With all sports canceled or postponed, the Kansas Shrine Bowl is still on ... for now
All Kansas high school sporting events have been canceled through the end of May, and many have been called off this summer, too.
But one remained on as scheduled as of Friday. The Kansas Shrine Bowl is an annual high school football all-star game that travels throughout the state and raises money for Shriners Hospitals for Children. It is entering its 47th year as the premier high school summer sporting event in Kansas, and executive director B.J. Harris said playing July 18 at Topeka’s Yager Stadium is still the plan.
“We just saw the stay-at-home guideline get pushed back to May 3,” Harris said. “Until that date starts to get closer to our event, we aren’t going to make any decisions unless those decisions are made for us.”
The Kansas Shrine Bowl is made up of 36 players from the eastern and western halves of Kansas. Coaches from various teams are selected to lead practices and games. The Shrine Bowl holds annual band and cheer camps, too.
Together, these Shrine Bowl events raise thousands of dollars every year, but the football game serves as the organization’s biggest fundraiser. Tommy Beason, Goddard High’s coach and this year’s West Team coach, said the loss of that charity would be the biggest letdown if the event were shelved in 2020.
“When you talking about the real reason of the game, do I want to coach in it? Sure, it’s a heck of a lot of fun,” Beason said. “Do I want to see those players play in it? Yes, it’s a great opportunity for those kids to be a part of something like that. But the real struggle is that it’s not even really about the game at all.”
Harris said registration for the band and cheer camps has tailed off considerably this year. About 100 kids are currently registered for each. Every year, cheerleaders from across Kansas come to the Shrine Bowl and fill the entire track surrounding the field. Harris said that won’t happen in 2020 if the game is allowed to proceed.
But as of Friday, none of the selected football players have said they aren’t going to play.
“I’m sure not expecting a rash of kids to back out of the Shrine Bowl, but if they or their parents were to make that decision, I couldn’t fault anyone,” Beason said.
Harris said he believes the football players will hold onto hope of playing in the Shrine Bowl until it is taken away, and that is one of the reasons he and his staff didn’t make a quick decision to cancel the event when so many other cancellations were mounting.
The Kansas Basketball Coaches Association All-Star Game was set for June 20, and it was called off. The Kansas Volleyball Association All-Star Game was also scheduled for June, and it too was canceled. Same fate for the Kansas Association of Baseball Coaches All-Star Game, which had been set for June 10.
The Shrine Bowl and 8-man All-Star Games set for June 13 in Beloit are all that’s left. Harris, Beason and the players are hopeful their games will still be played as planned, but they are “preparing for the worst,” Harris said.
“We are re-evaluating right now just kind of where everything is,” Harris said. “Everything is getting pushed back basically another month. If we start to get more than another month into it, some of those hard decisions will have to be made, but as of right now, letting that month pass and see where we are compared to where we were is important.”
With the virus still spreading around Kansas, a fall without football is also a possibility. Beason’s son will be a senior on the Goddard football team this year. The coach said his concerns are two-fold: coaching and participating in the Shrine Bowl and coaching the Lions as scheduled this fall.
For now, Beason is just trying to keep everything in perspective.
“These kids have been through a lot already,” Harris said. “These kids have had track season, baseball, softball season stolen from them because of this. This would just be another thing. Our event is going to be here in 2021, 2022. We are working toward our 50th event here in the near future. It would just be very unfortunate for those athletes to have another achievement, another milestone stolen from them.
“With that said, there’s worse things in the world. We raise money for Shriners Hospitals. We want to have an impact for those kids. That’s one of the most unfortunate things. But they will be there, too, for years to come. We will re-rack it and come back even stronger if this gets taken away.”