Fandom

“Five players on the floor functioning as one single unit: team, team, team – no one more important that the other.”-Hoosiers

As the title of this blog suggests, I am a Jayhawk fan. I’ve been a Jayhawk fan since I was a young man. I grew up in Western Kansas, in a town that had two choices for colleges. Those two choices were Fort Hays State University and Kansas State University. However, at the age of 9, I rebelled against the common thoughts of the day and began cheering on the University of Kansas. My precious Jayhawks.

What caused me, at the tender age of 9, to rebel against the common flood of purple that surrounded me in my small town? Well, two things combined to make me a Jayhawk fan at that age. First, my grandmother, while basically clueless about sports, has always supported the Jayhawks above and beyond all other things. Secondly, in 1988, when I was 9 years old(yes, I’m an older than your average Junior, I know), Danny Manning happened. For anybody who has paid any attention to KU basketball, and on a more general level, college basketball, over the past 20 years, they know that I am, of course, referring to Danny and the Miracles, the KU National Championship team from 1988. Larry Brown, you did us proud.

From that moment on I was a KU athletics fan, as well as a KU fan in general. I knew that I would go to college in the wonderful town of Lawrence(unless the Ivy League dreams came through) and I knew that I would enjoy it immensely. So, you can imagine my thrill when, 20 years after that last title, 20 years after I became a fan of KU athletics, I have had the privilege of being a KU student during one of the most remarkable sports years in recent college memory. Yes, I said recent college memory, not just KU memory.

On Monday night, the University of Kansas Jayhawks became the 2nd team to ever win the NCAA National Basketball Championship and a BCS Bowl Game in the same year. That’s right. The inept KU football program that has been second fiddle in this very state for over a decade lost only 1 game all season, including a win over in-state “rivals” K-State. That spectacular season was capped with a huge win in the Orange Bowl over Virginia Tech, thus making us a BCS Bowl Game winner, unlike Mizzou. Then, Monday night, in one of the greatest championship games I’ve ever seen, Mario Chalmers became a god on the KU campus by leading us to victory over the Memphis, not Mizzou, Tigers. I feel spectacularly lucky to be a Jayhawk this year.

And, if the long time frustration being relieved was not enough, the party on Mass St was insanity, in the best possible way. Now, if I could just end 100 years of misery with my Cubbies this would be the best year imaginable.