Report: Kansas fights were years in the making

Published Sep. 24, 2009 4:37 p.m. ET

foxsports

Fights this week on the University of Kansas campus were the culmination of a long-simmering feud between basketball and football players according to a published report.

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Citing sources on both teams, The Kansas City Star reported Thursday that the hostilities on Tuesday and Wednesday go back five years or longer. The situation attracted national attention when basketball starting point guard Tyshawn Taylor dislocated a finger during one of at least three incidents this week.

"It's about who's more popular on campus with the girls and stuff like that," a former basketball player told the newspaper. "It's escalated really bad now, but it's always been there."

The player indicated that some of the tensions stem from two programs battling for the limelight locally and nationally.

"I just know personally when I first got there, I just felt like the football players didn't like me," he said. "I felt like they were jealous of the attention we got, the notoriety we got."

Said a former football player: "It's a big ego thing," the former football player said. "It's like who pretty much runs the school, who's better."