The History of the Traveling Jayhawk Hooked Rug

April 08, 2008

By Rebecca Gannon

Okay, so most Jayhawk fans show their devotion by buying a shirt or maybe a hat. But one Wichita woman is hooked on her Hawks. And if you happened to catch Coach Bill Self's Pre-Game Speech Monday night, you may have seen her devotion on the locker room floor.

"I'm pretty crimson and blue," said Mary Easton-White. And maybe for some, Easton-White is just a Jayhawk with a crafty side. But for the Jayhawk men's basketball team, she is their un-official floor decorator.

If you saw Bill Self's speech in the team's locker room before the championship game, you may have noticed the Jayhawk on the floor. You can credit Easton-White for the Jayhawk -- it's a traveling Jayhawk hooked rug, and it follows the men to every away game.

It started back in 2002, when Easton-White was reading an article about the Jayhawks. She read there's a Jayhawk in the locker room of Allen Fieldhouse the team assembles around. Then she wanted to know what they do on the road.

"And when they travel," she said, "they just throw white towel, and they gather around that."

Easton-White put her hooking to good use when she decided a towel was not an acceptable replacement for the real thing.

"And I had just learned to rug hook," said Easton-White, "and I thought, well, I could make them a rug. They can just take that, and stand around that, instead of a towel."

So six years ago, Easton-White made the traveling Jayhawk rug. It's made of wool, not feathers, but it'll have to do. And it made it's television debut in the 2008 NCAA tournament.

"Yeah, it is exciting," she said. "It's like I've contributed, somehow, to something."

And her contribution is now part of a Tournament winning tradition.

Easton-White hasn't seen the rug -- in person -- since she gave it to then-coach Roy Williams.

And after six years of road games, she thinks the Jayhawk rug is probably a little dirtier now than it was back then. She said she's willing to drive up to Lawrence this summer to clean it.

|

|

|