Goodbye Abilene, hello Lawrence?

The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, one of the state legislature’s perpetual political footballs, has been drop-kicked out of Abilene like a failed three-point field goal attempt.

No money, wailed the state solons who had other weighty issues to discuss like whether for congressional districting purposes to divide Lawrence down Iowa Street, Kasold Drive or the McGrew Nature Trail.

And so poor little Abilene, lacking potential corporate sponsors, will have to surrender the shrine to a larger city. Still, one city’s loss is another’s gain, and it’s always possible the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame could wind up right here in Split City.

Possible, but not probable.

For one thing, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame has been here before. For more than two decades, it was tucked into a first-floor corner of the Elizabeth M. Watkins Community Museum at 11th and Massachusetts streets, where it ranked somewhere between the Watson Park steam engine and Naismith ditch as a tourist attraction.

How the Hall arrived here from the Mid-America Fairgrounds in Topeka, not even Max Falkenstien, who for eight years was chair of the board of trustees, knows. He thinks the late Williams brothers Skipper and Odd, they of KU’s Williams Fund were instrumental in the relocation.

What Falkenstien, the ageless voice of Kansas University football and basketball broadcasts, does know is that Abilene received an elevator housing from the state fathers.

“I’m terribly disappointed in the legislature’s lack of action,” Falkenstien said. “The House passed the funding and the Senate passed it, then a committee scuttled it. It’s a real shame. I think it’s a real treasure for the state of Kansas.”

A treasure yes, but Kansas Sports Hall of Fame isn’t a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It isn’t self-sufficient. It can’t make a go of it on admission fees alone. And so the shrine must move again.

Strike Two against Lawrence as a probable site are political reasons that transcend the legislature. Lawrence is the home of Kansas University, and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame goes out of its way to include all Kansans, not just former Jayhawks.

“When it was here,” Falkenstien said, “it was erroneously considered by many as KU’s Hall of Fame. I think it’s better if it isn’t in Manhattan or Lawrence.”

Abilene seemed like a perfect neutral site back in the early ’90s when the Watkins Museum board requested the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame find a new home because it needed the space. When an Abilene bank donated its old downtown building the transition was complete.

Now, according to Richard Konzem, it looks like either Wichita or Salina will be the next stop, although the deadline for submitting bids is July 1. Konzem, a KU associate athletic director, is a member of the shrine’s board of trustees.

“If Lawrence is interested, that’s an option,” Konzem said.

At the same time, Konzem sides with Falkenstien on the necessity of keeping it out of the cities that house the state’s two largest universities.

“Speaking as a Kansan and as a member of the board,” Konzem said, “I agree with Max. There was a perception when it was here that it was a KU hall of fame.”

Curiously, the K-Club, the proactive group of former KU lettermen, is hoping to raise enough money to erect a Kansas University Sports Hall of Fame adjacent to Allen Fieldhouse. Think of the confusion if Lawrence had a KU Sports Hall of Fame and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.

If you ask me, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame belongs in Wichita. A location in the state’s largest city would enhance its prestige and almost certainly increase visitor traffic, not to mention lure corporate funding.

I’d sure as heck hate to see them stuff the 200 or more Hall artifacts into boxes and store them in the Hutchinson salt mines. People need to know about Walter Johnson, Glenn Cunningham, Tom Watson, Lynette Woodard and the many other Kansans who became national icons.

“It’s a great place to take the kids,” Konzem said, “and show them Kansas goes beyond wheatfields and the Wizard of Oz.”