Football

The Most Dangerous Game: KCQ Explores KC's Football Ban

The Most Dangerous Game: KCQ Explores Kansas City's High School Football Ban
Author
Michael Wells

Cool, crisp weather. Cheerleaders and marching bands. Big games, big plays, and occasional big hits. For many across the Kansas City metro area, fall wouldn’t be the same without high school football. The thought prompted a reader to ask What’s Your KCQ?, a partnership between The Kansas City Star and the Kansas City Public Library: Wasn’t there a time when football was banned in Kansas City high schools?Believe it or not, yes. There was a period in the sport’s early history when it had a bad reputation among the city’s educators and parents. The Friday night lights, wherever there were lights … went dark.

KCQ takes on three of your Kansas City history questions

KCQ takes on three of your Kansas City history questions

A body in the old Waldo water tower? The first hospital for Black patients west of the Mississippi River? Before the Chiefs … the Blues? What’s Your KCQ?, on which the Kansas City Public Library and The Kansas City Star collaborate to answer reader-submitted questions about local history, quirks, and curiosities, tackles a trio of recent inquiries: As a kid, I remember hearing a body was once found inside the Waldo water tower. Did that really happen? What's the history of Douglass Hospital in KCK? I heard Kansas City had a pro football team that played at Muehlebach Field before the Chiefs. Is that true?

A Boy-Killing Game: The 1905 Football Ban

Kansas Vs Missouri
Author
Michael Wells
On a cloudy and cool October in 1918, a football scrimmage was played between the Northeast and Westport high school teams on the grounds of The Parade at 15th Street and The Paseo. The Westport squad won the match handedly with a score of 19 to 0. A practice game played between two school teams on a fall afternoon might not seem like much of a big deal, but a Kansas City Star reporter took notice of what happened to be the first officially sanctioned football game played between two Kansas City schools since students were banned from playing the sport in 1905, a lapse of thirteen years.