Weekend Notes: Homecoming

I moved away from Kansas City 23 years ago. In that time I’ve had a lot of great visits back to my hometown. This past weekend was easily one of the best ever.

This trip had many of the usual elements of my returns. Attending a game of some kind. Eating some of my favorite foods. Hanging out with some of my favorite people. There was something special in the air this time, literally, that elevated this trip.

I know a bunch of my regular readers were part of my visit, but I will still offer a traditional breakdown.

Friday

I’ve said this before but the IND-MCI flight is about as easy as it gets. Two new(-ish) airports that are super easy to navigate. Just 60 minutes in the air. The only issue was a slight delay in my flight, and in my buddy E’s flight from Austin that meant we got to Lawrence slightly later than we had planned.

It had been four years since I visited E for the final KU-UT football game. He brought his son J with him, who grew up a KU fan but is now a senior at Baylor. We chose Free State Brewery for dinner, and it is still really good. Somehow even at 7:30 or so on a Friday night we managed to get seated immediately.

After dinner we walked around Mass Street a bit before taking J on a car tour of our old haunts. Fortunately I think he was genuinely interested in all the sites we showed him. My kids would have been bored to tears. He asked to see the city’s bar area, to compare it to Waco’s, so we parked near the Union and walked down 14th Street. E and I were kind of blown away at how the area around the Wheel, the Hawk, the Bull, and the Crossing has changed. There were huge lines to get in most of the places. There were Line Leap doors where you could pay extra to get past the riff-raff queueing up. In Lawrence, Kansas! The Bull also had 14th Street blocked off with a live band playing outside.

KU bars always seemed more parochial when I was in school. Certain people went to certain bars and if it wasn’t a game day, they rarely had lines to get in. Certainly not ones that went around the corner. But I also was more of a regular at the Mass St. bars once I was legal.1 Other KU people confirmed that the scene has changed, though.

J seemed to enjoy seeing KU’s nighttime scene. I’m not sure he enjoyed walking back up 14th Street to our car as much. He did say that “KU is dope,” which I liked.

Here’s where the magic I mentioned first presented itself. The weather was insanely good. We were walking around on October 23 without jackets. I had jeans and a long sleeve shirt on and was a little warm. I’ve said this other times in other posts, but when you get these super warm stretches later in the season, it always feels like we are getting one over on Mother Nature. Maybe that’s why the lines were so long: the kids realized this was a special night and they needed to get out of their dorms and Greek houses and apartments and enjoy it before winter hits.

Included in our tour was a trip to Daisy Hill, where our old dorm, McCollum Hall, used to be.2 There were TONS of kids waiting on the bus to go to bars and parties. It was more like kids waiting to get to their 8:30 AM classes than a Friday night, just they were dressed for Halloween parties and clubs. The only time I remember ever taking the bus to go out was if you wanted to go to the Wheel on Friday afternoon.

Anyway, good night out in Larry.

Saturday

With a noon game, breakfast was important. I was staying over on 7th and Iowa (for you LFK knowers), and figured it would be best to go away from campus if we wanted to eat in a timely manner on Homecoming Game morning. I found a spot called Big Biscuit that ended up being pretty solid. I got a huge plate of food that kept me going until dinner.

We parked in the Allen Fieldhouse lot. We were disappointed the Fieldhouse was locked down and we couldn’t get in. I don’t know if it’s always like that, or if it was because Duke was coming into town for Sunday’s exhibition game. Back in the day you could walk in any time and even use the super old school track if nothing was going on.

We walked over to the stadium, making a brief aside so I could take a picture of the Pi Phi house for M. E and J joked that I better be quick because an old man standing on the street taking pics of a sorority house with girls on the porch was definitely creepy.

J is a Baylor band geek and we caught up with the KU band while they were playing their pregame show on the Hill. We stopped and watched that before heading in. He knew some secret band code to break the ice and chatted up a few of the KU kids.

Man, the stadium. Obviously I’ve seen it on TV and tons of pictures and videos online since the re-construction project began. But seeing it in person blew me away. Even only 60% done, or whatever it is, it is amazing. Old Memorial Stadium had zero character or charm. It was a purely utilitarian structure, and barely good enough to do what was asked. It’s only redeeming qualities were the views outside the stadium, whether up the Hill or when you peek over the top rows and can look across the Kansas countryside. Especially this time of year.

The new Booth, though? So awesome. We sat in the northwest corner, lower level, and had great sight-lines. I kept thinking, “Is this really KU’s football stadium?” It had been 16 years since my last visit for a football game. I immediately vowed to come back again as soon as the construction is complete.

As for the game itself, it was kind of the perfect return for me. It had EVERYTHING you could ask for from a KU football performance. Touchdowns wiped out by bad penalties. KU throwing a pick-six on the first play of the second half that was about the dumbest pick-six you can imagine. KU getting called for two personal fouls on one play and Baylor still completing a long pass in the process. Bad time management. Poor tackling. A horrific referee decision that somehow was upheld on replay review. Lance Leipold losing his mind on the ref for the entire four-minute media timeout that followed. Perhaps most KU of all, the Jayhawks somehow got their hands on two Baylor PAT attempts and BOTH sailed through the uprights.

What team blocks two kicks but not enough to actually prevent the points? KU, that’s who.

On top of all that, the Jayhawks had missed a makable field goal attempt and failed on a two-point conversion.

Despite all that, KU was only down 11 going into the fourth quarter.

As I said, there was magic in the air in Lawrence this weekend. It wasn’t just the weather, which was effing perfect for a college football game Saturday. The sun was blazing all day, and it was warm, but I never broke a sweat or felt overheated.

First play of the fourth quarter, KU threw a 34-yard touchdown. But failed on the conversion even after a Baylor penalty gave them two shots at it. Five minutes later we kicked a field goal to cut it to two.

When Baylor kicked a field goal to go up five with 2:40 left, I leaned over to E and said, “You give Lance Leipold 2:40 to make something happen and that’s when he really shines.” Sarcastically, of course, as KU has blown about 1000 close games in the LL years.

But, holy crap, KU marched right down the field and took the lead with just over a minute left! There was a lot of craziness in the stands when Isaiah Marshall scampered in from 15 yards out.

This was a script we had seen before, though. So many of those losses in the Leipold era have come when KU took the lead with under 90 seconds left then still ended up losing. Earlier in the quarter when we trailed I had also joked that it might be better just to run clock and not score, that way we couldn’t get our hearts broken again.

Sure enough, on first down, KU seemed to have Baylor’s QB corralled in the backfield. He flung a pass that was more prayer than legit attempt to complete it. There were three KU defenders that had a chance to either pick it off or knock it down. Naturally it was the Baylor receiver who pulled it in and the Bears were at midfield with plenty of time left. All they needed was a field goal. The energy was draining. Young J started getting cocky. E reminded him that we had nearly blocked two kicks. If Baylor had a kick for the win we were going to block it.

He should get on a gambling site and start spreading money around because that’s exactly what happened! Blake Herold got his hands up and totally smothered the kick. Pandemonium in the stands! My voice is still all messed up two days later.3

This is KU football so there was one more embarrassing moment. Baylor had two time outs left, so KU was going to have to snap the ball three times to run out the final 18 seconds. After first down, whoever is in charge of the fireworks set them off, thinking the clock would run out. Ooops. The final two downs were played with smoke blowing across the fields. I apologized to J, saying we aren’t used to winning.

After the game we spent a lot of time in the KU Bookstore looking at gear. I only purchased two stickers for my theoretical next car. J got himself a KU hat that he wore the rest of the day, after removing his Baylor “shirt of shame” as he called it.

Oh, I now how a two-game winning streak in person!4

We tried to get into the Fieldhouse again, but it was still locked. We could see students inside camping out for the Duke game, but the main entrance with the Hall of Fame was shut tight. We heard noise from the baseball stadium so strolled over to find the Jayhawks were playing Southern Illinois Edwardsville. The gates were open so we walked in and watched an inning.

From there it was over to Leawood to meet some of my KC homies at Joe’s Kansas City Barbecue. I couldn’t lock them down to confirm that it was better than Austin BBQ, but J again said it was “dope” and E gave a thumbs up.

I parted with my Texas guys and headed home with E$ for the evening. We watched some World Series and caught up.

M had the other big win of the day, with her Bearcats knocking off #6 Texas Tech. She texted me that everyone was rushing the field. I asked where she was and she said the bar across the street from campus. The guys at dinner liked that. “She will always remember her friends rushing the field!” 😂

S and C’s Hoosiers escaped with a win in Ann Arbor.

Sunday

E$ and his wife A$ were hosting a brunch Sunday, where I saw a lot of my most regular readers. It was another freaking perfect day and we were able to sit outside to eat and visit. I didn’t get to talk to all of you near enough, but tried my best to have a few minutes with everyone. It was great to see you all and hopefully it won’t be too long before I am back again.

They had the KU-Duke game on but I was more intent on catching up with friends than watching it, so I have no comment right now. I haven’t checked but I assume it was still automatically recorded so I can watch it later.

The flight back to Indy was easy, I was in the house before 10:00. I much prefer this evening non-stop flight home to the ones back in the day that were early Sunday. I took that one hungover a few times. No hangovers these days, but it was a true bonus to have all of Sunday to spend with friends.

All-in-all, a fantastic weekend. I’m a little nervous about whenever my next return is, because there is no way the weather will be as good as it was this time. I don’t try to cram nearly as much into these visit as I used to. Trying to balance two cities and two sets of friends made this one a little challenging so I appreciate all of you adjusting your schedules to fit mine.

  1. Shout out Louise’s, the Granada, Harbor Lights, Red Lion, Sandbar, etc. ↩︎

  2. RIP, it was imploded a decade or so ago. ↩︎

  3. Probably more a function of how rarely I yell at games these days than how much I yelled Saturday. ↩︎

  4. It might be more than that, but I honestly don’t remember the last game I went to before we moved to Indy. Maybe the Missouri game in 2001 or 2002? That would be three straight wins! ↩︎