In an attempt to clear up any questions this story raises, I AM a Cyclone fan. Steve Prohm is the coach of my men’s basketball team, and he is a good one. I wish good luck to Fred Hoiberg. I wish bad luck to Nebraska basketball. If this post is too long or you are already bored, please leave now, I don’t like hate mail.
While playing pool with a friend recently, he lofted the 8 ball, it caromed off the bumper and hit me in the head. I saw the 8 just before I was out. During my hiatus, I had a vision of one possible future:
By 2025, many college sports media contracts expire. Financing collapses and the Iowa Regents decide to create a single university system from the three schools and a single athletic department with a single set of teams. The campuses are University of Iowa – Iowa City (UI-IC), UofI – Cedar Falls (UI-CF), and UofI-Ames (UI-Ames). Track teams and women’s volleyball are assigned to UI-CF. Tennis teams, cross country, and women’s basketball are assigned to UI-Ames. The remaining teams are venued in UI-IC. In a “compromise”, the Regents name all the teams the Hawks, thereby retaining the investment in all Hawkeye logos, including the TigerHawk. Regents select three school colors: black, purple, and gold. Each venue may use only 2 colors if they choose. Representatives of UI-IC immediately chose black and gold, UI-CF chose purple and gold. Stubborn to the end, UI-Ames folks at the meeting chose gold on gold.
Hundreds of students, alumni, and fans from all three schools milled around outside the meeting facility. When news of the sports decisions leaked out, numerous fights started. When authorities got control an hour later, most of the people still walking were from UI-Ames. The Regents, getting a little nervous, threw a bone to UI-Ames. They made ice hockey a sanctioned and supported sport to be located in Ames. In recognition of the UI-Ames fighting spirit, they created two new teams for Ames, men’s and women’s riot teams. They were authorized to make and sell cherry pies to pay for riot match damages.
Three months later, all locations in Ames where new gold on gold Hawk uniforms were stored were broken into and the uniforms burned in several bonfires. In the aftermath, thousands of cherry pits were found at the base of the fires.
The Regents, meeting in an emergency session, immediately ceded UI-Ames to the Nebraska University System. In short order, the new school colors became beetle wing red and corn juice white. No decision was made on sports in Ames, but the Nebraska Tractor Test Trials were moved to Jack Trice Stadium at MidAmerican Field. The facility was renamed Trice Tractor Test Trials at NPPD (Nebraska Public Power District) Field. Locals soon called it Mr. Ts. An endorsement deal was signed and the Jack Trice statue was painted John Deere green with a yellow base.
A restaurant and bar on South Duff Avenue mounted a tractor on a 40-foot pole and called itself “I Pity the Fool.” Fool made big money serving smoked meat and corn-on-the-cob. During the next major flood, nothing but water could be seen for 1/3 of a mile around Fool, except for a tractor seemingly floating on the water.
At this point I came to as the EMTs used smelling salts and the vision was gone. Asking a series of questions to check whether my wits were about me, one they asked was, “Who is the coach of Nebraska men’s basketball?” “Tim Miles!,” say I. They, “No, No, No, it’s Fred Hoiberg.” Then I knew . . . it’s all true!!!
