It’s Kansas Statehood Day, so it’s fair to ask, a la Emporian William Allen White (not Thomas Frank), “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” I cannot answer this question completely, but I do have one issue I would like to address:  There is a propaganda machine operating in Kansas! Yes, my friends, it’s true and it not surprisingly emanates from the Kansas University fan base and it has to do with their annoying “Rock Chalk, Jayhawk” chant.

Well, at least it annoys me.  After all, I am a bona fide, angrified, card-carrying, true purple K-Stater. I am an older version of the crazy octopi of the Octogon of Doom that, if they had to, would pile Coach Martin and his players on their collective back tomorrow and will them to victory against their arrogant foe. Now, my bias out in the open, I can call for a little objectivity about the hype surrounding our rival’s chant.

They say, “According to various reports, it was selected at the 1920 Olympics to be the representative American college yell, and President Theodore Roosevelt called it ‘the greatest college cheer ever devised.’” Can anyone find the real evidence that these legends are true? They are certainly highly improbable. Where would Roosevelt have heard this yell without wireless broadcasting and ESPN? Why would the US Olympic team want to select a college cheer? Were there any KU athletes on the US team? Why would not the other members of the team prefer their own school’s chant of the same genre? And the truth is, before the first world war, all Kansans (get ready, this may be hard to swallow) were referred to as “Jay Hawks,” just as New Englanders used to be called “Yankees” (and by the way, just as Boston folk are galled by the fact that the Bronx Bombers are ersatz Yankees, we can be ticked that these Jayhawks are not really…well, you get the idea.) and people from Indiana were called ‘Hoosiers.” If you understand this, then you can see what old geology Professor Bailey cooked up. The KU yell was not about a cartoon bird that was a cross between Woody Woodpecker and a dodo, nor was it even about the historic jayhawkers of the 1860s who were essentially dirty war profiteers. Bailey was stating the fact that these students, at this college, came from Kansas.

Now comes the interesting part. K-State used to have one of these chant-y yells, and so did most other colleges of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when K-State was called Kansas State Agricultural College. It went like this:

“Jay Rah, Gee Saw, Jay Hawk Saw. K – S – A – C. Kaw! Kaw! Kaw!”

(It began slowly and lowly and built in speed and intensity with repetition:)

“Jay Rah, Gee Saw, Jay Hawk Saw. K – S – A – C. Kaw! Kaw! Kaw!”

“Jay Rah, Gee Saw, Jay Hawk Saw. K – S – A – C. Kaw! Kaw! Kaw!”

“JAY RAH, GEE SAW, JAY HAWK SAW. K – S – A – C. KAW! KAW! KAW!”

Notice the inclusion of “Jay Hawk”. K-Staters were not known as Wildcats until the early 1920s. In 1922 the student body voted to abandon the traditional “Jay Rah” cheer that had been used at K-State as long as anyone could remember, perhaps back to the early 1880’s.  Because it was so similar to the KU “Rock Chalk” yell, and because it used the term “Jay Hawk” in an ambiguous way, the more modern students considered abandoning it and scheduled a chapel meeting for debating the issue.  The Collegian received letters from unhappy alumni who loved the old cheer and urged current students to ponder historical perspective and practice restraint.  The yell was discontinued, though alumni chanted it for at least another decade (“Yes or No?” Kansas State Collegian, 15 October 1922, 4.).

So, there is nothing unique about the Rock Chalk chant. It is essentially a nineteenth-century relic that is an example of the college yells of that time. K-State had one, and the students chucked it because it was, well, cheesy. An article appeared in the Lawrence Journal World in 2003 entitled, “Rock Chalk myths benched: Jayhawk Boulevard engraving designed to dispel false stories.” (October 22, 2003) In the article, reporter Terry Rombeck interviewed a graduate student in history, Henry Fortunato, who stated, “the attention the chant has received through the years may have led KU followers to dream up more exciting stories than the truth about the chant’s origin.” In the same paragraph the Teddy Roosevelt myth is mentioned as an example of a dreamed-up story. Fortunato speculates why KU’s chant survived:

“Things like this tend to grow a bunch of legends, especially when it sounds good,” Fortunato said.
Another theory about the inaccurate stories, Fortunato said, is that they developed to keep the cheer alive.
“I think that — and this is pure speculation — that there were times the cheer may have been dying — going into the trash bin of history — and people grasped at possible legends to keep it around,” he said. (http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2003/oct/22/rock_chalk_myths/ Accessed 29 January 2010)

So the upshot of all this is, don’t buy all the Rock Chalk hype. And when you hear the cheesy yell pouring down from the stands in Allen Field House or Memorial Stadium, there is no need to feel intimidated–because it ain’t all that and a bag of chips. It’s just an antiquated relic of faded glory. Just smile a knowing smile as you ponder your secret knowledge as all those students chant all that silly stuff. Rock chalk that.

Oh, and since we are discussing college traditions… where did the K-State Purple come from anyway?

Simple. Don’t you know you get purple whenever you crush crimson and blue?

Go K-state. Every Man a Wildcat!

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