kansas, the first of the rectangle states!

I'm a Missouri guy. Never claimed to be anything else and am pretty straight up about my feelings about my state and my school. The University of Missouri in Columbia. We share a strong and binding hatred with our neighbors to the west. kansas and their flagship campus, the university of kansas community college and barber school.

I realize that there are some great sports rivalries in college football. Ohio State/Michigan, USC/UCLA and Texas/Oklahoma to name a few. Even some places that don't care about football have their rivals which is generally the only time they'll sell out their 39,000 seat stadium every year. I really don't know what caused these to be great rivalries, and don't much care.

For unblinding hatred and passion, try topping Missouri/kansas. The first people died in armed conflict between these 2 states in 1854, or 7 years before the Civil War began, and the bodycount by the end was in the thousands. Can your rivalry match that? I didn't think so. The mascots of both universities began during that conflict. The Tigers were a militia that protected Columbia from both federal and confederate attacks. The jayhawks, aside from being a mythical bird, were a group of terrorist wearing red leggings and operating under the guise of freeing slaves when they actually were more interested in acquiring other's property for themselves. To this day, kansas teams will wear red socks when playing the university of Missouri, unless of course the game is on national television. Can't have the rest of the country realize what they really hold dear. One of the original leaders of kansas forces was a charmer named John Brown, who was known to hack unarmed prisoners to death with his sword in order to save ammunition.

kansans are quite proud of their flagship university, going so far to coin the phrase "Harvard on the Kaw". Well, Harvard "west" is currently on probabion for academic fraud, and their football coach was caught cheating on tests given to all D1 coaches to make sure they have some idea about what they are doing. The funny thing about that is, regardless of your score, if a university wants to hire someone, they of course can. There was absolutely NO reason to cheat. Mangino was just getting a little practice in. I honestly think he's a decent coach, but I'm constantly amazed every morning when I wake up and see he hasn't died of a heart attack.

Now kansas prepares for the upcoming football season with the most experienced team in the Big XII north. They should be poised to finally win their first division title. You'd naturally expect their players to be concentrating on football. Unfortunately for them, their team leader and quarterback has been making regular appearances on the internet in various degrees of intoxication. I'm all for kids having fun, but with his senior season approaching, I'd think he'd be making a little more effort. Oh well, better for us. kansas football is like watching nascar. You don't know where the next wreck is coming from, but you know it's coming, and it's probably going to be good.