College Sports Established
1865

Location
Lawrence, Kansas

College Name
University of Kansas

Collegiate History
1973 - Present / NCAA Division 1
1921 - 1973 / University Division of the NCAA
1907 - 1921 / Athletic Association of the United States

Conference History
1996 - Present / Big 12 Conference
1964 – 1996 / Big Eight Conference
1947 – 1964 / Big Seven Conference
1928 – 1947 / Big Six Conference
1907 – 1928 / Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association

Nickname
Jayhawks - The origin of the term "Jayhawk" (short for "Jayhawker") is uncertain. The origin of the term may go back as far as the Revolutionary War when it was reportedly used to describe a group associated with American patriot John Jay.

Over time, proud of their state's contributions to the end of slavery and the preservation of the Union, Kansans embraced the "Jayhawker" term. The term came to be applied to people or items related to Kansas. When the University of Kansas fielded its first football team in 1890, like many universities at that time, it had no official mascot. They used many different independent mascots, including a pig. Eventually, sometime during the 1890s, the team was referred to as the Jayhawkers by the student body. Over time, the name was gradually supplanted by its shorter variant, and KU's sports teams are now almost exclusively known as the Jayhawks. The Jayhawk appears in several Kansas cheers, most notably, the "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk" chant in unison before and during games. In the traditions promoted by KU, the Jayhawk is said to be a combination of two birds, "the blue jay, a noisy, quarrelsome thing known to rob other nests, and the sparrow hawk, a stealthy hunter."

The link between the term "Jayhawkers" and any specific kind of mythical bird, if it ever existed, had been lost or at least obscured by the time KU's bird mascot was invented in 1912. The originator of the bird mascot, Henry Maloy, struggled for over two years to create a pictorial symbol for the team, until hitting upon the bird idea. As explained by Mr. Maloy, "the term ‘Jayhawk’ in the school yell was a verb and the term ‘jayhawkers’ was the noun." KU's current Jayhawk tradition largely springs from Frank W. Blackmar, a KU professor. In his 1926 address on the origin of the Jayhawk, Blackmar specifically referenced the blue jay and sparrow hawk. Blackmar's address served to soften the link between KU's athletic team moniker and the Jayhawkers of the Kansas territorial period and helped explain the relatively recently invented Jayhawk pictorial symbol with a myth that appears to have been of even more recent fabrication.

NCAA Championships
Baseball 0

Men's Basketball 6
2022, 2008, 1988, 1952, 1923, 1922

Women's Basketball 0

Football 0

Soccer 0