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Border Showdown represents old rivalry

By Sarah Plake

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Border Showdown is one of the main components of the Kansas-Missouri rivalry. Created in 2002, the Showdown collects the rivalry into one continuous competition throughout the year, allowing each school to show its competitiveness and spirit.

Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director, said the two schools got together and decided to put on the competition, sponsored by M&I Bank.

“It is a point system put in place for the sports under the Athletics Department,” Marchiony said. “Any time we play MU we are awarded points toward the Border Showdown, and at the end of the year the team with the most points is crowned the winner.”

However, the Border Showdown has much more behind it than some may think.

In the 1850s, Kansas and Missouri frontier towns were involved in violent conflicts over the slavery debate and whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state. The violence escalated and peaked with the 1863 Lawrence Massacre, when William Quantrill’s Confederate guerillas burned the city.

The current “hate” between Kansas and Missouri is a little less radical than what it was back in the 1850s. Now, the athletic programs of the two universities duke it out all year long.

While it was originally coined as the Border War, in 2004 the name was changed to the Border Showdown. Curtis Marsh, director of KU Info said, “After 9/11 there was a decision made to limit the comparison between actual military battle and the athletic events.”

To get points, the team, either Kansas or Missouri, must win the game. Point values awarded differ depending on the sport.

The KU teams competing in the Border Showdown are volleyball, soccer, swimming and diving, women’s cross country, women’s basketball, women’s outdoor and indoor track and field, women’s golf, softball, football, men’s basketball, men’s outdoor and indoor track and field, baseball and men’s golf. The kickoff to this year’s Showdown was the Sept. 16 KU-MU volleyball game held in Columbia, Mo. The roster of games and points can be viewed on the KU Athletics Web site.

Kalynd Carson, a member of the women’s golf team, said that while the Border Showdown is not as stressed in golf, there is still a definite rivalry with Missouri.

“You want to be ranked first before Missouri to bring in a recruit,” she said. “But it’s not like football with that competitiveness.”

At the end of the year, the winner will be awarded a trophy given by M&I Bank. The location of the trophy display if Kansas wins is yet to be determined.

The award will be presented at the Kansas City Sports Commission dinner in the spring, the date and time of which are still to be announced.

Last year the Tigers defeated the Jayhawks in the Showdown, winning 24 to 15. Missouri won the previous year and two other times since 2003. Kansas has won two of the six showdowns, the first one in 2003-04 and the second in 2005-06.

Other than scoring a trophy, what does it mean to have the most points?

“To have the immense satisfaction of beating your arch rival, that’s what’s at stake here,” Marchiony said.

In case of a tie, the school that won the majority of the head-to-head games in the regular season will be the Border Showdown winner.

— Edited by Betsy Cutcliff

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