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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2012
FINAL BORDER SHOWDOWN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Jayhawks have the last laugh with the fans
Jayhawk fans hold up many diffe tip off.
Dressed as Civil War figure Joh Tigers fan passes by during Sa
There are OTHER Jayhawks
The Kansas mascot may have been America's original Jayhawk, but that has not prevented schools across the country from adopting the mythical bird as their own. Since the 1960s, the Jayhawk has been selected to represent school districts, high schools and even a community college.
Words by Kelsey Cipolla
URBANDALE COMMUNITY SCHOOL
The Jayhawk was also adopted in the 1970s by the Urbandale School District in Urbandale, Iowa. Their previous mascot, the Blue Jay, was deemed too docile, says Brian Coppess, associate principal of Urbandale High School.
Some local fans of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes pushed
for Urbandale to adopt the Hawk as a mascot. "But, as our archrival was the Ankeny Hawks, this did not sit well with many," Coppess says. "At the same time, the band had gotten new uniforms that had a bird on them and the gym floor had been refinished with a bird on
it."
Somebody came up with the idea of the Jayhawk. "It satisfied those who wanted the Hawks, it pacified those who wanted to stay the Jays and Jayettes, and it utilized the bird on the gym floor and on the band uniforms, so they went with
Initially the school used the University's version of the Jayhawk, but KU officials found out and required that the mascot be changed. A student came up with a new look for the mascot and the word Jayhawk was changed to J Hawks.
it." Coppess says.
JAMESTOWN COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York, adopted the Jayhawk for a very
practical reason—its use of the letter J'.
Nelson Garifi, the executive director of marketing and academic initiatives at Jamestown, says the Jayhawk was selected in the 1960s to replace a lackluster mascot.
Jamestown Campus
Jayhawks OUT THERE
Although the reasoning behind the name change is not clear, Garifi has an idea of why the muskie did not last.
"The original mascot for our athletic teams was the Muskie," Garifi says. "A muskie is a fish, short for Muskellunge, a kind of fish that is native to western New York waters."
"The best guess would be that it was a bit awkward to have a fish flopping around on the basketball court," he says. As for why Jamestown decided to replace
the native fish with a mystical bird, Garifi thought it was probably changed to the Jayhawk for alliterative purposes. The school's other campus uses the Jaguar as a mascot, keeping with the 'J' theme.
HEAD-ROYCE SCHOOL
This private school in Oakland, Calif., needed a new mascot in the 1970s after separate schools for boys and girls became a coed high school. Students chose from three different potential mascots: the Roadrunners, the Rockets and the Jayhawks. The Jayhawks won out
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Head-Royce Athletic Director Brendan Blakeley says the Jayhawk was more popular because of its uniqueness, rather than its historical or political significance.
"It's got a nice ring to it, and it's an easy word to
say when we do our little huddle." Blakeley says. "The kids don't make much of a connection to Kansas."
Every summer, Blakeley tells the coming freshman class that he will take any student to lunch that can tell him the history of the Jayhawk after he or she returns in the fall. How many students have actually taken him up on his offer? "One in the last two years," Blakeley says. "It's funny because I'm also an alumnus of the school, so I have a strong affiliation to our mascot and I like it."
In 1967, the Jayhawk School District formed in Mound City. The district originally included three high schools, but there were plans for consolidation in the early 1970s. Students wanted to know what their mascot would be the next year.
JAYHAWK SCHOOL DISTRICT
Records from a school board meeting on Nov. 13, 1972, show that hundreds of community members had launched a petition for the high school to adopt the Jayhawk as the mascot. But not everybody was a fan of the new name.
According to the records, one board member said, "I felt Jayhawk was wonderful name, but feel we would be a copycat to use it because of the KU mascot."
The Jayhawk has special historical significance for the district.
"We're four miles from the Mine Creek Battlefield," says Royce Powelson, district superintendent. "Local historians felt like the Jayhawk around here was meant to give compliment to the Jayhawkers that were involved in this battle. There used to be a sign on the edge of town that said 'Mound City: Home of the original Jayhawks.'"
Original Jayhawks or not, the district was forced to make a few changes to their
mascot about 10 years ago to avoid copyright infringement. The Jayhawk, Linn Jayhawk, wears a cowboy hat, faces to the right instead of the left, has red feathers on its body and yellow feathers on its face.
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