Fulfillment for Al Bohl would be every football patron at Memorial Stadium wearing blue.

There will be no sea of blue at tonight’s Kansas University home opener, but Bohl, KU’s athletic director, will be smiling because of the “KU First” promotion  a campus T-shirt giveaway. Every student who wears one will be admitted free, and a total of 19,000 were handed out.

“If 19,000 students show up wearing blue T-shirts,” Bohl told the KU Athletic Corp. board Friday afternoon, “it would be a huge positive problem because our stadium seats 51,000.”

With 26,394 season tickets sold  the highest number in over 30 years  and about 5,000 high school students expected for Band Day, tonight’s attendance could conceivably approach a full house. However, it’s more likely only about a third of the students who picked up a “KU First” T-shirt will show up.

Regardless of the size of the crowd, Bohl would love to see thousands of fans purchase Jayhawk license plates. Many student-athletes will be stationed around the stadium hawking the plastic items for $2. Half of the price will go to charity.

“There’s another license plate we see a lot,” Bohl said, referring to the Kansas State powercat logo, “and we’re going to try to outnumber those.”

Bohl also showed members of the KUAC board a couple of television commercials aimed at boosting season-ticket sales.

“I don’t think we’ll be satisfied until we have a winning program and the stadium is full,” Bohl said.

Also at the first board meeting of the school year:

 Gil Reich of Barrington, Ill., and Mike Maddox of Lawrence were introduced as new alumni members. Reich is a former KU football All-American. Maddox is a former KU basketball player.

 Jay Hinrichs, director of the Williams Fund, reported that contributions for fiscal year 2002 were up 12.6 percent and surpassed $5 million for the first time. Final tally: $5.18 million.

 Paul Buskirk, head of student support services, said the spring semester grade-point average of all KU student-athletes was 2.89 percent, a semester record. The football GPA of 2.58 was the highest in several years, Buskirk said.

 Chancellor Robert Hemenway made an appearance to thank board members for their service, saying he was pleased Bohl was “giving the same focus to athletic success that we give to academic success. We’re trying to be in the Top 25 academically and Al has set the same goal for athletics.”

 In response to a question from alumni board member Jack Clevenger of Kansas City, Mo., about slow traffic movement after football games, Hemenway said he realized there was a problem and that KU officials have had ongoing conversations with Lawrence police about it.