The rooters rallied forth to follow crimson and blue on their team. Some Yale men were on the faculty, and they demanded that Yale blue be included. Until that time, Kansas football games were played at Central Park on Massachusetts Street in downtown Lawrence. That field ran east and west in the proximity of where the north bowl of Memorial Stadium stands on the Kansas campus today. McCook, a Harvard man, who had given money for an athletic field at KU. However, when football came upon the scene in 1890, the student backers wanted to use Harvard crimson as the athletic color in honor of Col. Maize and blue were used at early oratorical meets, and they may have been used when Kansas competed in rowing in the middle 1880s. The regents had decided to adopt the Michigan colors, maize and sky blue. The University of Kansas colors, crimson and blue, used since the early 1890s, are not the colors originally adopted by the university Board of Regents in the 1860s. Another, a striding, feathered bronze bird, greets visitors to the Adams Alumni Center. In front of Strong Hall perches a large Jayhawk, a statue with sleek, modern lines, gift of the Class of 1956. A piece of birdlike iconography on Dyche Hall, erected in 1901, looks suspiciously like a Jayhawk. Today you’ll find several Jayhawks on the Lawrence campus. In 1971, during half-time of Homecoming, a huge egg was hauled out to the 50-yard line, and fans witnessed the hatching of Big Jay’s companion, Baby Jay. In the 1960s, the Jayhawk went 3-D when the KU Alumni Association provided a mascot costume. In 2005 the Jayhawk was reintroduced with the new KU Trajan font. Sandy’s 1946 design of a smiling Jayhawk that survives. In 1941, Gene “Yogi” Williams opened the Jayhawk’s eyes and beak, giving it a contentious appearance. Calvin drew a grim-faced bird sporting talons that could maim. In 1923, Jimmy O’Bryon and George Hollingbery designed a duck-like Jayhawk. In 1920, a more somber bird, perched on a KU monogram, came into use. Henry Maloy, a cartoonist for the student newspaper, drew a memorable version of the Jayhawk in 1912. How do you draw a Jayhawk? For years, that question stumped fans. And when KU football players first took the field in 1890, it seemed only natural to call them Jayhawkers. In 1886, the Jayhawk appeared in a cheer–the famous Rock Chalk Chant. By war’s end, Jayhawks were synonymous with the impassioned people who made Kansas a Free State. Kansas Governor Charles Robinson raised a regiment called the Independent Mounted Kansas Jayhawks. Lawrence, where KU would be founded, was a free state stronghold.ĭuring the Civil War, the Jayhawk’s ruffian image gave way to patriotic symbol. But the name stuck to the ‘free staters’ when Kansas was admitted as a free state in 1861. For a time, ruffians on both sides were called Jayhawkers. The opposing factions looted, sacked, rustled cattle, stole horses, and otherwise attacked each other’s settlements. The area was a battleground between those wanting a state in which slavery would be legal and abolitionists committed to a free state. The message here: Don’t turn your back on this bird.ĭuring the 1850’s, the Kansas Territory was filled with such Jayhawks. The name combines two birds–the blue jay, a noisy, quarrelsome thing known to rob other nests, and the sparrow hawk, a quiet, stealthy hunter. Accounts of its use appeared from Illinois to Texas and in that year, a party of pioneers crossing what is now Nebraska, called themselves “The Jayhawkers of ’49”. The term “Jayhawk” was probably coined around 1848. The origin of the Jayhawk is rooted in the historic struggles of Kansas settlers. The University of Kansas is home to the Jayhawk, a mythical bird with a fascinating history. Just about every college and university claims a mascot. Mascots are believed to bring good luck, especially to athletic teams.
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