No one saw it coming. Missouri wasn't ranked in The Associated Press preseason poll in 2007. Kansas didn't even receive a vote. Then the season kicked off. The Tigers and the Jayhawks kept winning. Unimaginable upsets became the norm. And there they were on the Saturday after Thanksgiving - bitter border rivals squaring off at a neutral site with the No. 1 ranking in the country on the line. "You could feel the hostility in the air," said Mizzou backup quarterback Chase Patton. Each team took the field at Arrowhead Stadium knowing it was two victories from playing for the national championship. Before a packed house and a national television audience, Missouri and Kansa delivered the most entertaining and tension-filled game of the college football season. They were two traditionally middling programs that had so much to gain-and everything to be. Book jacket.

The most bitter guerrilla conflict in American history raged along the Kansas-Missouri border from 1856 to 1865, making that frontier the first battleground in the struggle over slavery. That fiercely contested boundary represented the most explosive political fault line in the United States, and its bitter divisions foreshadowed an entire nation torn asunder. Jeremy Neely now examines the significance of the border war on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri line and offers a comparative, cross-border analysis of its origins, meanings, and consequences. A narrative history of the border war and its impact on citizens of both states, The Border between Them recounts the exploits of John Brown, William Quantrill, and other notorious guerrillas, but it also uncovers the stories of everyday people who lived through that conflict. Examining the frontier period to the close of the nineteenth century, Neely frames the guerrilla conflict within the larger story of the developing West and squares that violent period with the more peaceful--though never tranquil--periods that preceded and followed it. Focusing on the countryside south of the big bend in the Missouri River, an area where there was no natural boundary separating the states, Neely examines three border counties in each state that together illustrate both sectional division and national reunion. He draws on the letters and diaries of ordinary citizens--as well as newspaper accounts, election results, and census data--to illuminate the complex strands that helped bind Kansas and Missouri together in post-Civil War America. He shows how people on both sides of the line were already linked by common racial attitudes, farming practices, and ambivalence toward railroad expansion; he then tells how emancipation, industrialization, and immigration eventually eroded wartime divisions and facilitated the reconciliation of old foes from each state. Today the "border war" survives in the form of interstate rivalries between collegiate Tigers and Jayhawks, allowing Neely to consider the limits of that reconciliation and the enduring power of identities forged in wartime. The Border between Them is a compelling account of the terrible first act of the American Civil War and its enduring legacy for the conflict's veterans, victims, and survivors, as well as subsequent generations.

Written for every sports fan who follows the Missouri Tigers, this account goes behind the scenes to peek into the private world of the players, coaches, and decision makers—all while eavesdropping on their personal conversations. From the locker room to the sidelines and inside the huddle, the book includes stories about Phil Bradley, Dan Devine, Don Faurot, Brad Smith, Roger Wehrli, and Kellen Winslow, among others, allowing readers to relive the highlights and the celebrations.

For years, football at the University of Kansas was nothing more than a time-fillerwhile students and alumni awaited the start of basketball season.That changed dramatically in one magical season in the fall of 2007 when anundersized quarterback led the Jayhawks through 11 straight wins and madeMemorial Stadium the “in” place on a Saturday afternoon in Lawrence.Todd Reesing’s football career at Kansas is a fairy-tale story that beganimprobably and ended the same way. But he and his teammates took Jayhawks fanson a ride they had never experienced before – the heady heights of playing for theNo. 1 ranking in college football and their first-ever win in a major bowl game whenthey defeated Virginia Tech 27-24 in the Orange Bowl following the 2007 season.A year later, Reesing was even more prolific, and the Jayhawks played inconsecutive bowl games for the first time in school history. That season waspunctuated by Reesing’s scrambling touchdown strike to Kerry Meier that beat thethe Missouri Tigers and lifted the Jayhawks into the Insight.com Bowl where theythumped Minnesota.His senior season was a disappointment, marred by confrontation betweenmembers of the football and basketball teams, a university investigation into the conductof the head football coach, and a seven-game losing streak to end the season.In Rising to New Heights: Inside the Jayhawks Huddle Reesing talks about it all, thehighs and lows of making Kansas football relevant again and his journey through collegefootball with all the skills of a big-time quarterback but none of the size.

Exploring what it means to be a school, a coach, and a player in college basketball's Final Four, Feinstein exposes the driving forces behind one of the most revered events in American sports. Readers will also find dramatic stories from the officials and referees to the scouts and ticket-scalpers.

An expose of sexual recruiting tactics from the journal pages of an escort queen. Breaking Cardinal Rules is an exposé by escort Katina Powell based on her experiences providing sexual services for the basketball program at the University of Louisville. It is written with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Dick Cady. Powell has filled five journals with details of her escort escapades, sexual encounters and her activities at the University of Louisville. Most of the U of L services she provided took place in the men's dormitory where most of the basket players reside. Her main contact and the man with the money–the school's former director of basketball operations and former graduate assistant, Andre McGee–kept Powell and her girls busy from 2010 to 2014. Powell does not present a sympathetic character. Her life is full of contradictions. She has no remorse over the choices she has made. Her story is true in all its graphic detail. "If you think you've heard seamy tales about recruiting before, wait till you get a load of this. The Louisville high command has vowed to take the matter very seriously. It should." -Mike Lopresti, retired USA Today sports columnist Keywords: University Of Louisville, Cardinals, Recruitment, Basketball, College, Sports, Recruitment Violations, Sex, Striptease Andre Mcgee, Escorting Services

Basketball wasn't invented at Kansas but basketball tradition was. It's where James Naismith taught, Phog Allen coached, Wilt Chamberlain dominated, Danny Manning performed a miracle and Roy Williams wins like no other coach in the college game. It's been a century of national championships, All-Americans, Olympic heroes and remarkable games. A Century of Jayhawk Triumphs relives the top 100 victories in the program's storied history.