I was born and raised a Kansas Jayhawk fan. I don't know how this happened specifically. My mother cares little for sports that her children are not on the field for, although she may be a baseball fan if she had to pick. My father is from Iowa, grew up with the Cardinals and from what I could tell some devotion to Nebraska football, which I have rooted against from day one. However, we have always watched Kansas basketball.
My first sports memories are of the 1991 Final Four. I remember Dean Smith being ejected and Kansas winning. I remember going out back and pretending I was in the final four on a hoop too high with gravel as the pavement. Then again, none of this might be true; it's just a memory. I don't remember the loss against Duke, and I guess that means I was selectively optimistic at the time, purging those things that were not happy to recollect. Now, though not the Kansas fan i used to be, I still remember the losses.
My dedication has never come close to my childhood adoration of Kansas. I cried once when Eric Piatkowski and his Nebraska team beat Kansas, but I cried a lot when I was younger. I loved Kansas basketball so much, that when I wrote KU on the side of my bike helmet and went out to pretend I was a football player, I pretended I was Rex Walters or Adonis Jordan playing football against Jevon Crudup and Melvin Booker. At the time, this probably wasn't as ridiculous as it sounds, since both Mizzou and Kansas had abysmal football teams. Then, Glen Mason came around.
For the first time in my life, Kansas and Kansas State were relevant and Missouri was coming around under Larry Smith. I remember eagerly awaiting the Aloha Bowl in 1995, and Kansas didn't disappoint beating UCLA 51-30. That was the first time a team I rooted for won a bowl game, and it wouldn't happen again until 2005. I had always rooted for a team, but not for the whole season, but rather on a "Who is playing Nebraska this week?" basis. It wasn't that I didn't care for college football (I once recorded part of a Colorado State-Utah game.); the local teams just sucked. But things were happening that would change me as a fan.
Glen Mason would leave Kansas for Minnesota in 1997, which seemed like an extremely lateral move, but both a more rewarding salary and a greater challenge given Minnesota's ineptitude make that seem wiser in hindsight to me. But I wasn't too into football yet, so this was met with indifference whose ferocity was surely unmatched. Why was I indifferent? Paul Pierce, Raef LaFrentz, Scot Pollard, and Jacque Vaughn made up one of the greatest teams of all-time...to not win a championship. They were upset by an underseeded and highly deserving championship team from Arizona in the Sweet Sixteen. With the exception of Lin Elliot's playoff choke job, no loss has ever bothered me as much as that one. I felt that the Jayhawks were never going to win the championship under Roy Williams, not that it was necessarily his fault. Nothing like being proved right to your dismay, which happens a great amount I have found with sports and women.
Nothing changed between 1997 and 2002 in my fanhood. I saw Corby Jones ignite a small fire in the Mizzou football program and Norm Stewart retire. Fresh blood in the form of Quin Snyder gave the Tigers basketball some hope for a while. Kansas football returned to its rightful place at the bottom of the conference, and Kansas basketball resumed its unrelenting consistency of winning, but not in the tournament culminating in Hakim Warrick blocking a last second shot and Roy Williams leaving for North Carolina, in what might be the most mutually beneficial coaching change in College Basketball history. But 2002 changed everything.
I had never been to a football game before save the ones at my high school, and I played in half of those that I attended. My friend Zach Famuliner took me with him to the Oklahoma game with two other friends Eric Paris and Justin Hancock. I say took, because I'm pretty sure I never paid his mom for the ticket. This wasn't just a game for me; it was a coming out party for that desire to have a football team to root for. The desire came in the form of Brad Smith, one of the most athletically gifted players I have ever seen, and probably even with the Maclins and Alexanders of the programs future the most gifted to ever grace Faurot Field. Smith ran and passed at will against the third-ranked Sooners totally 391 yards, 213 of them on the ground. But it was the Sooners, so Mizzou lost as we thought they always would.
I would return later that season to watch Mizzou play Kansas and realize how far that game changed me. Justin and I were without mercy in mocking my high school girlfriend and friend Megan Miller about the pounding Kansas was receiving. Doubly cruel was the belief I'm sure they both had coming in that the lifelong Jayhawk fan was on their side. No, there was no coming between me and Brad Smith. Then, he was enigmatic for the next two years, and I found that his performance could. I was done with him, and a promising freshman showed him up in a comeback at Iowa State. Then, as a parting gift, he brought us one last piece of magic in getting the Tigers their first bowl victory under Pinkel and probably boosting the program to the heights that 2007 would bring.
My Kansas basketball fetish had not subsided though, it just became a side-story. The program continued to have regular season success, but still lacked a breakthrough for a championship which the tradition rich school longed for. Missouri had fallen into an abyss with scandals and violations plaguing the program and Quin Snyder and his greasy mane getting the axe. I had always respected the Tigers and with the exception of two games every year rooted for them, but by then it had become too much. Mike Alden was on perhaps the hottest seat that any man has been on and survived with his job. In retrospect, that was the smartest decision that Mizzou made.
Before we get to my Mizzou lovefest, we must acknowledge that Kansas has been the only team of mine to ever deliver me a championship outside of soccer. The game in 2008 is one of my favorite memories of being a fan, and I experienced it as so many precious moments as a Jayhawk fan in hostile territory, alone. I jumped off of my couch and screamed to the heavens when Chalmers hit that three; I didn't care who heard me because that was a magical finish. Not since Saberhagan shut down St. Louis had one of my teams won a championship (Again, not counting the Wizards win in MLS in 2000), but I was only four months old when that happened. I doubt any will come close too soon, but the Chiefs, Royals, and the two basketball programs meeting tonight all seem to be headed in the right direction. That was a good day for me, even if I didn't share it with anyone at the time.
As for Mizzou, there was 2007. There was Chase Daniel, Jeremy Maclin, Martin Rucker, Chase Coffman, Pig Brown, and there was Oklahoma. The Sooners, as always, were there to ruin the party, and would again next year at the latest Mizzou game I saw in person. Kansas, incidentally, rose to new heights that year as well, even undeservedly beating Mizzou for a bowl after losing to them on the field. Both teams went out and won handily to both justify the decision for the Orange Bowl, and show Mizzou fans why Mizzou deserved it more. However, Kansas's bubble burst and they sank to new depths, a victory in the 2008 Border War game only a brief respite from their struggles. Mizzou, however, has become one of the most consistent programs in the nation, not elite but second-tier which is all you can ask in the current FBS climate.
However, it didn't stop there, Mizzou did not only build a perennial top-25 football program, they instilled an entire athletic program of excellence through smart coaching hires. Look at Mizzou sports now. Mike Anderson has brought a unique style to men's basketball, and made a team that is better than the sum of its parts. Ehren Earlywine, or as RMN calls him Tremendous Stubble, has built a top-10 softball program. The wrestling program is building on the success of the Askren brothers, and continuing to produce All-Americans. The volleyball program has been to two consecutive elite eights. The baseball team has produced first-round pitching talent in Aaron Crow, Max Scherzer, and Kyle Gibson and has been on the cusp of a CWS appearance. Kansas has scandals and basketball, and is rebuilding its athletic department from both Al Bohl and Lew Perkins awful management during their tenures. Which school would you rather support?
So here I have come to the point where I don't even have a side when my boyhood team meets their hated rivals. I am a neutral and not disappointed either way. If Kansas wins, they are supposed to and Mizzou will recover. If Mizzou wins, they are talented enough that it isn't a shocker anymore, and Kansas will move on. I have nothing riding on this anymore, as I am as big a Mizzou fan as any of my friends, probably more obsessive about the whole and more reasoned about the little things. But deep in my heart, Jayhawk pride seems to linger waiting for the proper time in March when I can sit by myself and scream with boyish pride when they win. That is my curse, to always love those who are always at war.
Note: On that note, I make one last plea as a history major and a fan of both squads. Let the Border War name remain, and the history side of it die. Both sides featured cowards, racists, cutthroats, and scumbags. Neither side has anything of pride to look upon in the Civil War. Missouri were the racists and the Confederate sympathizers, and I don't think natives fully realize how awful Quantrill's Raiders were or they do and still harbor racism of their own. John Brown, while an abolitionist and correct in stance, was a bastard, terrorist, and used abhorrent tactics to get his message across. Of all the fronts of the war, none was more personal and none was more pointless. I get the idea, but aligning yourself with such people is like saying you are on Hitler's side when rooting for Germany against France in Euro 2012 or saying you want to go all Nanking on China when rooting for Japan.
0 comments:
Post a Comment