No problem. I think Hoborg and Rhodes are awesome, and George Leong is going to have a great senior season.
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Tavern Clones
- Thread starter MLawrence
- Start date
No problem. I think Hoborg and Rhodes are awesome, and George Leong is going to have a great senior season.
Also, if you have a tigerhawk tattooed on you and you do not hold a degree from the U of I, then you too, are a tavernhok, regardless of your townie status or education level attained.
I work with several of these types of Hawk fans.
A few years ago, when Jewel Hampton got hurt during fall practice I asked them what they thought about it. They looked at me like I had asked them what the square root of 12876 was.
They were lucky if they could name the starting QB and Ferentz (pronounced wrong). But they're all BIG Hawkeye football fans. Sometimes they go to games but apparently they don't know who the hell is playing. Sadly only a few of them are female.
I think one of the biggest descriptor of a tavern hawk is the front runner/condescending attitude.
Tavern hawks were coming out of the woodwork when Iowa was going to good bowls every year and they multiplied during the 15 year ISU drought.
That's a big reason why non-alumni fans are often lumped into the tavern definition. Many non-alumni glom on to the Hawks because they are "winners" and they get to make fun of ISU fans if ISU loses. When their basketball season goes to crap they all of a sudden disappear or bring up football again.
You need two simple ingredients to make the tavern fan. First is of course the lack of a degree from said institution. Second is a smug, arrogant sense of superiority derived simply from being a tee-shirt fan of a school that currently has a stronger football team. Tavern fan will likely also raise and lower his colors based on the sports season and the quality of the team that season. Somehow those tavern JHawks that I can't seem to avoid in January are nowhere to be found in September.
Look, if that is all it takes I can run to Wal-Mart and grab an Alabama shirt so that I can be a better human being than you.
Look, if that is all it takes I can run to Wal-Mart and grab an Alabama shirt so that I can be a better human being than you.
Where
Idiots
Unite
I spent one very hazy year at WIU back in the day. Very very hazy year. When I transferred to ISU I couldn't believe people actually went to any class before 10 am. I also was amazed that those same students appeared to have cleaned themselves prior to class.
I knew at that point I had to up my game
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*Hand Raised*
Grew up in SE Iowa. Ames could've been on Guam. Never exposed to anything Cyclone until my teen years. Then I saw the light
Yep: Me too, except substitute Eastern Iowa for SE Iowa...and Guadalcanal for Guam just because.
I was paying my own way, so in state tuition meant I was picking between ISU and Iowa (nothing in my major at UNI) and went on tours of both. It was really one random comment from a passerby on my tour (snotty DLP looking girl said "oh, they must be high-schoolers" dripping with contempt) at Iowa that made me think Iowa wasn't for me, and an open, inviting, friendly tour at ISU that made me think it was for me. Because of my major, I was definitely leaning ISU, but proximity to home (but not that close) and the # of people I knew going to Iowa kept it in the mix until I toured.
I cheered for both Iowa and ISU until about 10 years ago. I probably still would cheer for both if Iowa fans (as described in this thread) were not so annoying and arrogant.
Now I'm definitely a Cyclone - even though I didn't graduate from there.
Is the State Fair one of the best places to witness a Tavern Hawk?
We visited the State Fair last year for the first time in decades. It was an 85+ degree day.
Cyclone fans were generally tastefully dressed, perhaps an ISU cap or shirt. Rarely both.
For the Tavern Hawk, it wasn't enough to tastefully wear an I cap or shirt. No, nearly every Hawk fan needed to have on an I cap, black shirt, AND shiny polyester black shorts or pants.
I grew up a huge Iowa State fan in the 70's and early 80's. Graduated from Northwestern U and then lost touch a bit with the Cyclones until we moved back to Iowa 15 years ago. Now we live in Iowa City, teach at U Iowa, but cheer on the Clones to beat the living crap out of Iowa. Family members are ISU grads and son is at ISU now.
We visited the State Fair last year for the first time in decades. It was an 85+ degree day.
Cyclone fans were generally tastefully dressed, perhaps an ISU cap or shirt. Rarely both.
For the Tavern Hawk, it wasn't enough to tastefully wear an I cap or shirt. No, nearly every Hawk fan needed to have on an I cap, black shirt, AND shiny polyester black shorts or pants.
I grew up a huge Iowa State fan in the 70's and early 80's. Graduated from Northwestern U and then lost touch a bit with the Cyclones until we moved back to Iowa 15 years ago. Now we live in Iowa City, teach at U Iowa, but cheer on the Clones to beat the living crap out of Iowa. Family members are ISU grads and son is at ISU now.
I was an Iowa basketball fan growing up. I didn't really get into college football until late high school. Even then I was a total bandwagon fan (Michigan, ND, etc). I do remember seeing part of my first Iowa-Iowa State football game and it was when Iowa was bad. The Iowa State players had a couple sacks in a row and were celebrating big time. I didn't like it...I didn't like it one bit. But then I ended up going to Iowa State and converted pretty quickly.
My wife is a bulldog also. Huge ISU fan. I haven't ever called her a tavern clone but I have been known to razz her about being a spoofhound.
I grew up a Hawk fan. My father (Loras grad) was a Hawk fan, however rooted for ISU and UNI when they weren't playing Iowa, thus wasn't a Tavern Hawk. In high school, I knew I was going to ISU for engineering or UNI for accounting, so I followed rooting for all schools.
My first year at ISU I rooted for all state schools again, this time I had ISU on even to slightly higher footing with Iowa. I was conflicted during their football game that year, as ISU stunk with Walden and Iowa still had Fry. After my first year at ISU, the IOWA fans (tavern hawks) turned me against Iowa.
My first Thanksgiving home, my mom's side of the family was pretty respectful. They were Iowa fans, however were like my father and liked the other state schools as long as they weren't playing Iowa. My father's side was full of tavern Hawk uncles and cousins, all graduating from Loras or UNI. I got so much hell that Thanksgiving and had to listen how much Iowa was better in EVERYTHING, down to each olympic sport and each major. I spent half the time stating, that's not true, that's also not true, etc. This also happened with some friends (also Loras grads) and even random people in stores (in Dubuque) when wearing/buying ISU stuff. Eventually after a year of hearing how you're a traitor and that your school isn't as good as Iowa (despite they didn't go there), I began to hate Iowa.
I even mentioned this once on HN and was called a liar, since, "Once a Hawk, always a Hawk," and "why would you leave a successful football program for arguably one of the worst NCAA football programs." The irony of the last statement was that it happened in a thread about how ISU fans are bandwagoners.
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This is pretty much my story too. I grew up cheering for both. My uncle and older brother went to ISU so I payed some attention to them. My dad is from Minnesota and really only cares about pro sports so I was an NFL fan mostly until I went to college. I chose ISU because it was close and I wanted to be an engineer at the time.
Now college football is my favorite sport by far and college basketball is not far behind with the NFL.
I didn't dislike the Hawks until I went to Iowa City with the marching band and fans threw full beer cans at us. That was the student section so you kind of expect it. But we sat in front of a section of older fans. They yelled at us and treated us like crap as well. That was the year Seneca lead the comeback and I literally thought Hawk fans were going to try to fight us on the way back to the buses.
Yeah, I think Dubuque county is probably worse than Johnson county for people who think they have to get in your face if you're not wearing black and gold. I've lived up there before down here, and didn't hate Iowa until I lived in Dubuque county. I encounter enough dooshes down here to keep up the hate, but it developed in Dubuque county.
