Whether it’s in the classroom or on the athletic field, Kansas University wants to be a class act.

Considerable attention has been focused recently on a “cheer” emanating from the student section at KU football games. It’s great to see those sections of Memorial Stadium packed full of enthusiastic students on a football Saturday. The noisy support of the KU students is fun and energizing for the players on the field.

Most of the cheering is all in good fun, but the chant students have started shouting during kickoffs doesn’t send the best message. There’s profanity involved, but even more distasteful to many fans is the suggested violence in the chant. There have been too many serious injuries on the football field in recent years to overlook a cheer that, even in jest, urges players to knock someone’s head off.

Coach Mark Mangino has sent a taped message to the students, asking them to come up with something different to yell at kickoff time. Hopefully, students will respect the coach and the team enough to alter their chant.

KU officials understandably want to provide a good family-friendly atmosphere at Memorial Stadium. Students may not be as concerned about complaints from other fans, but hopefully they are proud enough of their teams and their school to want to preserve KU’s reputation as a school that competes hard, plays fair and knows how to win and lose with class.

It’s not a bad message for other KU fans, as well. Today promises to be a beautiful day for a football game. Let’s cheer on our team, applaud the great Marching Jayhawks and show everyone watching the game in person and on TV that KU has the best fans anywhere.