Jayhawk basketball fans are rehearsing their chants, cheers and songs as the team heads to San Antonio for Sweet 16 competition this week.
A new addition to the fight song repertoire was unveiled last week in Dayton when the pep band performed a song of uncertain origin but rumored to have been written by KU basketball great Wilt Chamberlain.
A song once recorded by Wilt Chamberlain has been worked into the KU pep band's repertoire of fight songs. Pep band director Thomas Stidham tracked down the lyrics and wrote a band arrangement for the song, "By the River." The pep band has been playing the song for the last two years.
While it is certain the Stilt once recorded the song "By the River," it is considered unlikely the big man wrote the tune, whose lyrics remain mostly unmastered by Hawk fans who, for now, use cheat sheets to sing it.
Tom Stidham, director of the men's basketball band, unveiled the words to "By the River" last week in Dayton, Ohio, during the Jayhawks' first- and second-round NCAA Tournament games.
He said the band had been playing the music for about two years, based on old recordings of Chamberlain singing the song.
"When Wilt Chamberlain came back to KU to retire his jersey (in 1998) ... the Friday before, I heard on KLWN a tape of him singing a song called 'By the River.'
"I called the radio station and picked up a tape and wrote a band arrangement," Stidham said.
The band played the song, without lyrics, at the retirement ceremony. But Stidham then lost the tape and couldn't find the original again at KLWN.
"I've kind of been on a quest for the words," he said.
A few weeks ago, Stidham asked for help on KLWN's "Party Line" show. Help soon arrived from a music collector who had an old, vinyl single featuring Chamberlain singing "By the River" on one side and "That's Easy to Say" on the other.
Stidham said he doesn't know who wrote the song, though some have attributed it to Chamberlain.
"The urban legend is that he did," Stidham said. "So far as I know, all he did is record it."
Regardless who wrote it, the song drew praise from KU fans who heard it in Dayton. Stidham made copies of the lyrics and distributed them to fans to sing along at the games.
"It was a cute song," said Sadie Deaton, a Lawrence resident who follows the Jayhawks to the tournament games. "It just has a good beat to it."
Rocky debate
Of course, "By the River" isn't the only fan favorite with disputed provenance.
Take "Roooooock chaaaaalk, Jaaaaaayhaaawk, kaaaaay yoooo!"
The Rock Chalk chant is familiar to fans who have used at KU victories for years. Its origin also has been debated for years, but the official line goes something like this:
KU chemistry professor E.H.S. Bailey and some of his associates were traveling to Lawrence by train, talking of the need for a good cheer. The "click-clack" of the train on the tracks suggested a rhythm, and the cheer "Rah, Rah, Jayhawk, KU" was born.
The story is only partly true, said Bailey's granddaughter, Carolyn Berneking.
"There's a lot of fairy tales about it," she said. "The 'clickety-clack' and all that,"
Berneking said the real story is found in a 1917 article written by Bailey himself:
"One morning, while he was shaving, it came to him," she said. "It was for the science club, not the whole university. But they tried it out at science club and everybody liked it."
All agree that "rock, chalk" soon replaced "rah, rah" in reference to an outcropping of limestone on KU's Mount Oread campus.
Berneking, a Lawrence resident and 1937 KU grad, has preserved the family history of the chant, including a 1930s radio broadcast. The tones are unchanged from then to today.
"As with all things Jayhawkian, there is an abundance of lore," KU spokeswoman Lynn Bretz said. "The other day, somebody asked if it's true the Jayhawk flies backwards. We're still tracking it down."
Preparations
Many KU fans and supporters planned to leave today for San Antonio, site of the Jayhawks' Sweet 16 game Friday against the University of Illinois.
Stidham said the band would be up well before dawn today to stow gear and board a 6:30 a.m. flight to Texas.
Deaton spent Tuesday washing her KU sweatshirt and preparing to take a van with friends to the game.
"We are so excited," she said.
Deaton, who works for the Lawrence school district when she's not rooting for her beloved 'Hawks, said she has been traveling to KU tournament games with the same small group of diehard fans for four years.
Sometimes, those trips are made on faith. The group went to Dayton even though not everybody had tickets.
"We left town without tickets. But we got the tickets," she said. "Somehow, we always get the tickets."
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