November 27, 1908
KANSAS IS WINNER
OF GREAT BATTLE.
JAYHAWKS DEFEAT TIGERS
IN ANNUAL GAME.
K. U. HAS UNDE-
FEATED ELEVEN.
MISSOURI STRONG AT START
BUT SOON WEAKENED.
Opposing Teams Were
Cheered Impartially.
No Wonder the Jayhawk's a Proud Bird.
BY JEROME G. BEATTY.
By defeating the University of Missouri team at Association park yesterday afternoon by a score of 10 to 4, before a crowd of 12,000 persons, the University of Kansas eleven cinched its claim to the title of football champions of the Missouri valley.
Yesterday morning only one obstacle -- Missouri -- stood between the Jayhawkers and a clean record of victories for the season. Today the Kansas 1908 team is in the K. U. temple of ever victorious elevens, in which the Yost machine of 1899 has led such a lonesome life.
And the Missourians. Once more they came to Kansas City hoping, praying for victory. They met their worst rival for the eighteenth time, and for the thirteenth time they came off the field a defeated team. But there has never been anything inglorious about a Tiger defeat. There was nothing inglorious about yesterday's defeat. When a man gives for ten weeks his body and mind into the hands of his coaches to be moulded as they see best, when a man trained for ten weeks for an hour of play, puts into that hour of play all he has, never whimpering, never quitting, never dodging any hard knocks, but boring in and fighting like a man; fighting as his forefathers fought, a square battle with a never-say-die spirit, doing his best in spite of everything -- when such a man loses, he loses honorably, and to him is due as much credit as the man who fought the same kind of a battle on the winning side. It's easy to be a good winner but the real test of a man is whether or not he is a good loser. TIGERS START OUT FAST.
Two touchdowns gave Kansas the game. A place kick gave Missouri its score, the first the Tigers have made against Kansas since 1902.
The Tigers started out with a rush and for the first fifteen minutes outplayed the Jayhawkers at every turn. After carrying the ball from their own 10-yard-line to the Kansas 25-yard line, the Tigers were held and Bluck missed an 35-yard place kick. After Johnson's kick-out, the Tigers again stormed the Kansas goal line. Kansas held this time on their 10-yard-line. Bluck went back for another kick and sent the pigskin sailing between the posts, eighteen yards away, making the score, Missouri 4, Kansas 0.
THE TYPICAL ROOTER WAS THERE.
It was the first time the Missouri undergraduates had ever seen their team score on Kansas and for five minutes the Missouri section was a pandemonium of shrieking, whooping rooters whose lungs were the outlet of enthusiasm pent up for years. Their bodies tingled with joy and they cheered again and again and threw up their hats and hugged each other, for it seemed that Missouri was destined to defeat that as yet undefeated Kansas eleven.
There was gloom in the Kansas section, for up to this time the Jayhawkers had been able to do little with the Tigers. One man was still confident of victory for Kansas. It was "Bert" Kennedy, the Jayhawker coach, whose greatest hopes would be realized if his team came through the season without a defeat.
KANSAS MAKES TOUCHDOWN.
"That's all for Missouri," said Kennedy. "We'll make a touchdown and beat 'em. They can't keep up this pace."
And Kennedy was right. The Jayhawkers began to play better football. They came from behind, fighting against fighters, and after twenty minutes of play Pleasant caught Stephenson's onside kick and crossed the Missouri goal. Stephenson missed the goal and the score was Kansas 5, Missouri 4.
It was the second half that the second and last Kansas touchdown came. The Jayhawkers were storming the Missouri goal without any success. Several times they seemed to be within striking distance, but the Tiger line would brace and stop the oncoming Kansans.
With five minutes left to play, Deatherage made an onside kick to Rice, who dashed 25 yards through the Tiger team to a touchdown. Bond missed the goal and the score was Kansas 10, Missouri 4.
Yesterday's game was probably as close a struggle as a Kansas City Thanksgiving day crowd has seen in many years. The 0 to 0 contest of 1906 cannot be classed as a regular football game as the men played in mud up to their knees and the exhibition was one that would make Walter Camp burst out crying.
But yesterday saw a splendid exhibition of the great college sport. There was little individual starring. Each man worked for the team. No one sought for his own glory; it was victory, not applause, that was the prize each man wanted. NEARLY 13,000 FANS WITNESSED THE GAME.
A SECTION OF THE NORTH BLEACHER.
Somewhere between 12,000 and 13,000 madly cheering fans were in the grandstand and bleachers when the opposing teams marched onto the field at Association park yesterday for the annual Kansas-Missouri football battle. Long before noon they had begun to appear at the various gates of the park, clamoring for admittance and when, finally they were thrown open, a seething current of humanity flowed through, until at 2 o'clock the gates were closed and hundreds were refused admittance. A comparison of the crowd of this year with that of former year, when the annual game has been played in Kansas City, would reveal no material change in its personnel. There was a certain percentage of the student body of both institutions here, and then there was the usual number of home fans, who never miss an opportunity to see the annual game. If anything, the students and former students, old grads and friends of the institutions outnumbered the professional fan.
HOUSETOPS WERE CROWDED.
Association park has never had such a crowd within its confines in the history of baseball in Kansas City, and a baseball crowd is the only means of making a comparison. The grandstand has been full to overflowing on many occasions and the bleachers have been well filled at times, but never before has it been necessary to add additional bleachers. These additional bleachers were crowded to their limit and had there been more they unquestionably would have been filled to overflowing. Altogether it is estimated that there were perhaps a few less than 13,000 people who saw the game from the grandstand and bleachers, those were paid admissions. But there was another crowd that viewed the game from a more advantageous standpoint, perhaps, from their point of view, than those who paid to sit in the boxes or in the grandstand.
A glance from the field to the housetops, the trees and the telegraph poles in the immediate vicinity conveyed a picture to the mind which would instantly have been familiar to those baseball fans who saw the great national baseball games in Chicago or New York. Wherever there was a foot-hold outside the high board fence where a view of the game might be had, there was a fan, and from the housetops hundreds saw the game.
