Hope this clears the history of the chant up.
The chant was first adopted by the university\'s science club in 1886. Chemistry professor E.H.S. Bailey and his colleagues were returning by train to Lawrence after a conference. During their travel, they discussed a need of a rousing yell. They came up with "Rah, Rah, Jayhawk, KU", repeated three times. "Rock Chalk"—a transposition of chalk rock, a mineral that exists in western Kansas and similar to the coccolith found in the white cliffs of Dover—later replaced the two "rahs", after an English professor\'s suggestion.[1]
U.S. president Teddy Roosevelt called it the greatest college chant he had ever heard. Kansas troops have used it in the Philippine-American War in 1899, the Boxer Rebellion, and World War II. In the 1920 Summer Olympics, Albert I of Belgium asked for a typical American college yell, and gathered athletes replied with the chant.[2]