Sports & Recreation >>

• Best Pro Athlete
  Tony Gonzalez
  Tony Gonzalez isn't just the best tight end in the NFL; many experts are calling him the best ever to play the game. (Sorry, Kellen Winslow fans -- both of you.) The fact that some NBA teams have flirted with adding the former California forward to their rosters just enhances his legend. Gonzo... More >>
• Best High School Rivalry
  Rockhurst vs. Everybody Else
  No school in Kansas City milks more venom from its rivals than the Hawklets. The Rockhurst game is circled on every team's calendar no matter what the sport. Many players define their high school careers by failed or successful attempts to scale The Rock. The Jesuit school has been a dominant... More >>
• Best High School Football Stadium
  North Kansas City High School
  North Kansas City's classic stadium was built as a WPA project during the 1930s. A unique stone wall encompasses its perimeter and was so well constructed it did not require any maintenance until it was tuck pointed this past year. NKC High's third-story classrooms loom just beyond the south end... More >>
• Best Cheap Safe Alternative to Suicide
  Mamba
  For the cost of a day pass and nothing more, Worlds of Fun thrillseekers can feel firsthand what it is like to drive a car off the side of a mountain. Mamba ferries (at an agonizingly slow pace) masochistic souls 200 feet above the Kansas City crabgrass only to drop nearly straight down at... More >>
• Best Running Route
  39th Street through Roanoke Park to Liberty Memorial
  To begin this out-and-back jaunt, park on 39th near any of its restaurants. Jog west to Wyoming and turn north to wind through the spectacular Roanoke Park. For a good quarter mile, the city seems to disappear, and runners feel enclosed by a forest. The route peaks briefly at the corner of 32nd... More >>
• Best Public Golf Course
  Swope Memorial
  Though "signature" golf courses proliferate as lures for suburban home buyers, Swope Memorial Golf Course remains the Kansas City area's best public course, possessing the finest pedigree of any layout in the region. After nearly a century of use -- and 67 years since A.W. Tillinghast's design... More >>
• Best Ball Handler
  Tyronn Lue
  Tyronn Lue, the former Raytown Blue Jay, has two NBA championship rings and is now teamed up with Michael Jordan in Washington, D.C., for a try at a third. Lue has great hands, and it will be fun to watch him in his first starting role in the NBA. Match-ups against the Sixers' Allen Iverson... More >>
• Best Famous Athlete
  Maurice Greene
  As the reigning World's Fastest Man, Maurice Greene, a Schlagle High School grad, has achieved worldwide prominence that only Tom Watson's career can rival here in the cities. KCK's favorite son made a name for himself with his 9.79-second 100-meter world record, but the image of his mugging for... More >>
• Best Sports Broadcasting Voice
  Bob Davis
  The voice of KU sports, Bob Davis has the best play-by-play delivery not only in Kansas City but also from Denver to St. Louis. Davis plays the homer a bit much in his work for the Jayhawks and Royals, but he brings games to life over the radio like no one since Harry Caray called the Cardinals. More >>
• Best Sports Moment (1 Comment)
  Mike Sweeney's impersonation of Mike Tyson
  Mike Sweeney charged the mound against the Detroit Tigers on August 11, firing his helmet at pitcher Jeff Weaver after the trash-talker called Sweeney a "fucking pussy." Our hero delivered hard right hands to both Weaver and his catcher, Robert Fick. Sadly, Royals manager Tony Muser took a lick... More >>
• Best Boxing Venue
  WRTW Banquet Hall
  The "Man From Hell," Monty Summers, has taken his high-impact entertainment experience as reigning king of haunted houses (the Edge of Hell and the Beast) and pumped it into the sweet science. His boxing venue, We Right the Wrong Banquet Hall, nestled in the gritty environs of the West Bottoms,... More >>
• Best Cheap and Easy Golf
  Osawatomie Golf Course
  Some weekday afternoon, combine a thrillseeker's road trip with the beauty of the countryside and take in eighteen holes of low-stress golf. On I-35, go south just past Olathe and get on treacherous Highway 69. Notice all the little crosses. They mean "slow down and don't pass." Twenty-six miles... More >>
• Best Tennis Teaching Pro
  Mike Young
  It's easy to remember Mike Young's quick smile, ready wit and esoteric mind. He didn't graduate from Bethany College "magna cum pina colada" in history and poli-sci for nothing. But Young really knows tennis. His teaching career began in high school, when a friend lured him into helping coach a... More >>
• Best Pick-up Game of Tennis
  Loose Park Courts
  Desperate for a game of tennis but lacking a moving target to punch balls at? Go to Loose Park just south of The Plaza on Wornall and park on the west side in front of the tennis courts. Don't be shy if the courts are full; just place your racquet beside the others at the middle entrance gate.... More >>
• Athlete You'd Most Like to Get Wet With
  Tony Gonzalez, The Chiefs
  The Chiefs' tall, dark tight end gets the nod over the Royals' bare-knuckled Mike Sweeney and the Wizards' Tony Meola for his soft eyes and even softer hands, perfect for smearing suds on your bare skin. Besides, Tony Gonzalez is the only world-class athlete in town now that George Brett has... More >>
• Best Place to Train For a Marathon
  Mill Creek Streamway Park
  Seasoned marathoners know that a weekly ultralong run is essential for survival on race day. Rather than mapping out a confused route along traffic-choked city streets, runners can keep it simple and serene by training in the Mill Creek Streamway Park in eastern Johnson County. Its seventeen... More >>
• Best Four Miles
  The Trolley Run
  One morning every spring, the tranquil, tree-lined streets between Waldo and the Plaza are possessed by a multiheaded, sweaty, thundering beast: a field of 10,000 runners and walkers who show up to support a good cause, test their strides against some friendly competition or just get some... More >>
• Best Place To Get Wet
  Hall of Waters
  The Hall of Waters in Excelsior Springs is not just a day spa, and it's not just the home of the world's longest water bar (that is, a bar that serves water). It's also the home of City Hall, where Excelsior Springs residents pay their water bills (the drop box for checks is at the front... More >>
• Best 5k Race
  Sprint's Thanksgiving Run/Walk
  Thousands of Kansas Citians have a Thanksgiving-week ritual that has nothing to do with turkey: They lace up their jogging shoes for the annual Sprint Thanksgiving Race. The race usually offers crisp autumn air, happy runners, walkers pushing baby carriages and grandparents strolling... More >>
• Best Boxing Gym
  Authentic Boxing
  Authentic Boxing Club is a perfect metaphor for the American dream. Every surface is painted red, white or blue. The walls are covered with motivational posters espousing philosophies of a truly capitalistic bent: "Winners are simply willing to do what losers won't"; "If you can accept losing,... More >>
• Best High School Gymnasium
  Shawnee Mission North's Fieldhouse
  If you've been looking for that high school basketball atmosphere that seems to exist only in the movies, come to the home of the Indians on Johnson Drive and I-635. The student body here is legendary for its unity, passion and wit. You'll get so caught up in the smell of sweat socks that you'll... More >>
• Best Public Pool Slide
  Roeland Park Aquatics Center
  Sure, the slide at Roeland Park Aquatics Center is fast and twisted. Most slides are. But Roeland's stands above the rest: It's perched on a hill overlooking the big city. Climb the steps and pause a second. Don't ogle the tanned-but-underage guard who's directing traffic; scope out all of... More >>
• Best Safe Alternative to Suicide
  RipCord
  Their screams echo across the park: "O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-h-h-h-h-h-h S-s-s-s-h-h-h-h-h-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-t-t-t-t-t-t-t!!!!!!!" Those daring enough (and wealthy enough -- its price isn't included in a Worlds of Fun day pass) to brave the RipCord are strapped into a body harness attached to a long cable,... More >>
• Best Entrance Into the Ring
  Keith "Pretty Boy" Simms
  Keith "Pretty Boy" Simms never comes into the ring alone. Attached to both gloved arms are buxom babes in tight skirts or, on good nights, thongs. When he sheds his pink robe in Chippendale style, the little bow tie above his bare, bulging pecs says it's show time. It's quite an act. Luckily, he... More >>
• Best Sports Sound Bites
  Drew Gooden, KU basketball
  Does anybody miss Gunther Cunningham? Whether it was the sleep deprivation or a high concentration of adrenaline in his bloodstream, Gun's interviews were always more entertaining and whimsical than the Renaissance Festival. Drew Gooden, the Kansas Jayhawks' big man, gets the nod these days for... More >>
• Best College Athlete
  Kareem Rush
  The Mizzou senior bypassed a chance to go pro last year, and Quin Snyder and the rest of the Tigers are ranked in the top five of most preseason polls because of it. It is no stretch to say that Kareem Rush could be the best player in the country this season. More >>
• Best-Dressed Athlete
  Tony Richardson, Chiefs
  Chiefs fullback Tony Richardson may be a bruising blocker on the field, but he is a picture of elegant composure off. T-Rich favors dark, tailor-made suits cut to accentuate his anvil-like torso. T-Rich doesn't lean to the Super Fly look that some NFL players favor. His dress is more understated... More >>