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10 FEATURE
GETTING CREATIVE
By Kathleen Gier
kgier@kansan.com
Somehow, every camera finds them at basketball games. These are the dedicated and creative people who make entertaining signs to show their team spirit. Whether they dress in crimson and blue or hold the dancing heads and letters that spell a variety of words and phrases, these are just a sampling of the 16,300 fans that show up for each game ready to cheer on the Jayhawks when they step onto the court.
"KU Heads for Victory"
The ever-present "KU Heads for Victory" started off in the residence halls in 2005 when Andrew Stanley was a freshman. Stanley, a 2009 graduate in Latin American Studies, and his friends printed off basketball players' heads and backed them with poster board so fans could hold them up during games.
"We started out in the dorms without much material." Stanley says. "We started with poster board, but we had to replace them every season because they would get so beat up."
Eventually, their materials matured to the mat boards that the "heads" are on now.
The group has lived on under new leadership. Now they are led by Tyler Luke, a junior from Wichita.
"Younger people had to keep it going,but Andrew set the standard for crazy and exciting," Luke says.
There is no special way they determine who holds up which player's head. Luke just brings the heads, passes them out and recollects them at the end of the game.
"I always liked the Sherron Collins head because in the picture he is screaming," Staley says. "Someone who dunks or someone who people get really excited about is the best because you can hold it up and go crazy."
Luke enjoys going home and seeing the group on ESPN highlights. Stanley, who now lives and works in
Boston, gets to see the group while he watches games and highlights on ESPN.
"It is a really great feeling," Stanley says. "I almost still feel like a part of it because it is the same group with the same people. It is great to have something that stands out in the crowd."
"Ain't No Seats"
Up in the stands there is another group that garners attention. The group, which is comprised of members of Battenfeld Scholarship Hall, has a variety of letters and an apostrophe that they use to spell out the names of the players. They also spell out "MISS" during opponents' free throws. But their signature phrase always stands out: "Ain't No Seats."
People laugh, but few know the story behind the saying. One member of the group, Steve Griffith, a sophomore from Lawrence, passed the story along.
"The story is in Sherron's freshman English class. Sher-
ron came in
empty desi
seat left in
teacher ask
class, Sherrn
to me ston
said in clas
After the Battenfeld went out a the letters
"After c that we co job during yell from c organized to think of up the cro
Grante
THE WAVE FEBRUARY 1,2010
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN