Crimson and the Blue

Text of KU’s alma mater:

Far above the golden valley

Glorious to view,

Stands our noble Alma Mater,

Towering toward the blue.

CHORUS: Lift the chorus ever onward,

Crimson and the blue

Hail to thee, our Alma Mater

Hail to old KU.

Far above the distant humming

Of the busy town,

Reared against the dome of heaven.

Looks she proudly down.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

Greet we then our foster mother,

Noble friend so true,

We will ever sing her praises,

Hail to old KU.

(REPEAT CHORUS)

(Follow with Rock Chalk Chant)

‘Rock Chalk’ chant

The University Science Club officially adopted the famous “Rock Chalk” chant in 1886. E.H.S. Bailey, a chemistry professor, and some of his associates were returning from a conference by train to Lawrence. As they traveled, they talked of the need for a good , rousing yell. The click-clack of the train wheels passing over the rail joints suggested a rhythm and a cadence to them.

At first, their version was “Rah, Rah, Jayhawk, KU” repeated three times. Later, in place of the rahs, an English professor suggested “Rock Chalk,” a transposition of chalk rock, the name for the limestone outcropping found on Mount Oread, site of the Lawrence campus.

The cheer became known worldwide. President Teddy Roosevelt pronounced it the greatest college chant he’d ever heard. It was used by Kansas troops fighting in the Philippines in 1899, in the Boxer Rebellion in China and World War II. At the Olympic games in 1920, the king of Belgium asked for a typical American college yell. The assembled athletes agreed on KU’s Rock Chalk and rendered it for his majesty.

School colors and seal

Kansas University’s colors have been crimson and blue since the early 1890s.

Originally, the Board of Regents had decided to adopt the University of Michigan’s colors, maize and sky blue.

Maize and blue were shown at oratorical meets, and they may have colored the Kansas crew in rowing competitions in the mid-1880s. But in 1890 when football arrived at KU, a clamor arose for Harvard’s crimson to honor Col. John J. McCook, a Harvard man who had given money for KU’s athletic field. Faculty members who had graduated from Yale insisted that their academic lineage and Yale blue not be overlooked. In 1896, crimson and blue were adopted officially.

KU’s first chancellor, Rev. R.W. Oliver, chose the seal in 1866. It pictures Moses kneeling in awe before a bush that is engulfed in flames but “is not burnt.”