Kansas Shrine Bowl

Preparation week for the Kansas Shrine will start Thursday when first coaches, then players, will assemble at their respective camps to get ready for July 29th’s 33rd annual Kansas Shrine Bowl All-Star Football game.
            Sixty-eight players, plus coaches and managers, will begin work at two different camps under what is expected to be a sizzling Kansas sun.  Coaches and managers will gather on Thursday, followed by players on Friday morning.
            “Not much has changed,” says Kansas Shrine Bowl Executive Director Dave Mize.  “We have great locations, lots of local support, and terrific camp managers that know the ropes, and will provide the logistical support the players and coaches need to get ready to play football in a week.”
            The West squad will prepare at its long-time St. John’s Military Academy site in Salina, and be run by Myron Converse, a former Shrine Bowl players who has run the west camp for the past five years.  The East camp will be held at Emporia State University, directed by Ray Terrell, in his 8th year as camp director.
            The two coaches, Bob Lisher of Lawrence Free State and Marvin Diener of Gardner-Edgerton (formerly of Salina Central), will be faced with installing offenses, defenses, and special team play in a matter of days, instead of the weeks afforded high school and college teams.  That includes one day (Saturday) in which there won’t be any time for practice.  That’s because the two teams will leave camp by bus in the wee hours of Saturday morning (shortly after 5 am for the West, shortly after 6 am for the East).  The teams, along with a traveling party of Shriners and media personnel, will fly to St. Louis and back for the annual visit to the St. Louis Unit of Shriner’s Hospitals, an annual trek that every Shrine Bowl team has taken since the game’s inception in 1974.
            “It’s an important experience,” says Mize.  “It really helps the players understand why the game is played, and gives them a sense of doing something for someone else.  Many of them say later that the St. Louis visit is the highlight of the whole Shrine Bowl experience, even as special as playing the game itself.”
            After the St. Louis trip, it will be back to practice until Friday, July 28th.  Then both teams will break camp and bus to Pittsburg for another Shrine Bowl tradition, the annual pregame banquet attended by players, their parents (and often grandparents), Shriners from around Kansas, and special guests.  This year’s banquet will feature remarks by the 2006 Hospital Special Guest, Tom Flanagan of Springfield, Missouri, a former St. Louis Hospital patient who eventually played pro football.  Banquet attendees will also hear remarks from two players, Olathe East’s Derek Miller of the East and Wichita Kaupan.  Mt. Carmel’s David Arkin of the West.  They’ll also hear from a member of the All-State Masonic Band (Charlotte Evans, Frontenac), and two members of the Cheerleader Camp (Anna Allen and Tori Gallager, Salina Central).

            Proceeds from the game support the Shriner’s Hospitals for Children, a network of 22 hospitals that provide expert, no-cost orthopedic and burn care to children under 18.

Advance reserved chairback tickets are $20.00 in advance, $21.00 on game night.  Adult general admission tickets are $9.00 in advance, $10.00 on game night.  Student tickets are $5.00 in advance, $6.00 on game night.  Banquet tickets are $20.00, and must be purchased in advance.  Advance game tickets and banquet tickets can be purchased through the Shrine Bowl office by calling 1-800-530-5524

Additional information and a link to Shriners Hospitals for Children can be found at http://www.ksshrine.com.