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FEATURE 5
The Kansas-Missouri rivalry couldn't be any bigger as the Jayhawks play the Tigers tonight
By Jayson Jenks
jjenks@kansan.com
Marvin Mattox's cell phone rings, waking up his young son. After introductions and the usua greetings, Mattox wastes no time in striking the heart of the caller's request.
The Border War between Kansas and Missouri.
"We hate them and they hate us," Mattox says, laughing. "You know what I'm saying? We don't like them and they don't like us."
The opinion of Mattox, a former Kansas football and basketball player in the late 80s represents the vast majority of the rivalry's participants.
Throughout the phone call, Mattox laughs about his former thoughts and feelings surrounding the games between Kansas and Missouri. He jokes about the Antlers - Missouri's rowdy student section - and he notes that fans from both sides build the rivalry into something special.
Then he asks where tonight's game is going to be played. When told the 8 p.m. tip-off will take place in Allen Fieldhouse, Mattox's tone stiffens at the mention of a home game.
"We gotta beat them then," Mattox said. "We gotta beat them real good then."
In recent years, the annual meetings between Kansas and Missouri have been called Border Showdowns.
And sure, former players insist much of the passion blanketing the rivalry is simply good old fun. But those same players also insist the game takes on a more hostile tone.
A tone that marinates with time.
"Over four years of playing against those guys, you start to hate each other even though you really don't know the guy as a person," former center Scott Pollard said. "You just know you play against him and every time you get a hard foul or they get a good play, you just hate them more."
One of the more interesting aspects of the Border War - and one of the parts that is hard for many fans to realize — is that generally most players from the schools are out-of-state prospects with little understanding of the rivalry.
Pollard and Mattox fell into that category and both admitted that they knew little of the game's importance upon arrival.
They were green. They were inexperienced. And they changed their perspective toward Missouri instantly in their first year.
"You understand it the second you walk out of that tunnel," former guard and Kansas City native Greg Gurley said. "A lot of times the second you walk off the bus because they'd be waiting for you. It's a hatred. No question about it."
On bus rides from Lawrence to Columbia, Mo., Gurley used to offer his out-of-town teammates a local's perspective into what awaited them once the bus doors opened and tip-off neared.
Hey, this is something you've never seen before. They are going to talk about your mother, your girlfriend, your name, whatever.
For Gurley, who played in the mid 90s, the "creativity" used by Missouri fans in the pre-social media age only added to the atmosphere. Before games at Missouri, Gurley would often take the court early just to hear the updated trash talk.
For Pollard, road games at Missouri represented something slightly different.
"It was a pit of hell," Pollard said. "I haven't been back to a game in Columbia since I played."
The stories of mutual animosity from both states are well known, only adding to the intricacies that make the rivalry special.
To this day, former Kansas football coach Don Fambrough still badmouths Missouri. Across the state line, former Missouri basketball coach Norm Stewart claims he never spent money in Kansas.
Pollard, who currently resides in Lawrence, views that hatred displayed from both sides as a type of tradition passed down from generations.
"There are definitely people in Missouri that legitimately just hate Kansans, and they don't really know why," Pollard said. "Their parents hated them and so did their parents and so on. Kansas people are the same way."
"I'm a history guy and I believe that's something that is passed down. That's why it's a Border War."
At the end of the conversation, Pollard talks about a previous desire to return to Columbia for the basketball season finale on March 6. He says he'd be there if he wasn't going to be out of town that day.
"I would only go if I could sit right by the bench in the protection of the Kansas cocoon," Pollard said."I wouldn't just want to be a loner in the crowd somewhere with all those Tiger people around me.
But he also makes a disclaimer that, in so many words, typifies the rivalry that has been played for so many years.
"And again, I think that's beautiful."
Upper Right: Guard Sheron Collins goes in for a lay-up against a Tigers' defender during the Hawkys' 90-65 victory at Allen Fieldhouse last year.
Right: A Jayhawk fan holds up a stuffed Tiger during last year's home victory.
Weston White/KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Weston White/KANSAN FILE PHOTO
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE WAVE JANUARY 25,2010
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