Root Against Kansas, You Root Against America

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http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2011/03/march-madness-if-you-root-against-kansas-you-root-against-america/72991/

Why NCAA basketball fans should love the KU team, instead of loving to hate it

If you follow college basketball, you may well hate the University of Kansas. Jeremy Stahl certainly does. Writing in Slate's annual NCAA tournament "Teams We Hate" feature, Stahl called the Jayhawks "odious" and "contemptible."
No big shock. Kansas?along with North Carolina, Kentucky, and Duke?is one of those teams that fans love to hate, like the Yankees, the Lakers, or Dallas Cowboys. KU is a high-dollar, high-pressure program, perennially in the top 20, usually in the top five, and always a threat to make the Final Four. Of course people root against the Jayhawks. Tonight, for example. Unless, like President Obama, you picked KU to win the National Championship, you will probably cheer against the Jayhawks tonight as they take on 12th-seeded Richmond. That's only natural. As Kansas alum Wilt Chamberlain once famously said, "Nobody roots for Goliath."

In this case though, that's a real shame. It's shame because hating on the Jayhawks means you hate the United States of America. Yes, you read that right.

The Jayhawk, a mythical mix of a blue jay's cunning with the ferocity of a hawk, was born in pre-Civil war era "Bleeding Kansas," when the strange bird was adopted as the mascot of abolitionist forces fighting for Kansas to enter the Union as free state. The Jayhawkers battled with Border Ruffians, many from Missouri, who wanted to bring slavery into the new territory, and who ultimately sparked a horrific, bloody war of secession. Surely, it's more than mere coincidence that the pro-Union Jayhawks must face a team from the old capital of the Confederacy tonight, and could face another on Sunday.
If you root against KU basketball, then, you are actually rooting for slavery. You're supporting the Confederacy over United States, cheering for racism, oppression, and war, and, not for nothing, you want President Obama to fail?all of which are certainly "odious" and "contemptible" by any reasonable definitions.

Or maybe Stahl just hates sports history.