Friday, February 15, 2008
Crimson and blue. And green and pink? Some unfamiliar shirt colors have leeched their way into the stands at Kansas basketball games.
The sea of blue in Allen Fieldhouse evolved into a vast ocean of colors. Some fans are annoyed by the decreasing uniformity in shirt color at games.
“Why do people wear green shirts? I just don’t understand,” Megan Lemon, Smithville, Mo., junior and member of the Student Alumni Association, said.
The green shirts Lemon refers to have the phrase “Rock Chalk Shamrock” printed on them. The shirt celebrates St. Patrick’s Day. Various stores on campus and around Lawrence sell shirts in colors like pink, yellow and green. Orange shirts also began to sell after the Jayhawks were selected to play in the 2008 Orange Bowl.
Sean McDonald, Shawnee, Kan. senior, Maggie Long, Overland Park, Kan. senior, and Jennifer Schmidt, Overland Park, Kan. senior, applaud the half-time show at the Kansas vs. Baylor game Saturday night at Allen Fieldhouse. Many students wear blue to the games, but some still wear red to support the Jayhawks.
Kansas Associate Athletics Director Jim Marchiony said that in the past few years, he felt that student fans became better at wearing blue to the games. He also said that students seemed to do a better job with sticking to blue than most other fans.
Christina Steger, manager at Tarheel Bookstore in Chapel Hill, N.C., the bookstore of the University of North Carolina, said non-Tarheel colored shirts didn’t sell very well.
“We have a few off-color shirts, but they’re not that popular,” Steger said. “People tend to wear more Carolina blue.”
North Carolina’s university colors are white and “Carolina blue,” a light blue.
At some other universities, groups regulate the shirt colors in their student sections. At Michigan State University, students who want to sit in the Izzone, the university’s basketball student section, must wear white.
“Students have to sign a contract saying they’ll wear white to the games before they can get their tickets to the Izzone,” Michelle Berry, a junior at Michigan State and co-director of the Izzone said.
Berry said that Michigan State shirts that didn’t use the university’s colors, green and white, weren’t very popular on the campus.
Carolina Fury, a group that makes up most of North Carolina’s student section, has a similar program that asks students to wear the university’s colors at basketball games and other athletic events. The group uses a point system to determine who sits in the lower bowl of the arena. If fans don’t wear the university’s colors, they forfeit their points.
Allison Berg, marketing specialist for University of Illinois Athletics, said that more than 90 percent of Illinois fans wore orange to every home basketball game without any enforcement of uniformity.
“We don’t require anyone to wear orange, but they choose to,” Berg said. “But we’ve developed a culture throughout the years with our fans with a combination of promotions and other things the athletic department has done to push the orange color.”
Erik Benz, University of illinois senior and president of the Orange Krush, an organization that makes up most of the Illinois student fanbase, said that the Orange Krush didn’t put a rule on shirt color because it felt like the rule would limit creativity.
“We don’t want people to feel like they’re not free to express themselves as fans,” Benz said. “But it’s part of the culture here anymore. We’re known for our sea of orange, so most everyone comes to the game wearing orange.”
Marchiony said that although the University didn’t enforce wearing blue shirts, it took steps to encourage all Jayhawk fans to wear blue.
“We’ve given away at least 100,000 shirts since establishing an official KU blue, and they’ve all been that color,” Marchiony said.
Lemon said that she would support a program enforcing a uniform shirt color at the University, and possibly extending it to all fans.
“I really think everyone should wear blue,” Lemon said. “But I’d be okay if everyone wore crimson and blue.”
—Edited by Jared Duncan
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