FB: American Rivers Conference

[Fannosaurus Rex]

Kinnick isn't the only old stadium where they painted the seat numbers too close together on the benches.  I've been to Iowa, Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois, Michigan, and Michigan State.  The average butt was narrower back when they were built and no one wants to shrink their capacity.  The worst is Lambeau up in Green Bay.  You have to sit kind of sideways and you only get room for one cheek.

[Walston Hoover]

I have a bit of a limited experiance but I can say the atmosphere at Iowa games as far as tailgating and stadium experiance is superior to what I have seen at ISU, UNI, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Mizzou and K-State.

Hate to break it to you, but the tailgating at ISU and Wisconsin are far superior to Iowa. Believe it or not, I've heard people say ISU is almost as good of tailgating as the SEC...Almost. It has to be good there, no one goes for the actual football game. Not much in the Big 11 or 12 compares to Madison on gameday.

I can appreciate some of Warthog's generalizations, growing up a Cyclone fan in Hawk country. Each fan base has the types he speaks of, there are just exponentially more hawk fans around Warthog and where I grew up so it seems like a ton of "winners" around.

[Kohawk Remedy]

I guess I'm going against the grain here.  I hate University of Iowa football.

1) Until the recent renovations, Kinnick Stadium was "expanded" by simply narrowing the seat lines.  It is way too crowded especially later in the season when people are wearing coats.  You have a 70,000 seat stadium designed for 50,000.

2) Parking is awful.

3) Fans are rude and mean spirited.  Example: One of our friends is a local attorney.  In the past he would allow the university to use his plane to ferry basketball and wrestling coaches around on recruiting trips.  As a result his Carver tickets are right next to the locker room tunnel.  Even though he got his MBA at Iowa and he is an Iowa fan he attended law school at Drake.  When Drake dropped D1 football you may remember they had a last season game at Iowa.  Our friend decided to wear his Drake shirt to the game.  I've never seen such pricks as the Iowa fans that day.  They knew the Hawks would win, it was a name the score type of game.  They threw things at us.  They intentionally pushed and tried to pick fights.  Even though the Little Warthogs were with us, the Iowa fans used language any decent person would refrain from using around little kids.  It wasn't just a couple people it was large numbers of them.  I never saw anything like it even at Iowa/Iowa State games.  I figured it had to do with the fact that you would norally have enough Cyclone fans around that some of the loud mouth pricks would think twice about their behavior.  That day, with just a few Drake people around, there was no such restraint.  The thing that is amazing is that the "Iowa Fans" had no idea they were being pricks to one of their own.  By the way, the University of Iowa no longer gets the use of his plane.  They still assign him Carver tickets by the tunnel and try to get him back in the saddle, but he can't forget the Drake game.

4) Iowa fans are for the most part Johnny Come Lately.  90 percent of the idiots who walk around with black & gold Hawkeye shirts and shouting "Go Hawks" never finished hgh school and have no concept of the history concerning Iowa Football.  Sometime for the fun of it ask a typical Iowa fan, "Who is Nile Kinnick?"  Over half will tell you Nile and Kinnick were the two guys that gave most of the money for the Stadium.  If they happen to get the question right, ask them about Alex Karras, Bobby Jeter or Forrest Evechevski. (sp)

I guess my biggest beef is with the typical Iowa fan.  Maybe it is because I'm living right in the middle of so many of them, but they just make me shake my head.  Perhaps the Iowa fans aren't familiar with a winning tradition and they just don't know how to win gracefully.  Perhaps since we don't have  pro football the idiots gravitate to the most visable college team.  For what ever reason I find it easy to hate the Hawks because of the people that love the Hawks.

I'm not going to try and get in the "you're wrong, I'm right" conversation, but I hope that your opinion isn't based around a one time thing, however I am sorry for the incident your family and friend received at the game...I along with dog agree that you will find that at every stadium, not just college football.  I think that it is great how Iowa friends (along with ISU & UNI) rally around there teams...our state has no, zero, natta damn pro team, but that just makes the fan base of college sports (not just football) that much better here in Iowa.  I will agree with you, parking is horrible there; you have to get there early if you want to get a good spot, and even then you have to wait to get out after the game.  But I would think that back when they built Kinnick Stadium, they weren't looking into the future to try and determine where the best part of Iowa City to put the stadium is, and how much the stadium would be focused to building new facilities around.  Now a days they are trying to have people park in Coralville and ride the train in to the stadium to have less of a cluster f*ck, which I have no example or experiences on how well that is done.  Also, when families go to any college game, they should be aware of where there seats are...you can't expect not to hear any obscene language when you are sitting close to the student section.  All in all though, I can see your opinion from your incident, I just hope you aren't referring just to that time when you categorize all Iowa fans.

[doolittledog]

I didn't think Wisconsin had anything on Iowa.  There are some bars that are pretty close to the stadium so you can go from the bar straight into Camp Randall.  But the parking is actually worse at Camp Randall than at Kinnick and I didn't think any of the tailgating was anything special.  As far as in-game experiance at Camp Randall other than everybody doing "Jump Around" to start the 4th quarter it wasn't all that exciting either.  To be fair to ISU the games I went to there were in the 80's and early 90's.  There really wasn't any tailgating there when I went.  I have heard lately it is a pretty good place to tailgate.  Just not as of 15-23 years ago.  The ISU fans I have talked to mention there is some good cooking going on and beer is allowed.  The one thing I wonder about is they always bring up..."it's all in one big lot, just like the NFL"  To me, just because it's in one big lot doesn't make it great.  It's the people you are around and what they bring to the tailgate that makes the experience.  For us at Kinnick, we parked in the same family's yard for 20+ years.  They sold season passes to park there and you knew everybody you were parking next to.  There was great food that most everybody shared amongst them and lots of footballs being tossed and games of bags being played.  That to me made it great.  Not being in some big huge lot, like the NFL.  

Again though, fans are more likely to like the experiance of their home teams place rather than some other teams place.  I do know that ISU has gotten much better, and I also think Wisconsin is greatly over-rated.  

[dutchfan1]

Warthog, aren't you a Nebraska fan?? I've always thought of Bug Eater, er, Husker fans in much the same way that you have described Iowa fans... maybe it was an off game a few years ago that I went to. It was the Nebraska/Notre Dame game in '01 or '02. I used to respect the FB team, but the fans have ruined that for me. That experience ruined that for me. I was surprised that they built stadiums big enough to accomodate that many @ssholes, er, fans. Wait, Nebraska doesn't have fans....they have a cult following.

I guess it's all about perceptions. 

That game made me appreciate my D3 roots.

[DBQ1965]

While we still are on the subject ... some of the best memories of tailgating, fans and football (aside from D-3, of course) are from when we lived in Connecticut.  The Yale Bowl was a great place to be on a beautiful Fall afternoon in New England and in addition to "The Game" (Yale vs. Harvard) ... it was fun to see other Ivy League teams along with schools such as Lehigh and Holy Cross.  I don't know what Yale fans are like these days, but in the 70's they were great.

It also was great fun to watch the old Yankee Conference (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Boston U even fielded a team then.  And then there was what was then the smallest conference in the nation (Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan).  And finally, the two years we lived in West Springfield, Mass., Springfield College and American International provided exciting football too.

[TheOne89.1]

It's tough to get everyone on the same page because we all have different experiences.  I went to an Iowa/ISU game in Ames while in college.  I had a great time, even though I am not a Hawkeye or Cyclone fan.  I've been to ND games...but when I was younger so I really didn't get the "tailgating" atmosphere.  But I will go hands down with WI.  Camp Randall (the day I went two years back) was AWESOME!  Tailgating was great with just a party atmosphere...in game there was the wave, the most elaborate wave I have ever been a part of, and of course "Jump Around".

[Klopenhiemer]

I have a bit of a limited experiance but I can say the atmosphere at Iowa games as far as tailgating and stadium experiance is superior to what I have seen at ISU, UNI, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Mizzou and K-State.

Hate to break it to you, but the tailgating at ISU and Wisconsin are far superior to Iowa. Believe it or not, I've heard people say ISU is almost as good of tailgating as the SEC...Almost. It has to be good there, no one goes for the actual football game. Not much in the Big 11 or 12 compares to Madison on gameday.

I can appreciate some of Warthog's generalizations, growing up a Cyclone fan in Hawk country. Each fan base has the types he speaks of, there are just exponentially more hawk fans around Warthog and where I grew up so it seems like a ton of "winners" around.

I will have to interject my opinion on this one.  I have two very close friends who both graduated from ISU and are die hard ISU fans.  They come to IC to tailgate and party.  They will admit hands down that IC has Ames beat in every aspect.  They even made regular trips during the school year to IC to party with friends.  These people also went to the Orange Bowl with us back in 2003.  They had been to the Insight.com blows and Independence Bowls and both said that the Iowa fan base/following was much better. 

One of friends families actually has season tickets and parking pass to park right by the stadium.  Its funny to watch all the people stroll in 2 hours before the game and open up their Buick and start grilling brats.  You could not even pull into Olive Court two hours before the game and hope to get a spot. 

Warthog....I am sorry for your negative experience/your friends negative experience.  That would damper my opinion of a fan base also.  My parrents had season tickets to the Hawks for many years and gave them up when me and my sister were born.  They talked about how terrible they were and how the place was packed only to see the marching band play.  I do agree that a lot of the people in IC are obnoixous.  They are tough for me to swallow was well.  I feel this is because the University of Iowa attracts so many kids from the Chicago land region.  I live here and will admit that lot of these people are worthless pricks with johnny come lately attitudes.  I have always felt that the true Hawk fans are the ones that are born and raise in the state.  These are the people who paint tiger hawk logos on the grain bins. 

DF1....Nebraska fans.  Do not get me started.  BV has an enourmous amout of Nebraska fans.  They wasted more hot air dogging the Hawk fans than defending the programs current shortcomings.  It really soured my opinion of Cornhusker fans in general, and I have since turned the channel every time they are on tv. 

[D1HawkD3CUI]

I guess I'm going against the grain here.  I hate University of Iowa football.

1) Until the recent renovations, Kinnick Stadium was "expanded" by simply narrowing the seat lines.  It is way too crowded especially later in the season when people are wearing coats.  You have a 70,000 seat stadium designed for 50,000.

2) Parking is awful.

3) Fans are rude and mean spirited.  Example: One of our friends is a local attorney.  In the past he would allow the university to use his plane to ferry basketball and wrestling coaches around on recruiting trips.  As a result his Carver tickets are right next to the locker room tunnel.  Even though he got his MBA at Iowa and he is an Iowa fan he attended law school at Drake.  When Drake dropped D1 football you may remember they had a last season game at Iowa.  Our friend decided to wear his Drake shirt to the game.  I've never seen such pricks as the Iowa fans that day.  They knew the Hawks would win, it was a name the score type of game.  They threw things at us.  They intentionally pushed and tried to pick fights.  Even though the Little Warthogs were with us, the Iowa fans used language any decent person would refrain from using around little kids.  It wasn't just a couple people it was large numbers of them.  I never saw anything like it even at Iowa/Iowa State games.  I figured it had to do with the fact that you would norally have enough Cyclone fans around that some of the loud mouth pricks would think twice about their behavior.  That day, with just a few Drake people around, there was no such restraint.  The thing that is amazing is that the "Iowa Fans" had no idea they were being pricks to one of their own.  By the way, the University of Iowa no longer gets the use of his plane.  They still assign him Carver tickets by the tunnel and try to get him back in the saddle, but he can't forget the Drake game.

4) Iowa fans are for the most part Johnny Come Lately.  90 percent of the idiots who walk around with black & gold Hawkeye shirts and shouting "Go Hawks" never finished hgh school and have no concept of the history concerning Iowa Football.  Sometime for the fun of it ask a typical Iowa fan, "Who is Nile Kinnick?"  Over half will tell you Nile and Kinnick were the two guys that gave most of the money for the Stadium.  If they happen to get the question right, ask them about Alex Karras, Bobby Jeter or Forrest Evechevski. (sp)

I guess my biggest beef is with the typical Iowa fan.  Maybe it is because I'm living right in the middle of so many of them, but they just make me shake my head.  Perhaps the Iowa fans aren't familiar with a winning tradition and they just don't know how to win gracefully.  Perhaps since we don't have  pro football the idiots gravitate to the most visable college team.  For what ever reason I find it easy to hate the Hawks because of the people that love the Hawks.

Wow a Wartburg guy talking smack about Iowa....that's about as low as it gets for me. I understand the frustration, there are some bad Iowa fans out there... but we have a LOT of great ones, just ask anyone on a bowl committee!!

[sportsknight]

just ask anyone on a bowl committee!!

Actually a friend of mine that was scouting Iowa for the Champs Sports Bowl was real impressed by how empty the student section got in the second half of that Western Michigan game. 

[Walston Hoover]

They had been to the Insight.com blows and Independence Bowls and both said that the Iowa fan base/following was much better. 

Not sure if that typo was supposed to be there but its still pretty funny. I'm not arguing Iowa's following.

I have a bit of a limited experiance but I can say the atmosphere at Iowa games as far as tailgating and stadium experiance is superior to what I have seen at ISU, UNI, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Mizzou and K-State.

Hate to break it to you, but the tailgating at ISU and Wisconsin are far superior to Iowa. Believe it or not, I've heard people say ISU is almost as good of tailgating as the SEC...Almost. It has to be good there, no one goes for the actual football game. Not much in the Big 11 or 12 compares to Madison on gameday.

I can appreciate some of Warthog's generalizations, growing up a Cyclone fan in Hawk country. Each fan base has the types he speaks of, there are just exponentially more hawk fans around Warthog and where I grew up so it seems like a ton of "winners" around.

One of friends families actually has season tickets and parking pass to park right by the stadium.  Its funny to watch all the people stroll in 2 hours before the game and open up their Buick and start grilling brats.  You could not even pull into Olive Court two hours before the game and hope to get a spot. 

A Ton more spaces to tailgate in Ames. Those lots you speak of are not where the main tailgates happen. The grass lots and mid-level donor lots with the tricked out old CyRide busses are where its at. If numbers make for the best tailgate than ISU can't compete with anyone. But there's a lot more to it than the number of people in the parking lot. Also being able to leave at halftime to go out and chug a couple more brews before the third quarter is priceless, but this is the last year one will be able to do that.
I've actually tailgated more in IC than Ames. And with my Saturday coaching responsibilities, I'm lucky to get to Jack Trice by the end of the first quarter.

[Klopenhiemer]

They had been to the Insight.com blows and Independence Bowls and both said that the Iowa fan base/following was much better. 

Not sure if that typo was supposed to be there but its still pretty funny. I'm not arguing Iowa's following.

I have a bit of a limited experiance but I can say the atmosphere at Iowa games as far as tailgating and stadium experiance is superior to what I have seen at ISU, UNI, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Mizzou and K-State.

Hate to break it to you, but the tailgating at ISU and Wisconsin are far superior to Iowa. Believe it or not, I've heard people say ISU is almost as good of tailgating as the SEC...Almost. It has to be good there, no one goes for the actual football game. Not much in the Big 11 or 12 compares to Madison on gameday.

I can appreciate some of Warthog's generalizations, growing up a Cyclone fan in Hawk country. Each fan base has the types he speaks of, there are just exponentially more hawk fans around Warthog and where I grew up so it seems like a ton of "winners" around.

One of friends families actually has season tickets and parking pass to park right by the stadium.  Its funny to watch all the people stroll in 2 hours before the game and open up their Buick and start grilling brats.  You could not even pull into Olive Court two hours before the game and hope to get a spot. 

A Ton more spaces to tailgate in Ames. Those lots you speak of are not where the main tailgates happen. The grass lots and mid-level donor lots with the tricked out old CyRide busses are where its at. If numbers make for the best tailgate than ISU can't compete with anyone. But there's a lot more to it than the number of people in the parking lot. Also being able to leave at halftime to go out and chug a couple more brews before the third quarter is priceless, but this is the last year one will be able to do that.
I've actually tailgated more in IC than Ames. And with my Saturday coaching responsibilities, I'm lucky to get to Jack Trice by the end of the first quarter.

+k for finding that.  I was going to change it, but I wondered if anyone would pick up on it

[sportsknight]

Freddy Jackson featured on the KCRG Sports tonight...
http://www.kcrg.com/sports/22848169.html

[Dutchster]

I guess I'm going against the grain here.  I hate University of Iowa football.

1) Until the recent renovations, Kinnick Stadium was "expanded" by simply narrowing the seat lines.  It is way too crowded especially later in the season when people are wearing coats.  You have a 70,000 seat stadium designed for 50,000.

2) Parking is awful.

3) Fans are rude and mean spirited.  Example: One of our friends is a local attorney.  In the past he would allow the university to use his plane to ferry basketball and wrestling coaches around on recruiting trips.  As a result his Carver tickets are right next to the locker room tunnel.  Even though he got his MBA at Iowa and he is an Iowa fan he attended law school at Drake.  When Drake dropped D1 football you may remember they had a last season game at Iowa.  Our friend decided to wear his Drake shirt to the game.  I've never seen such pricks as the Iowa fans that day.  They knew the Hawks would win, it was a name the score type of game.  They threw things at us.  They intentionally pushed and tried to pick fights.  Even though the Little Warthogs were with us, the Iowa fans used language any decent person would refrain from using around little kids.  It wasn't just a couple people it was large numbers of them.  I never saw anything like it even at Iowa/Iowa State games.  I figured it had to do with the fact that you would norally have enough Cyclone fans around that some of the loud mouth pricks would think twice about their behavior.  That day, with just a few Drake people around, there was no such restraint.  The thing that is amazing is that the "Iowa Fans" had no idea they were being pricks to one of their own.  By the way, the University of Iowa no longer gets the use of his plane.  They still assign him Carver tickets by the tunnel and try to get him back in the saddle, but he can't forget the Drake game.

4) Iowa fans are for the most part Johnny Come Lately.  90 percent of the idiots who walk around with black & gold Hawkeye shirts and shouting "Go Hawks" never finished hgh school and have no concept of the history concerning Iowa Football.  Sometime for the fun of it ask a typical Iowa fan, "Who is Nile Kinnick?"  Over half will tell you Nile and Kinnick were the two guys that gave most of the money for the Stadium.  If they happen to get the question right, ask them about Alex Karras, Bobby Jeter or Forrest Evechevski. (sp)

I guess my biggest beef is with the typical Iowa fan.  Maybe it is because I'm living right in the middle of so many of them, but they just make me shake my head.  Perhaps the Iowa fans aren't familiar with a winning tradition and they just don't know how to win gracefully.  Perhaps since we don't have  pro football the idiots gravitate to the most visable college team.  For what ever reason I find it easy to hate the Hawks because of the people that love the Hawks.

Wow...you are old enough to have attended a football game between Drake and Iowa at Kinnick, but still managed to post something that sounded like it came from a bitter junior high kid making generalizations based on a bad experience.  Sorry, I usually try not to be a "mean spirited prick/idiot" as you would put it, but for you I can make an exception.  Stick it in your ass!

[The Show]

I have always felt that the true Hawk fans are the ones that are born and raise in the state.  These are the people who paint tiger hawk logos on the grain bins. 

Or above their 2 month old son's crib!   


As far as warthog's generalizations, flip it around over here...sometimes being a Hawkeye fan in Cyclown territory gets a tad annoying as well.  But all-in-all, we co-exist pretty well.