Traditions

It's the taste of purple ice cream in the summer. It's watching autumn leaves swirl through the quad against a limestone background. It's taking a picture in front of Higinbotham Gate in your cap and gown. It's service and sacrifice, and a passion for purple.

K-Staters take pride in paying homage to traditions of past generations, as well as creating their own. Take a look at a few examples of time-honored K-State traditions that you can adopt or use to find inspiration.

Long may thy colors fly

It's pretty easy to recognize that the university's official color is royal purple — after all, K-State purple is everywhere on our campuses. Visitors often share with us their surprise that faculty, staff and students alike are all regularly donned in purple attire. For us, it's simply a daily symbol of our Wildcat Pride. And while K-State purple is often traditionally paired with white, sometimes even silver or black, purple alone remains the only official university color since 1896.

The songs of K-State

The Wabash Cannonball

The Wabash Cannonball was first performed for an athletic event at K-State on December 16, 1968. Wabash was the only selection in the band's repertoire that evening for a home basketball game at Ahearn Fieldhouse. Just three nights prior, arsonists had set fire to Nichols Hall, at that time the home of the Music Department, destroying all of the departments assets including the sheet music. The band director at that time, Phil Hewett, the band director at the time, just happened to have taken one copy of Wabash home from the library that night to work on the arrangement; thus making it the only selection to survive the fire.

Today, fans jump to their feet at the first notes of "The Wabash Cannonball," clapping, bending and twisting in synchronized motions just like the generations of K-Staters before them. This rousing anthem has an inspiring history, and was recently voted the No. 1 pregame tradition in the Big 12 by ESPN.

 

Alma Mater

 

University Fight Song