Karl GehringHere’s how much of a Kansas State University fan Nick Ewing is: He refuses to own anything with the word “Kansas” on it unless “State” follows.
Consequently, he has forced himself to live in Missouri for the license plate.
You can just imagine what Ewing, a 25-year old Kansas City-area architect, went through last year when Kansas University’s football team beat K-State to end an 11-game Wildcat pounding in the Sunflower Showdown series.
But for kicks, let’s review: On the way to Lawrence that day, a rock went through Ewing’s windshield. Upon arrival at Memorial Stadium, he and his clique couldn’t get tickets at a reasonable price. After Kansas pulled off the 31-28 victory with Ewing watching from Campanile Hill, no one in his crew was in the mood to party. They just went home instead – you guessed it, completely sober.
“We didn’t even go out,” Ewing said, shaking his head. “It was probably the worst day of my life.”
Ewing, a 2003 KSU grad, works on his dinner at the 810 Zone in Overland Park while describing his hatred toward the Jayhawks. He’s wearing a bright orange Bucknell shirt (of course) and tells a tale of heckling KU basketball players at Bramlage Coliseum during his college days.
His modus operandi? A small sign that had two words on it: Yo Mama.
As he sips on a Coke, he tells his theory about last year’s football game. With the KSU fans filling up the north bowl and contributing to the sellout at Memorial Stadium, he explains, perhaps the Jayhawk victory shouldn’t even count.
“If KU beats K-State, and no KU fans were there to see it,” Ewing asks, “did it actually happen?”
Even fanatics like Ewing will admit that given last year’s final, today’s game arrives with a little more spice, giving the theory of a rivalry rejuvenation instant credibility.
It’s not so much that Kansas won, either. If Kansas State would’ve been a three-point victor, the excitement of this game being somewhat competitive again would be enough for water-cooler chatter this week.
But the Jayhawk victory has the fan-base feud in full motion. On message boards across the Internet, KSU fans are calling today “Payback Saturday.”
Kansas fans counter, calling it “Playback Saturday.”
Whatever happens, it will unfold under watchful eyes – something the state of Kansas desperately needed after watching the rivalry fall short of its potential so many times.
“It gives the state a lot more to look forward to each year,” said KU fullback Cullen Homolka, a Holyrood native. “A lot more people are getting involved and a lot more are excited about what’s going to take place this Saturday. Most people used to think we’d go in there and get walked over.”
Tying together
Here’s an interesting tale: a girl with two dreams, forced to make a choice.
Does she go to Kansas State, the school she has loved since she was a toddler? Or does she use her college education toward training for being a nurse, something she decided was her destiny back in high school at Wichita Carroll?
Kara Runge thinks she made the appropriate decision – she did both.
Kansas State doesn’t offer a degree in nursing, so Runge did the next-best thing: She attended K-State and built up her core classes and grade-point average. After two years in Manhattan, she transferred this summer to nursing school – at Kansas, of all places.
In an instant, Runge went from Willie Wildcat to Rock Chalk Jayhawk.
Irony can be so interesting, can’t it?
“It’s kind of hard,” Runge said with a laugh. “All the red and blue, and wearing a Jayhawk on my nursing scrubs.
“I’m thinking ‘This is weird.'”
Runge’s new school did little to temper her love of Kansas State football, and she can be seen around the KU Medical Center wearing Wildcat attire under those KU scrubs.
The grief comes with being the purple sheep at KUMC – and even more so after last year’s game, which Runge watched until she couldn’t take it anymore.
A postgame tailgate party, which prematurely started after John Randle’s 43-yard touchdown run put KU up 31-21, was necessary to drown out her sorrows.
“I thought it was the worst day of my entire life,” Runge said, sounding a lot like fellow fan Ewing.
Runge said the razzing from fellow nursing students picked up a bit this week, as the Jayhawks and Wildcats prepare for battle. She said she definitely was more fired up for this showdown, and she’s not alone.
Talk radio shows all across Kansas have lit up with calls about the game. Scores are being predicted with variations unbelievably wild – the only way opposing hearts would have it.
But in the past, even KU fans knew better than to ignore their heads, which screamed “KANSAS STATE IN A ROUT, YOU DUMMY!”
That’s not necessarily the case anymore.
“When I started following KU football, there was kind of a defeatist attitude among KU fans,” said Pete Gaines, who became hooked on Jayhawk football upon arriving on campus in 1998. “We knew we were going to lose. We were still kind of smug because we knew we had a better school, but we put our sights on Missouri as the biggest rival.
“Now, we’re able to rekindle the rivalry with K-State. There’s a lot more hatred, I’ve noticed. I like it.”
Lots of hate
Gaines won’t be at KSU Stadium today. He claims a friend’s father had his car spray-painted purple and keyed last time he was there, and Gaines vows never to put another cent into the Manhattan economy. He’ll watch with friends at a Lawrence bar.
Though both fan bases share the same state, they often don’t share a bit of love toward one another, as Gaines can attest.
Asked whether last year’s competitiveness made the rivalry more fun, Ewing simply shook his head.
“No way,” he said. “I enjoyed beating their (behind).”
Ewing has two KU friends, he said.
When one calls, “Scott KU sucks” appears on his cell phone caller ID. His parents bought Bucknell T-shirts identical to his own, a family-bonding celebration of KU’s first-round hoops loss in last spring’s NCAA Tournament.
The T-shirts are retaliation, Ewing insists. He said former Jayhawk Keith Langford fueled his Jayhawk hate even more, when after KU’s victory in Manhattan last year, Langford turned to the student section and mouthed “Just like football” to the crowd.
“That made me so mad,” Ewing said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, go work on your jump shot.'”
When it comes to anger, Runge doesn’t appear to have as much. But her Rock Chalk surroundings are starting to take a toll, and she said she yearned to be back to where she fits in as a fan.
“It’s kind of hard,” Runge admitted. “I miss purple.”
It all comes to this
This past year, and leading into today’s 11 a.m. kickoff, the state has been infected with football fever.
KU linebacker Nick Reid said a visit to his native Derby after last year’s game was proof: Though the Kansas State fans always were present, the Kansas fans surfaced with more pride than ever.
“I’ve seen a lot more KU flags, KU stones, license plates,” Reid said. “It’s pretty cool going home now.”
Kansas State is favored in today’s clash, with homefield advantage having a lot to do with it – to some. Ewing, who ate most of his dinner while brainstorming a prediction, came up with a 48-15 Wildcat victory.
It would be 48-13, he said, but he gave Kansas two extra points for an inevitable safety. Kansas State has had its struggles with punt-team communication lately, you know.
Though the 33-point victory is money in the bank, according to Ewing, he said it will happen because, for once, Kansas State will take Kansas seriously.
“We used to consider (the Kansas game) a bye week,” Ewing said. “I guess it was last year, because we didn’t show up.
“But they know it was a one-year type thing.”
Good luck finding a diehard Jayhawk follower who agrees. Gaines couldn’t think of a score, but had little doubt that the Jayhawks were going to prevail.
“As a KU fan, I still believe we can still be smug, because we still have a better school,” Gaines said. “But now, they don’t even have the football thing anymore. They’ve got nothing.”
Well, yeah they do. K-State and Kansas faithful alike always will have a bitter dislike toward one another.
That, it seems, may be here to stay.
Karl Gehring/Journal-WorldHere’s how much of a Kansas State University fan Nick Ewing is: He refuses to own anything with the word “Kansas” on it unless “State” follows.
Consequently, he has forced himself to live in Missouri for the license plate.
You can just imagine what Ewing, a 25-year old Kansas City-area architect, went through last year when Kansas University’s football team beat K-State to end an 11-game Wildcat pounding in the Sunflower Showdown series.
But for kicks, let’s review: On the way to Lawrence that day, a rock went through Ewing’s windshield. Upon arrival at Memorial Stadium, he and his clique couldn’t get tickets at a reasonable price. After Kansas pulled off the 31-28 victory with Ewing watching from Campanile Hill, no one in his crew was in the mood to party. They just went home instead — you guessed it, completely sober.
“We didn’t even go out,” Ewing said, shaking his head. “It was probably the worst day of my life.”
Ewing, a 2003 KSU grad, works on his dinner at the 810 Zone in Overland Park while describing his hatred toward the Jayhawks. He’s wearing a bright orange Bucknell shirt (of course) and tells a tale of heckling KU basketball players at Bramlage Coliseum during his college days.
His modus operandi? A small sign that had two words on it: Yo Mama.
As he sips on a Coke, he tells his theory about last year’s football game. With the KSU fans filling up the north bowl and contributing to the sellout at Memorial Stadium, he explains, perhaps the Jayhawk victory shouldn’t even count.
“If KU beats K-State, and no KU fans were there to see it,” Ewing asks, “did it actually happen?”
Even fanatics like Ewing will admit that given last year’s final, today’s game arrives with a little more spice, giving the theory of a rivalry rejuvenation instant credibility.
It’s not so much that Kansas won, either. If Kansas State would’ve been a three-point victor, the excitement of this game being somewhat competitive again would be enough for water-cooler chatter this week.
But the Jayhawk victory has the fan-base feud in full motion. On message boards across the Internet, KSU fans are calling today “Payback Saturday.”
Kansas fans counter, calling it “Playback Saturday.”
Whatever happens, it will unfold under watchful eyes — something the state of Kansas desperately needed after watching the rivalry fall short of its potential so many times.
“It gives the state a lot more to look forward to each year,” said KU fullback Cullen Homolka, a Holyrood native. “A lot more people are getting involved and a lot more are excited about what’s going to take place this Saturday. Most people used to think we’d go in there and get walked over.”
Tying together
Here’s an interesting tale: a girl with two dreams, forced to make a choice.
Does she go to Kansas State, the school she has loved since she was a toddler? Or does she use her college education toward training for being a nurse, something she decided was her destiny back in high school at Wichita Carroll?
Kara Runge thinks she made the appropriate decision — she did both.
Kansas State doesn’t offer a degree in nursing, so Runge did the next-best thing: She attended K-State and built up her core classes and grade-point average. After two years in Manhattan, she transferred this summer to nursing school — at Kansas, of all places.
In an instant, Runge went from Willie Wildcat to Rock Chalk Jayhawk.
Irony can be so interesting, can’t it?
“It’s kind of hard,” Runge said with a laugh. “All the red and blue, and wearing a Jayhawk on my nursing scrubs.
“I’m thinking ‘This is weird.'”
Runge’s new school did little to temper her love of Kansas State football, and she can be seen around the KU Medical Center wearing Wildcat attire under those KU scrubs.
The grief comes with being the purple sheep at KUMC — and even more so after last year’s game, which Runge watched until she couldn’t take it anymore.
A postgame tailgate party, which prematurely started after John Randle’s 43-yard touchdown run put KU up 31-21, was necessary to drown out her sorrows.
“I thought it was the worst day of my entire life,” Runge said, sounding a lot like fellow fan Ewing.
Runge said the razzing from fellow nursing students picked up a bit this week, as the Jayhawks and Wildcats prepare for battle. She said she definitely was more fired up for this showdown, and she’s not alone.
Talk radio shows all across Kansas have lit up with calls about the game. Scores are being predicted with variations unbelievably wild — the only way opposing hearts would have it.
But in the past, even KU fans knew better than to ignore their heads, which screamed “KANSAS STATE IN A ROUT, YOU DUMMY!”
That’s not necessarily the case anymore.
“When I started following KU football, there was kind of a defeatist attitude among KU fans,” said Pete Gaines, who became hooked on Jayhawk football upon arriving on campus in 1998. “We knew we were going to lose. We were still kind of smug because we knew we had a better school, but we put our sights on Missouri as the biggest rival.
“Now, we’re able to rekindle the rivalry with K-State. There’s a lot more hatred, I’ve noticed. I like it.”
Lots of hate
Gaines won’t be at KSU Stadium today. He claims a friend’s father had his car spray-painted purple and keyed last time he was there, and Gaines vows never to put another cent into the Manhattan economy. He’ll watch with friends at a Lawrence bar.
Though both fan bases share the same state, they often don’t share a bit of love toward one another, as Gaines can attest.
Asked whether last year’s competitiveness made the rivalry more fun, Ewing simply shook his head.
“No way,” he said. “I enjoyed beating their (behind).”
Ewing has two KU friends, he said.
When one calls, “Scott KU sucks” appears on his cell phone caller ID. His parents bought Bucknell T-shirts identical to his own, a family-bonding celebration of KU’s first-round hoops loss in last spring’s NCAA Tournament.
The T-shirts are retaliation, Ewing insists. He said former Jayhawk Keith Langford fueled his Jayhawk hate even more, when after KU’s victory in Manhattan last year, Langford turned to the student section and mouthed “Just like football” to the crowd.
“That made me so mad,” Ewing said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, go work on your jump shot.'”
When it comes to anger, Runge doesn’t appear to have as much. But her Rock Chalk surroundings are starting to take a toll, and she said she yearned to be back to where she fits in as a fan.
“It’s kind of hard,” Runge admitted. “I miss purple.”
It all comes to this
This past year, and leading into today’s 11 a.m. kickoff, the state has been infected with football fever.
KU linebacker Nick Reid said a visit to his native Derby after last year’s game was proof: Though the Kansas State fans always were present, the Kansas fans surfaced with more pride than ever.
“I’ve seen a lot more KU flags, KU stones, license plates,” Reid said. “It’s pretty cool going home now.”
Kansas State is favored in today’s clash, with homefield advantage having a lot to do with it — to some. Ewing, who ate most of his dinner while brainstorming a prediction, came up with a 48-15 Wildcat victory.
It would be 48-13, he said, but he gave Kansas two extra points for an inevitable safety. Kansas State has had its struggles with punt-team communication lately, you know.
Though the 33-point victory is money in the bank, according to Ewing, he said it will happen because, for once, Kansas State will take Kansas seriously.
“We used to consider (the Kansas game) a bye week,” Ewing said. “I guess it was last year, because we didn’t show up.
“But they know it was a one-year type thing.”
Good luck finding a diehard Jayhawk follower who agrees. Gaines couldn’t think of a score, but had little doubt that the Jayhawks were going to prevail.
“As a KU fan, I still believe we can still be smug, because we still have a better school,” Gaines said. “But now, they don’t even have the football thing anymore. They’ve got nothing.”
Well, yeah they do. K-State and Kansas faithful alike always will have a bitter dislike toward one another.
That, it seems, may be here to stay.
6Sports video: Jayhawks to face Wildcats (10-08-05)
On the Street: How do you think the KU football team will do in the Sunflower Showdown? (10-08-05)
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