Recently, Akron’s men’s and women’s basketball teams each took on the Kent State Golden Flashes, one winning and the other facing defeat.
The men’s team won their match up 85-71 facing the Flashes, while the women fell 73-51.
Wins and losses against Kent State always hit different for the Zips. That’s because they are UA’s biggest rival.
So, how did these two schools with similar colors become sworn enemies? To get the full history, an interested fan would have to go back all the way to 1946. Or maybe even a bit earlier.
The first meeting for the Zips and the Golden Flashes was in 1923 for a game of football. They didn’t know it at the time, but those students were standing at the start of what would become one of the biggest rivalries in the Mid-American Conference (MAC).
Akron won that first game 32-0 and nothing of note happened during the game.
After the nation weathered the challenges of World War II, the teams would meet for the fateful Battle for the Wagon Wheel in 1946.
But why is the rivalry over a wagon wheel?
According to Hustlebelt.com ,Raymond Manchester, the dean of men at Kent State University, had donated a wagon wheel to the campus, claiming that it was discovered in 1902 during the construction of Kent State.
Manchester then created a legend to go along with the wheel, stating that the wheel originally belonged to John R. Buchtel’s carriage. Buchtel founded the college that is now known as The University of Akron.
He claimed that at the same location where Kent State’s campus was later constructed, Buchtel’s carriage became stuck in mud and his horse pulled the carriage apart, leaving a single wagon wheel behind. Manchester then claimed that this incident was the reason Akron became grounds for Buchtel’s college rather than the countryside in Kent.
Before the battle for the Wagon Wheel, Akron had dominated Kent State, winning 10 out of the 11 games they had played. The legend had enough sticking power and juice to turn the tide because the first 9 battles for the wagon wheel all went to Kent.
This was enough of a reason for Akron to discontinue the series in 1954 as “noncompetitive.”
The series would not stay down for long, and it was revived in 1972. This time around Akron was finally able to take the Wagon Wheel with their first win in the series since 1941 with a 15-13 win in 1979 at the Rubber Bowl.
Since 1992, the Battle for the Wagon wheel has become an annual tradition. With the wagon wheel going back and forth between UA and Kent, many students are fully engaged in the week of these rivalry games and will continue to do so for years to come.
