http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=6033038Linked by ink
As a baby in Wichita, Kan., one of Kat Steward's (2) first spoken words was "Jayhawks." As a young girl, Kat used to cry every single Senior Day, such was her emotional attachment to every Kansas player. As an adult, she took her devotion to Kansas basketball a step further.
There can be no questioning of Kat Steward's devotion to her beloved Kansas Jayhawks.
She had it tattooed across her upper back, mural style.
There are plenty of fans who have expressed their sporting loyalties in ink form on their bodies. But The Minutes hasn't seen anyone -- especially anyone female -- take it to such a rock-chalking extreme.
A tattooed replica of legendary Allen Fieldhouse (3) -- with an accompanying Jayhawk bird, basketball and flowers -- stretches from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. That took a couple of months of planning and 15 hours of inking in 2007 with Wichita tattoo artist Kris Harness at Elektrik Chair Salon.
"Allen Fieldhouse has such tradition and history," Steward said. "There's no place like it on Earth."
But as elaborate as the building is, it was incomplete. Steward made a standing appointment at Elektrik Chair just in case Kansas won it all.
When the Jayhawks beat Memphis to win the national title the next season, it was time to add that in banner form across the base of her neck: "2008 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS." That update required another three hours in the chair. (If Kansas wins any more titles, she might have to get creative with any corporeal signage to commemorate it. There's only so much skin to go around.)
Although you might question Steward's sanity, you cannot question her long-term investment.
"I don't need to buy KU shirts," she said. "I have it on my skin."
Steward, 30, has nine tattoos, all of them with a floral theme -- that's why the flowers were integrated around Allen Fieldhouse.
"I wanted to add a feminine touch," she said.
The decision was not met with great enthusiasm from her parents. Especially her father.
"He's never been a tattoo fan -- at all," Steward said. "I told him, 'I blame you for getting me obsessed with the Jayhawks.' Now he shows it off."
Even head coach Bill Self got a firsthand view of hardcore Kansas fandom.
Indeed, the quality of the work has won over many skeptics, including some of the rival Missouri fans Steward works with in Kansas City, Mo. Her skin art has garnered attention from Kansas players and coaches, a K.C.-area talk radio host and plenty of others. She said someone even sneaked a picture of her back one day in church.
"You don't get a tattoo like this and not expect people to look," she said.
Weird that this article doesn't mention any time she spent at KU
