Kansas City, Mo ? Embarrassed by the antics of some University of Missouri fans and athletes, MU Chancellor Richard Wallace on Wednesday said he’d like to undo decades of history and dissolve the MU-Kansas University rivalry.

He invited KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway to “smoke a peace pipe.”

“We need to find a way to gracefully bury the hatchet,” Wallace said, addressing a gathering of professors from Big 12 Conference universities.

Wallace said the long-standing rivalry had “gotten out of hand” and was becoming an embarrassment to MU and, he presumed, to KU.

The rivalry, Wallace said, played a role in a much-publicized scuffle Saturday between members of the MU and KU women’s basketball teams. He said he’s also seen MU students and fans yell obscenities at KU men’s basketball players.

“Let’s mute that,” said Wallace, who is set to retire in August.

Directing his comments toward a group of KU professors, Wallace said, “Tell Bob Hemenway to call me … maybe we can smoke a peace pipe.”

Later in the day, minutes before the Kansas vs. Kansas State men’s basketball game, Hemenway said he and Wallace had talked before about doing something to temper the KU-MU rivalry but had yet to come up with a plan.

“If he means we should stop playing, I wouldn’t agree with that,” Hemenway said. “But I would agree that we should hold our fans and athletes to higher standards of behavior.”

KU Med Center professor John Ferraro, who attended the meeting in Kansas City, chuckled at Wallace’s proposal.

“He has to understand — I’m reading a book on (William) Quantrill’s Raid; this is a rivalry that goes back to Civil War days,” he said.

Ferraro, too, condemned poor sportsmanship, but he said the rivalry had produced one of the best moments of his life.

“I have to tell you that in all of last year my favorite day was that Saturday when KU played MU in football at home. The weather was perfect. We had a sell-out crowd, and we beat Missouri. It couldn’t have been any better.”