Spreading ‘Jayhawk love’: FMS alum creates Baby Jay picture book
Lawrence native and 2018 KU graduate Jacob Hood grew up immersed in all things Jayhawk.
His parents are both University of Kansas graduates, he attended KU basketball games as a child, and he even stood next to Big Jay on the Allen Fieldhouse basketball court as a young boy. Recently, his love for the university and its mascot led him to create a children’s book on the subject: “Baby Jay’s Jayhawk Journey.”
“It really takes a look at the KU community and what a Jayhawk is,” Hood says of the colorful volume published in October.
Hood wrote and illustrated the book, which follows Baby Jay as he tries to sort out his own identity by talking to Jayhawks on the KU campus. In search of meaning, Baby Jay stops at several KU landmarks such as Strong and Fraser halls, the Kansas Union, the Chi Omega fountain, the Campanile and Allen Fieldhouse.
During his college years, Hood was a film and media studies student and a cartoonist for KU’s student newspaper, the University Daily Kansan. One of his beloved duties at the UDK was illustrating the game-day poster inserts, which fans held up at KU basketball games, pretending to read them as the opposing team came onto the court, then ripping them up and throwing the confetti into the air.
Hood is currently an animator for Rock Chalk Video at Kansas Athletics. Chances are, when you see an animated Jayhawk at a KU game, it’s probably his.