Hawkeye Craziness

The one thing about Iowa is that it has no professional sports teams. None! Not that this is a bad thing, but it is different. For example, this past weekend was the big rival football game between the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State University Cyclones (whose mascot is a bird...explain?). We were invited over to a friends house for tailgating which was a lot of fun. I felt so grown up bringing something to eat over to someone's house for a get-together. It was a wonderful meal and us ladies had fun times watching the boys play some yard games. However, neither Tony or I own any Hawkeye apparel. I opted for a black sweatshirt to at least try and blend in, but Tony opted for the blue t-shirt. Thankfully, we were warned to not wear red since that is a cyclone color; MSOE did not prepare me for that one. As for watching the game, only one person in our group subscribed to cable so we decided to traverse the two miles to the nearest sports bar and not a minute too soon. It was soon packed with both kinds of, soon to be drunk, fans. The hawkeyes lost, but overall, it was a fun time hanging out with our friends from the church we have been going to.

So onto my rant about football in Iowa. Growing up, I was never a big college football fan and here, it's all about college football, specifically the hawkeyes. It's everywhere. Herky, the mascot's name, is haunting me. Saturday home games, speculating from my single sample of this last Saturday, consist of everyone tailgating, regardless of whether you are attending the game or not. The university rents out part of the driving range on their golf course for vehicles to park so they can tailgate. This is not a bad thing, it's just my observations. Lastly, college football is played on Saturdays and not Sundays. Very strange to me. I feel like my Saturday should be composed of doing something productive, like homework or cleaning. Sunday afternoons are meant for watching the Packers play and relaxing/finishing all those productive things that were started on Saturday. However, when Sunday came around, after church meant the ladies hanging out in a coffee shop while the guys played a round of frisbee golf. I fortunately did get to see the last three quarters of the Packer game with Tony.

So there is my little rant about Iowa football and wishing I could watch all the Packer games without having to pay an arm and a leg to watch them, so here I am watching the play-by-play update on nfl.com as the Packers, hopefully, beat the Bears...again. And I must confess that Tony and I both own Iowa football apparel. (Thanks to my sewing machine, I got to resize the large for me :)