My alma mater, the University of Iowa Hawkeyes play the LSU Tigers tomorrow at 11:00am Mountain time in the Capital One Bowl in Orlando FL. You can bet your booty I'll be watching with some hommies and kin.
I'm not a huge sports fan, but this is special. Iowa, a perennial underdog, has become one of the premiere football programs.
Iowa, known only for corn & pigs, has serious PR problems and having a winning football team is big boost. The school has an uphill battle when it comes to recruiting major talent due to the impression of being a cold farm school. Top-notch recruits often choose warmer climes when given the choice, so the success Iowa is experiencing is that much more authentic. Teams in CA, FL or TX have it easy and when they win its no big deal, but when Iowa wins, America wins, cause as we all know, America loves an underdog.
Iowa City, the home of the U of I, is in fact a super-cool leafy college town. A lot like Boulder, Madison, or Missoula. There are like 30,000 undergrads in a town of 100,000 so there are lots of clubs, coffee shops, bookstores, record stores and other stuff that caters to edumacated youngins'
I got it bad.....I grew up in Iowa City and went to school there and my parent still live there, so I go back there often. My first job as a 12 year old was selling soda at Iowa Football games. Every fall all our family friends and cousins would come to Iowa City for the games, so it like a huge party every Saturday afternoon. Needless to say I began to associate Iowa football with good times.
During the "dark years" when I was a skate punk hellion then moving on to an indy rock weirdo & film school art fag, traditional sports did not appeal to me on any level. As I got older though I realized that sports are fine if not taken too seriously. To me Iowa football is synonymous with family, friends and the geography of home. So now in my old age I can finally accept the history....the reality, I love Hawkeye football
and I dont care if its cool or not.
GO HAWKS!!!
p.s. I'm sure this post will lower my cool quotient by a factor of 10, and my street cred is now in the negative
p.s.s. I miss the Avalanche
I'm not a huge sports fan, but this is special. Iowa, a perennial underdog, has become one of the premiere football programs.
Iowa, known only for corn & pigs, has serious PR problems and having a winning football team is big boost. The school has an uphill battle when it comes to recruiting major talent due to the impression of being a cold farm school. Top-notch recruits often choose warmer climes when given the choice, so the success Iowa is experiencing is that much more authentic. Teams in CA, FL or TX have it easy and when they win its no big deal, but when Iowa wins, America wins, cause as we all know, America loves an underdog.
Iowa City, the home of the U of I, is in fact a super-cool leafy college town. A lot like Boulder, Madison, or Missoula. There are like 30,000 undergrads in a town of 100,000 so there are lots of clubs, coffee shops, bookstores, record stores and other stuff that caters to edumacated youngins'
I got it bad.....I grew up in Iowa City and went to school there and my parent still live there, so I go back there often. My first job as a 12 year old was selling soda at Iowa Football games. Every fall all our family friends and cousins would come to Iowa City for the games, so it like a huge party every Saturday afternoon. Needless to say I began to associate Iowa football with good times.
During the "dark years" when I was a skate punk hellion then moving on to an indy rock weirdo & film school art fag, traditional sports did not appeal to me on any level. As I got older though I realized that sports are fine if not taken too seriously. To me Iowa football is synonymous with family, friends and the geography of home. So now in my old age I can finally accept the history....the reality, I love Hawkeye football
and I dont care if its cool or not.
GO HAWKS!!!
p.s. I'm sure this post will lower my cool quotient by a factor of 10, and my street cred is now in the negative
p.s.s. I miss the Avalanche
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Have a nice day.