I was born and raised in Columbia, Mo. I can count how many home football games I’ve missed on one hand. I love Mizzou sports. My parents must have raised me right because I consider anything and anyone that wears red and royal blue together is the spawn of Satan. I hate the University of Kansas. I hate the Jayhawks.
This week has been “Kansas Hate Week,” a tradition upheld by only the best and brightest of Columbians and Mizzou fans. It’s the week prior to a big border showdown game, and seeing as this Saturday is the Kansas-Mizzou basketball game, this week is that week.
So it goes without saying that this blog is dedicated to Kansas Hate Week by highlighting some of the things I hate most about Kansas.
First and foremost, what the heck is a jayhawk? Why would they make an imaginary bird the mascot of their school? It’s a big, feathery bird which, in my opinion, is very vulnerable to attacks by any other animal. If I were to enter the jayhawk in an animal-on-animal fight club, I’d  have about two options. I could put it in a “kitten vs. kitten” category or a “worm vs. worm” category. Even in that, kittens have claws and the “worm vs. worm” category is a joke.
The jayhawk is beyond pathetic as a mascot. The only reason the university had to pick an imaginary creature as their mascot is because all the animals in the state either got bored and left or got hit by cars speeding down I-70 as fast as they can so they can get across the border as soon as they can. Because of the lack of animals that want to live in Kansas, the inhabinants had to legitimately make one up.
If I were going to make up an animal to be a mascot, I would have created a hybrid of a saber tooth tiger, wooly mammoth and eagle—quick, strong and patriotic—not some weak copy of a toucan. So congratulations, Jayhawks, your bird could get first place in the “worm vs. worm” fight club category. In that fight club, the first rule is “Tickets are free, tell your friends please because nobody cares about our fight club.”
At least the kittens are cute.
Driving through Kansas stinks. There’s nothing there. It’s like when God was creating the world, he got restless leg syndrome and Alzheimer’s at the same time. First he got up and left the drawing board because he, literally, couldn’t sit still anymore and then he forgot to fill the rest in because it “slipped his mind.” Its landscape is like the heart beat monitors of the people who live there —flat.
When I go through Kansas, the only thing I like about the drive is knowing Colorado will eventually be on the other side. There was a point in time when I screamed because I saw movement in the distance but almost immediately afterward wanted to break down crying because I realized it was only an oil drill and a windmill.
Even worse, the radio stations in Kansas are an epic fail. Just because the land is flat doesn’t mean the radio waves can get to my vehicle. All I hear is static. And of course, the first time I drovee through Kansas, I forgot my iPod. So, all I got to listen to while I driving through the most stupid, flattest state of them all was the sound of my family dying of boredom.
Lastly, what I hate about Kansas is that for the longest time, they were better than us. Football was always close because for the most part, the teams toggled back and forth from being really good and really bad. But basketball… was the worst. Kansas has a reputation for being a really good basketball team, and watching Mizzou fall to KU on the court was by far one of the most traumatic experiences of my young life.
With MU leaving the Big 12 conference this year and a securing a top five ranking, Kansas is going to get their tail handed to them. After all the years of getting grinded into the hardwood, the Tigers will step up and destroy the Jayhawks Saturday. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t have to hate Kansas because they’re better than Mizzou in basketball.
Yesterday, I hated Kansas.
Tomorrow, I’ll hate Kansas.
Today, I hate Kansas.
By Shannon Freese