New guide tells all about Big 12 towns

Susan Kraus doesn’t claim to be a Big 12 football expert.

But when it comes to the dining, nightlife and culture of Big 12 towns, few can rival her insight.

The Lawrence resident has spent much of the past 18 months in college towns in preparation for a new book, “A Game-Day Guide to the Big 12,” which is due out next weekend.

“This isn’t a book about football games or basketball games, for that matter,” Kraus said. “It’s not that I’m a sports nut. I’m kind of a travel nut. I love college towns. There’s a certain enthusiasm.”

The idea for the book came two years ago when Kraus’ husband, Frank Barthell, was headed to a Kansas University game in Stillwater, Okla., but didn’t know much about the town.

“I said, ‘There’s got to be a book that has all the towns of the Big 12,'” Kraus said. “I did the research, and there wasn’t. Nobody’s ever organized a guide book around an athletic conference.”

So Kraus, sometimes with Barthell, toured each of the 12 cities in seven states. They visited some two or three times.

After official tours guided by convention and visitor bureaus and universities, she hit the restaurants, hotels, bars, museums, parks and anything else that made the towns unique.

She balanced the trips with her career as a marriage and family therapist and court mediator.

The 450-page book, published by her own publishing company, Game Day Guide Publishing, will be available for $20 beginning next weekend at local shops, including The Raven Bookstore, 8 E. Seventh St.; Jayhawk Spirit, 935 Mass.; and the KU Bookstore in the Kansas Union.

Susan Kraus, Lawrence, has written and published a travel guide featuring all the Big 12 Conference cities. She's pictured Friday in her home office next to a copy of the book's cover.

The book lists local establishments in different categories but includes no chain businesses except hotels, in an attempt to give visitors a local flavor. It also includes a section on game-day traditions for each of the Big 12 universities.

That section includes the insight that Baylor University — a private Baptist school and the only Big 12 university not to allow alcohol at tailgating — has a bar with a beer tent across the street from its carnival-like stadium activities.

“They’re chugging their beer instead of sipping it so they can go back across the street,” she said. “I find the whole thing pretty amusing.”

Kraus said she didn’t think any of the Big 12 universities could match Lawrence’s nightlife, though she found a great college-town atmosphere in Columbia, Mo., as well.

As far as football game days, Kraus said KU had some catching up to do to match fanatical efforts in towns such as Norman, Okla., and Ames, Iowa.

Tailgating at KU was sparse before 2001, when the university first allowed alcohol in parking lots surrounding Memorial Stadium.

“They developed the tailgate culture over time,” Kraus said of Norman and Ames. “The tailgating (at KU) is picking up. People are beginning to realize how good an atmosphere it can be. In the next year or two it’ll pick up.”

As for Kraus, she’s ready to start on her next two projects: game-day guides on the Atlantic Coast and Southeastern conferences.

She said she’s looking forward to touring more cities.

“I probably gained 20 pounds,” she said with a laugh. “It’s a tough job.”