former student newspaper of the University of Kansas, suggested that the team needed to improve before it played nearby Baker University the following week.
However, not everyone was
"Baker knows a little more about foot ball than MU," the report stated.
Above: Former Missouri coach Dan Devine directs his players during the 1961 game in Lawrence. Devine's fingers — particularly his middle one — would become another source of controversy in the fierce rivalry. Left: Memorial Stadium drew a packed crowd before a Kansas-Missouri game in the 1950s. University Archives
In 1911, the two
schools agreed to move the matchup on each school's respective campuses. On Nov. 25, 1911, former Missouri athletics director Chester Brewer invited Missouri
Forget the hype; Doesn't it feel good to PayLess?
World Series, Shmorld Series. The real fun is in the first-ever PayLess Series.
Go ahead and watch the New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves and their combined payrolls of almost $160 million. Watch Chuck Knoblauch, the Yankees second baseman who is making $6 million this season despite the fact he makes the short toss from second base
to first base about as accurately as someone playing darts after a few Schooners.
Point to the Dodgers and Orioles all you want, but it's obvious that to have a chance in Major League Baseball, you gotta spend the bucks. No team in this year's playoffs was lower than 12th in payroll.
Go ahead, watch these teams. But understand that rooting for teams like the Yankees is like rooting for the sun to come up.
Sam
Mellinger
sports columnist
spots @kanaan.com
What you need to do is watch the PayLess Playoffs, the best-kept secret in sports. Right now, while you're getting ready for the big-money teams to play their big-money games announced by big-money announcers, the PayLess participants are playing in a tall-grass field across the street from a meat-packing plant in Pittsburgh.
"I't hard to get used to at first," said Felipe Alou, whose Montreal Expos will take on the Minnesota Twins in Game One of the best-of-three series. "But let's keep it real, we really have no business being on the same field as those other guys. This is more fun anyway, not as much pressure. Let them play in front of 50,000 screaming drunks at Yankee Stadium. We know if we lose the only people who will see it will be our wives, and they'll still be with us. As long as we keep them away from those rich guys."
Because Bob Costas already was busy, the PayLess organizers convinced Ben Stein — you may know him from The Wonder Years and those Visine commercials — to do the play-by-play. Steve Balboni will handle the color commentary.
Fans won't have the cuisine choices available at Turner Field, but they can flag down the saltine vendor if hunger strikes. And it has that distinctive metallic taste, but there's a water fountain next to the two Port-A-Potties.
Think the guys in uniform have nothing to play for? Think again. The Wal-Mart Player of the Game gets a free oil change.
"That's worth, what, 20 bucks?" Minnesota's Doug Mientkiewicz said. "If I have a couple good games, I could get my wife's El Camino in good shape, too."
And so what if there's not enough champagne on ice to soak and intoxicate 40 grown men? A few cases of Natural Light can go a long way.
"Hey, at least it won't be skunky," Mientkiewicz said. "It's not skunky, is it?"
But there will be something in the PayLess Series as good as in the World Series. You don't think the umpiring could get much worse, do you?
Mellinger is a Lawrence senior in journalism.
Jayhawks falter against Buffaloes, lose third straight match
By Shawn Hutchinson
sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
The engine problems that recently have plagued the Kansas volleyball team continued last night.
The Jayhawks broke down and suffered their third straight defeat, getting swept by the No. 21 Colorado Buffaloes 3-0 at the Coors Events Center in Boulder, Colo.
rhythm we were looking for."
Kansas, 13-7 overall and 4-5 in the Big 12 Conference, was missing its rhythm from the beginning of the match. The Jayhawks dropped the first game 15-4 and never managed to recover.
Kansas went on to lose the next two games, 15-6 and 15-5, while falling to 225 all-time against the Buffaloes.
"We didn't play at a very high level, but Colorado was very steady," Bechard said. "They did a good job of keeping us out of the things we wanted to do."
Kansas senior middle blocker Amanda
Mary Beth Albrecht chipped in five.
(1) and (2) Reves is now 26 kills away from pass-
Reves is now 26 kills away ir-
ing former Jayhawk Cyndee
Kanabel for sole possession of
second place on the all-time
Kansas kills list.
The Buffalowere were led by outside hitter Sonia Nielsen, who had 17 kills and
Kansas sophomore setter Molly LareMeyer paced the team with 26 assists and recorded her first career solo block in
the match. Junior outside hitter Amy Myatt added seven kills for the Jayhawks, while senior outside hitter
nine digs. Colorado setter Kelly Campbell had 41 assists on the night.
The loss was the third in a row for Kansas, which is its longest losing streak of the season. All three losses have come against ranked opponents. The
losing streak started with a loss to previous No. 13 Kansas State on the road and continued against No. 16 Texas
A&M at Allen Fieldhouse.
The Jayhawks will get another shot at Colorado next month. Kansas will play host to the Buffalooes on Nov. 27 at the Horejsi Family Athletics Center, which will be the final regular season match for both teams.
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Next up for Kansas is a home match against Iowa State at 7 p.m. Saturday at the HoreiS center. Heading into last night's match against Texas A&M, the Cyclones were 2-13 overall and last in the Big 12 with an 0-8 record.
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Edited by Allan Davis