The same arguments you’ll hear today in Kansas’s sports bars have been recited hundreds of times in its office buildings and classrooms — even in its Legislature.Down in Wichita, the state’s largest city, the local university has spent decades begging Kansas for respect. We’re sitting at a bar in Johnson County, a southwest suburb of Kansas City. In the gym, you can look up to see a line of national championship banners that stretches across most of one baseline, offset by a line of Final Four banners that stretches farther than the length of the court. The bill failed, but it sparked conversations that led to the beginning of the Gators-Seminoles rivalry, in 1958.
Railsback isn’t surprised by the official ambivalence from WSU’s administration. "One of the best aspects of college athletics is rivalries," Long said.
Rivalries require games to be played. Kansas leads 199-94; Kansas leads in Lawrence 91-35; Kansas leads in Manhattan 79-48
Kansas State victories shaded purple. The final scheduled matchup will return to Sprint Center, though it's possible the series continues.It's also possible that the basketball matchups are just the beginning. It’s unbelievable, right?”He looks away from the court and up at me. The football series dates back to 1902, and has been played … Rivalries require competitive balance, and back when the two programs So how, then, should we describe the relationship between Wichita State and Kansas? When “One Shining Moment” plays a month from now, either team could be featured in the montage’s final image. I was curious. A girls’ AAU coach in Wichita, he’d come to Lawrence to see Wichitans Perry Ellis and Conner Frankamp play for KU.“You know, we’re all Kansas,” he said. O’Donnell looks out into the corridor, where he sees a familiar face.“Susan!” he yells. The Shockers are warming up before a game against Drake, and the stands are slowly filling with gold-clad Wichitans — a surprising number of them over the age of 65 — who will soon be dancing in the aisles to their team’s play and to the sounds of DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s “Turn Down for What.” O’Donnell pauses every few moments to say hello to passersby — a couple of whom he greets as “judge” and “commissioner” — and he methodically explains why he decided to try to legislate a rivalry into existence.“I don’t believe it should be the Legislature’s place to mandate a game like this,” says O’Donnell, a Republican. The Defender: Manute Bol’s Journey from Sudan to the NBA and Back Again
You’re always going to be KU. Over the years, programs from Cincinnati to Louisville to Creighton have left the Missouri Valley Conference, and life as a mid-major, behind.“A lot of Kansas fans just want Wichita State back in its neat little box,” says Lutz. All-time results. Rivalries are about sports. “I didn’t want it to be confrontational,” he says. Any team that can help us do that is a team we want to play.”“Those are excellent institutions with excellent programs.”Wouldn’t it mean something for the fans, to have that rivalry?“Our fans want us to schedule teams that will help us get into the tournament,” he says just before halftime ends.
Initially, the bill tied the universities’ state funding to the scheduling of the game, but he later revised it to remove that provision. O’Donnell’s bill isn’t going anywhere in the state Senate. The Shockers and Jayhawks haven’t shared a court since 1993. They play with venom, as if they’re disgusted their opponents would dare show up to compete with them. (O’Donnell voiced a similar sentiment: “When you’re talking to officials, they’re all colleagues. It soon becomes apparent that he knows I’m not here only to talk about Wichita State. “But under these circumstances, it felt necessary.” O’Donnell got the idea for the bill when he was on the campaign trail. There’s tremendous resistance.”Among the most significant impediments to a regular series is Kansas’s preference to not give up any of its nonconference home games in exchange for a biennial trip to Koch Arena. It hasn’t even reached the Senate floor. Cleanthony Early is all things to all people, spending 40 minutes morphing into and out of every conceivable role.The entrenched sides on either end of the “overrated” debate aren’t changing their minds at this point, but spend a night watching the Shockers and it’s clear: Wichita State can play. Kansas began playing basketball when James Naismith showed up on campus in 1898. But don’t you want to play Kansas, and to a lesser extent, Kansas State?“We want to schedule teams that will help us put together a résumé to go into the NCAA tournament,” he says. “It’s 100 percent on Kansas,” says Lutz. The name is derived from the official nickname for the state of Kansas: the Sunflower State.
The “To understand this whole situation,” says Lutz, the Wichita columnist, “you have to understand the geography of the state.” In Wichita, Lutz estimates, “It’s 60 percent Wichita State fans, 15 percent Kansas fans, 15 percent K-State fans, and 10 percent everybody else.” KU sits in the northeast quadrant of the state. Kansas victories are shaded blue.