The Wagon Wheel Trophy

Since 1946, the Wagon Wheel has been the prize to the winner of the annual Kent State-Akron football game.

The Wagon Wheel is certainly older than the series between Kent State and Akron, which began in 1923. Actually, it’s some 50 years older than the rivalry.

Legendary stories abound as to the roots of the Wagon Wheel. Perhaps the foremost is the one that includes John R. Buchtel, the founder of Buchtel College, which eventually became the University of Akron.

It was said that Buchtel, in the spring of 1870, began a horse wagon search for a site for a proposed college in an area around Kent. Legend has it that Buchtel’s wagon became stuck in a pool of mud somewhere on the present site of Kent State University. The wheel remained imbedded in the ground and was just a piece of wood when it was found in 1902.

The wheel eventually was in the possession of Dr. Raymond Manchester, who was the dean of men at Kent State in the 1940s. He suggested the wheel as the reward to the winner of the Akron-Kent State football game in 1946. Man­chester had the wheel painted in the school colors (of both schools) of blue and gold.

The Wagon Wheel will once again be up for grabs Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in Akron.

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