Thought it would be share some of the great moments. I'll start with one that was set up on the football side of things, when KU spoiled MU's undefeated season in 1960 with the help of future-NFLer Bert Coan, illegally recruited by KU (sound familiar?) away from TCU where he had started his college career.
Anger over the 1960 game and the subsequent forfeit resulted in the darkest period in the KU-MU sports rivalry. Bill Mayer, a Lawrence sports editor, blamed “Don Faurot, long a hateful anti-Jayhawk,” for KU’s troubles in the Coan case. When the Missouri basketball team traveled to Lawrence the following February, the crowd in Allen Fieldhouse booed so loudly that the visiting players could not be introduced. When Kansas came to Missouri’s Brewer Fieldhouse in March, the atmosphere was charged. In the second half, Jayhawk star forward Wayne Hightower powered past Tiger Charlie Henke for a score, then turned and punched Henke between the eyes. The benches cleared, perhaps one hundred Tiger fans spilled onto the court, and the “Brawl at Brewer” was under way. Play resumed after ten minutes, but a much longer delay was contemplated by the schools. “If this extreme bitterness continues,” Kansas athletic director Arthur “Dutch” Lonborg told the Associated Press days after the game, “we will have to discontinue playing each other, at least for a while.” Although the rivalry games continued, it is perhaps not coincidental that after the Bert Coan controversy and the Brawl at Brewer, a long-standing rivalry tradition was suspended. Missouri fans that ventured into Lawrence for the 1961 football game were treated not to the traditional homecoming festivities, but to a cordon of patrolmen and police dogs around the KU goal posts. Twenty years passed before the rivalry game was again featured by either school in its homecoming celebration.
(Prior to 1961, and going back to the inaugural homecoming game in 1910, the MU-KU game was almost ALWAYS the homecoming game for the host school.)
Anger over the 1960 game and the subsequent forfeit resulted in the darkest period in the KU-MU sports rivalry. Bill Mayer, a Lawrence sports editor, blamed “Don Faurot, long a hateful anti-Jayhawk,” for KU’s troubles in the Coan case. When the Missouri basketball team traveled to Lawrence the following February, the crowd in Allen Fieldhouse booed so loudly that the visiting players could not be introduced. When Kansas came to Missouri’s Brewer Fieldhouse in March, the atmosphere was charged. In the second half, Jayhawk star forward Wayne Hightower powered past Tiger Charlie Henke for a score, then turned and punched Henke between the eyes. The benches cleared, perhaps one hundred Tiger fans spilled onto the court, and the “Brawl at Brewer” was under way. Play resumed after ten minutes, but a much longer delay was contemplated by the schools. “If this extreme bitterness continues,” Kansas athletic director Arthur “Dutch” Lonborg told the Associated Press days after the game, “we will have to discontinue playing each other, at least for a while.” Although the rivalry games continued, it is perhaps not coincidental that after the Bert Coan controversy and the Brawl at Brewer, a long-standing rivalry tradition was suspended. Missouri fans that ventured into Lawrence for the 1961 football game were treated not to the traditional homecoming festivities, but to a cordon of patrolmen and police dogs around the KU goal posts. Twenty years passed before the rivalry game was again featured by either school in its homecoming celebration.
(Prior to 1961, and going back to the inaugural homecoming game in 1910, the MU-KU game was almost ALWAYS the homecoming game for the host school.)
