Arena for Final Four Has Checkered Past

In a city known for the Truman Sports Complex, Kemper Arena is somewhat of a mischievous stepchild.

For the past four weeks Kemper has been a basketball mecca that will culminate with the sport’s High Mass -- the 1988 NCAA Final Four on Easter weekend.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the tournament, city, county and NCAA officials have been busy redecorating and replacing parts of the arena.

“March Madness” at Kemper began with the Big Eight Tournament and rolled on into the NAIA Tournament extravaganza, which ended March 22.

Although this will be the 10th time the NCAA Tournament has ended in Kansas City, it is the first time Kemper is the host.

Kemper, which seats 16,000, was built for $23 million and opened in November 1974. In addition to receiving several architecture awards, Kemper has been cited for being “barrier-free” to disabled people.

To gussie up the place for the Final Four, officials have put down new carpet, expanded services, replaced facing tiles and added a new tone to the interior -- mauve handrails and air ducts.

The most notable replacement at the arena is also one that contributed to Kemper’s bad-boy image -- the scoreboard.

It was during the 1986 NCAA Midwest Regional that time made the scoreboard famous. With 2:21 left in the Kansas-Michigan State game, there was a discrepancy between how many seconds had ticked off between the time Vernon Carr hit a pair of free throws for the Spartans and a bucket by Kansas’ Ron Kellogg.

The clock on the scoreboard said one second, reading 2:20. CBS said 15 seconds had gone by and the official scorers, who use their own timepeice, ruled 11 seconds had gone by.

Ultimately it had no bearing on the outcome of the game -- Kansas won 96-86 in overtime -- but the nation saw the incident on television and the scoreboard became a part of sports folklore.

It was new to the nation but not to Kansas City fans who had seen similar creases in time occur at Kemper. It was an event not unknown to happen during NBA games. But neither the scoreboard nor the long-time scoreboard operator, Larry Bates who still works other games at Kemper, will be on hand for the Final Four.

Installed for the Final Four at a cost of $1.5 million, the new scoreboard and video display hopefully doesn’t have a problem keeping time.

The arena, controversial before it was ever built, looms over the relics of what once was one of the largest stockyards in the nation, a giant white spaceship parked amid contortions of rail tracks in the West Bottoms and just a stone’s throw from the Kansas River, the state line and the western frontier.

But the romance of the arena’s location isn’t what pops into the collective minds of Kansas City sports fans. What they remember are the two pro teams -- the NBA Kings and NHL Scouts -- that defected from Kemper’s lockerrooms.

The only permamnent fixture at the Kemper is the American Royal Livestock and Rodeo Show every fall. The MISL’s Comets are also housed there, but nobody knows for how long.

In 1976 the Republicans staged their national convention at Kemper Arena. The city celebrated, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller became famous for his ribald salute on the convention floor and Gerald Ford was nominated to represent his party.

Three years later, during a torrential rainstorm, high winds caused the arena roof to collapse. No one was injured, but it was a near miss since the storm hit one night after a packed-house attended a tractor pull and one night before a sold-out concert by the rock group “Yes.” Rebuilding the roof cost almost $5 million.