KC Confidential

Seems like only yesterday…

The never-ending, ongoing demise of the Big 12 Conference, that is. The crazy part is – Colorado started it by bailing for the Pac 10 a dozen years ago; followed by Nebraska to the now infamous Big 10 a year later; and Missouri and Texas A&M to the SEC in 2012.

The reason they gave: to get away from the financial bullying by Texas.

Funny thing, because looking back, those great escapes resulted in Texas and Oklahoma saying last summer they were bailing for the SEC. Meaning Mizzou and A&M will be reunited with school they fled to escape.

Go figure.

Clearly, the fallout from those moves has not been pretty.

For starters, Kansas gave Mizzou the cold shoulder until recently, ending the so-called “oldest rivalry west the Mississippi.”

Ditto for the Nebraska-Oklahoma fall holiday classics.,

Nobody seemed to care much about Colorado, but Nebraska fell from being a perennial Top 10 in the Big 12, to a Big 10 also ran.

In the meantime, Missouri went from a Big 12 college basketball powerhouse to reegular losses to lowly UMKC – AMC Theatres founder Stan Durwood’s old team. And after playing KU for a No. 1 ranking in 2007, it’s fallen into football mediocrity. Continue reading →

What were the odds?

That when outspoken KC comedy legend Craig Glazer and his brothers chipped in to purchase an expensive life insurance policy on their dad several years back, that Stanford’s & Sons founder Stan Glazer would outlive all three of them.

Less than zero, they all thought, but et that’s exactly what happened.

Craig held funerals for both his brothers – Jeff Glazer and Jack Glazer – shortly before checking out himself in 2018 after half watching Patrick Mahomes launch his wildly successful career pre season games from his hospital bed.

Now the last surviving member of the storied Glazer clan ground to a quiet close recently when 90 year-old father Stan went for a dirt nap in Arizona near Tucson.

So much for those crazy Glazer kids cashing in on the pricey policy. Continue reading →

The last two years were so intense, tons of stuff fell between the cracks…

For example, the once beloved Aunt Jemima bit the dust last summer, a victim of wokeness and the Black Lives Matter fad.

Did you notice?

I didn’t until my wife asked me to pick up some frozen Aunt Jemima pancakes recently.

Hold it, Aunt who?

Turns out what she really meant was for me to get some Pearl Milling Company pancakes. A web search later, I figured it out.

Just one problem…

In the wilds of Tucson, nobody seems to carry frozen Pearl Milling Company products. They do have some syrups and dry pancake mixes, but until now, even those never jumped out at me.

So just like that, with the local and national media demonizing Donald Trump, forcing folks to get vaccinated, wear purposeless cloth masks and helping raise to millions for BLM, dear, sweet Aunt Jemima went for a dirt nap.

In the meantime, BLM appears to have squandered all those tis of millions of dollars with little to no accounting. All while a pillar of pop culture died and nobody – including the ancestors of the original Aunt Jemima – had a clue as to what happened.

But set aside the never ending story of racism briefly, and let’s look at another famous brand from my lost childhood that went away long ago – one with powerful Kansas City roots – Hydrox Cookies.

For the uninitiated – and there are likely many of you – Hydrox invented what later became the Original Oreo cookie. Famous Kansas City icon Jacob L. Loose introduced and manufactured it, four years before Oreo copied it then left Hysdrox in the dust with better marketing of an arguably an inferior product.

Yep, Jacob Loose – of Loose Park fame – the guy who apparently never owned slaves or championed racism, started the endowment fund for Children’s Mercy Hospital and helped launch the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation –  and built and ran what became KC’s Sunshine Bakery.  Continue reading →

Stonehenge and the pyramids aside, nothing seems to last forever…

Not even Kansas City’s vaunted Country Club Plaza.

Oh sure, it’s changed over the years – long gone are institutions like Woolworth’s, King Louie, Sears and hoity-toity clothiers such as Jack Henry and Cricket West. About the only biz that goes very far back now is the jeweler Tivols.

No biggie, right? Wrong.

With upwards of two dozen vacancies – 12 in the past year – and one of the Plaza’s biggest “gets,” upscale Oak Park Mall department store Nordstrom bailing from its two year plan to relocate to the Plaza, things are looking beyond bleak.

“I’ve never been more worried about the Plaza,” one big shot developer told a local television station. “You see all the big names going away (and) it’s going to have a domino effect. It’s tough to watch.”

So is there anything much in the way of good news?

“Not that I’m aware of,” says Westport businessman Bill Nigro.

There are basically two takes on the Plaza’s problems:

“They have to get their rents in line so people can afford to be in business,” Nigro says. “Nobody can afford the rents there now.”

“And I think Johnson Countians are afraid to go down there,” adds Mission Hills resident Dwight Sutherland. “Five or six years ago they had flash mob problems where the black kids would come and throw the white kids in the fountains, and then go by outdoor restaurants and knock people’s drinks and food off their tables. Then they had the riots two years ago after the George Floyd incident. People in the suburbs already had reservations about going down there and the riots solidified them.”

Now many of the Plaza’s popular businesses and eateries are history.  Continue reading →

Missouri’s basketball struggles are self inflicted with poor coaching hires…

They have NOTHING to do with conference affiliation. Hiring Kim Anderson would’ve been a disaster in the Big 12 or ANY major conference. By any measure, Mizzou basketball is a huge disappointment and should be WAY better than it is.

Football is a different animal.

Mizzou is in the same position as pretty much ALL programs who aren’t a “blue blood.” You are going to have to have everything line up in order to to win a natty.

If it’s ever going to happen, Mizzou’s in the right conference.

To act like Missouri has been some sort of embarrassment in football is unfair, and just plain untrue. They’ve been to a couple SEC championship games and won some major bowl games.

The fiasco that were the nonsensical 2015 protests on campus set the football program back years.

Barry Odom wasn’t the hire anyone wanted after Gary Pinkel, but it was the best they could do at the time. He promptly came on campus and alienated quite a few folks by calling the job a “turnaround,” as if Mizzou’s program had been in the dumpster for years.

He was a total meathead that was gifted multiple NFL players and most importantly, Drew Lock, an NFL quarterback. He did next to nothing.

Once Lock graduated, Odom was on borrowed time. Continue reading →

There are folks who still think I’m a sour grapes guy…

Think again, because my critiques of the Kansas City Star and Pitch have nothing to do with a sense of longing because I’m no longer writing for either.

It’s true, I basically have been screwed by both, but it really doesn’t matter. Even former Pitch owner Hal Brody complimented me for treating him fairly in my columns.

Moving back to Arizona a year ago – where I graduated high school and attended college – means I no longer have to put up with the drumbeat of the Star’s heavy handed editorials. Talk about a relief, it’s like escaping the gravitational pull of an annoying neighbor or ex.

That said, there’s no escaping the mainstream thought police!

Tucson’s Arizona Daily Star is every bit as biased but happily, far less obnoxious.

It comes out seven days a week (not six) in four sections. And keeps me up to date on mundane stuff like local news, crime and weather – and arrives without fail every day by 7 am (eat your hearts out Cowtowners).

It’s also loaded with letters from brainwashed locals who love to bash Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema for having sensible deliberations on topics like not destroying the filibuster.

But back to KC…

You guys are still stuck with Mike “Three Time Loser” Fannin – who never would have been appointed Star editor had publisher Art Brisbane not foolishly opted to move his family to California to take over the Knight Ridder newspaper chain that unbeknownst to him (or anybody else) was soon to be sold.

The rest is history, but it’s hard to imagine that history continuing much longer.  Continue reading →