KANSAS CITY, Missouri -- A new athletics director at Northwest Missouri State University inherited a small problem, but with the help of a lot of people, he turned it into a big opportunity -- and big news in Division II football.

Bob Boerigter arrived at the school in spring 2001 and assumed responsibility for a major renovation of the school's football stadium. A quick look at the 2002 football schedule revealed an October homecoming game between Northwest Missouri State and its perennial rival for the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) championship, Pittsburg State University.

The problem was, construction work would reduce seating in the Bearcats' Rickenbrode Stadium to less than 5,000 seats. Each of the last four games in the rivalry drew at least 9,000 fans -- including 11,862 fans at the 2001 game in Pittsburg, Kansas -- and the 2002 game would be no less attractive in what was shaping up to be the most competitive race in league history.

Even switching homecoming ceremonies to another home game didn't solve the problem. Pittsburg State supporters are renowned for traveling in large numbers to road games in the geographically compact MIAA. Northwest Missouri State would be forced to turn away hundreds, maybe even thousands of visiting fans.

So, with the blessing of football coach Mel Tjeerdsma and university officials, Boerigter looked 90 miles down U.S. 71 highway and asked the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs about using 79,000-seat Arrowhead Stadium for the game.

Chiefs officials were aware of the rivalry between the Bearcats and Gorillas, even if many sports fans in the Big 12 Conference hotbed of Kansas City were not. A former Pittsburg State player, Kendall Gammon, handles long snaps for the Chiefs' punting and place-kicking teams. And Boerigter was no stranger at Arrowhead, either, because his son Marc is a Chiefs wide receiver.

It might be just a regular-season game in NCAA Division II, where the average attendance nationally is about 2,500 per game, but the Chiefs looked at the two schools' attendance history, learned about their large groups of alumni in Kansas City, and understood that the game could be promoted effectively in area media. They told Boerigter yes.

Thus Boerigter's small problem became a big opportunity to showcase two teams from one of Division II's most powerful football conferences in a major market.

Outcome exceeded goals

And the big news is that the October 17 game attracted what is being called unofficially a record crowd for a Division II football game -- 26,695 -- and certainly the biggest crowd to see a Division II game at a neutral site.

The NCAA never officially has determined the largest crowd to attend a Division II football game, and it's far from certain that the crowd at the Northwest Missouri State vs. Pittsburg State game ever will be recognized as the largest. Tuskegee University recorded an attendance of 33,483 at a 1998 homecoming game that attracted a huge standing-room crowd to its home stadium, which seats 10,000.

"This is the first time since I've been here that anyone has even asked about Division II attendance," said Rick Campbell, an NCAA statistics coordinator since 1986. But Campbell said interest generated by the Bearcats-Gorillas game likely will prompt a survey of Division II schools after the football season to officially determine the largest crowd.

Record or not, Boerigter said Northwest Missouri State exceeded its goal. "We're pretty cotton-pickin' excited that we got 26,695," he said the morning after the matchup of nationally ranked teams, in which the Bearcats beat the Gorillas, 29-7.

The crowd included 10,000 fans who bought tickets at Northwest's campus ticket office in Maryville, Missouri -- a community of only 11,000. More than 7,000 fans bought tickets in Pittsburg (about 90 miles south of Kansas City), and Pittsburg State athletics marketing and promotions director Tommy Riggs believes a significant percentage of the university's 6,000 alumni in the Kansas City area bought game tickets from Ticketmaster outlets. Another 2,000 spectators bought tickets at the stadium gates on the crisp, clear fall game night at Arrowhead.

From the sidelines at kickoff time, it appeared that green-clad Bearcats fans in Arrowhead's south-side seats only slightly outnumbered the crimson-and-gold Pittsburg State followers in the north stands.

Marketing success story

Officials at the two schools and the MIAA attribute the event's success to a lot of hard work and a unique combination of circumstances that starts with both schools' traveling fans and large Kansas City alumni groups, but doesn't end there.

"You can't just put a sign out that says 'football tonight' and get 20,000 people," said Matt Newbery, MIAA director of sports information, who remembers games a few years ago involving other league members that were played before sparse crowds at St. Louis' Busch Stadium.

"The media have really jumped on this and helped us out, also promoting our conference and Division II football," said Northwest Missouri State athletics marketing director Chris Andrews, who was assigned primary responsibility for attracting the school's Kansas City alumni to the game.

Andrews coined a title for the game: "Clash of the Champions," in homage to the two schools' dominance of MIAA football -- and three NCAA Division II football trophies, including two for the Bearcats -- during the past decade.

That game title, along with Northwest Missouri State officials' stated desire to set a Division II attendance record, seemed to enchant local reporters. A Kansas City sports-talk radio station, WHB-AM, began challenging listeners last spring to attend the game. Other area radio stations carried the schools' weekly football game broadcasts and coaches' shows, and television stations and newspapers began providing coverage as the date of the event drew near.

The media coverage helped in reaching the schools' alumni, many of whom never travel to Maryville or Pittsburg to see a game.

"It was hugely important to hit our alumni in Kansas City," Andrews said. Both schools' alumni associations also hosted pregame activities at Arrowhead to help attract graduates to the event.

"This game reaches beyond the core fans and brings in alumni who previously haven't made the effort to go to a game," said Ralph McFillen, MIAA commissioner. He hopes interest in the football game will spill over to the league's first neutral-site postseason basketball tournament -- scheduled in early March at Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium -- and draw some of the approximately 60,000 alumni of 10 MIAA member schools who live in and near the city.

But the most crucial factor in the Arrowhead game's success probably was the support of the Kansas City Chiefs. In addition to making an attractive venue affordably available for the game, the pro football organization heavily promoted the game to its season-ticket holders, including distributing flyers to fans at parking gates and providing valuable free messages on Arrowhead's video boards. Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt personally involved himself in the effort by participating in a news conference last spring to announce the event, and then hosted guests in his private box during the game.

"The Kansas City Chiefs really were a partner with us in helping promote the game," Boerigter said.

"It's important that a professional organization is willing to work with a conference like ours and these schools in making the game a success," McFillen said. "Their focus isn't just making money."

Possibilities elsewhere

Pittsburg State's Riggs also attributed much of the event's success to its uniqueness. "It's a novelty in that we're playing in the beloved home of the Chiefs, and a novelty in that it may not happen again," he said.

And it's the unique combination of circumstances in Kansas City that will make it challenging -- though far from impossible -- for other Division II programs to draw a similarly large crowd elsewhere.

There are possibilities. Atlanta and its Georgia Dome play host annually to the Pioneer Bowl, a postseason game matching representatives of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference annually ends the regular football season with five back-to-back games involving all 10 of its members at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

McFillen thinks a concerted effort can produce similar interest in Division II athletics in other markets, and he thinks such efforts benefit all of Division II.

"Because we have a Roman numeral II, rather than I, people maybe think there's a difference in how hard the kids play," he said. "But events like this and our basketball tournament will raise the level of perception of what Division II is about.

"I think this will help Division II. It's a major event for Division II."

Meanwhile, the Clash of the Champions clearly will produce lasting benefits for the game's participants.

"Where we'll benefit is a value we'll never know," said Riggs, noting that among other things the interest generated by the game will help in recruiting not just student-athletes but nonathlete students.

Northwest Missouri State's Andrews said an unexpected benefit was re-establishing contact not only with Kansas City-area graduates but alumni scattered across the nation, some of whom flew to the city for the game.

But the best benefit may be the lasting memory of an exciting, unusual event.

"I've received four e-mails in the short time we've been talking," said Boerigter, 10 minutes into an interview on the day after the game. School officials, alumni, students and fans were calling and writing to express their pleasure with the event.

Without a doubt, the players won't soon forget the experience, either.

"When these players come back (as alumni), they'll remember one thing about this season -- no matter who wins or loses," Andrews said. "People will talk about it for years."