See that adorable little guy above?
That’s me. It really is. You can ask my mother. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to take on the world. Or ride my pedal tractor around, or whatever. You’ll also notice the shirt I’m wearing. In 1992, I came out of the hospital wearing something that looked kind of like it. I was truly born a Cyclone. My father graduated from there and my mother is a rare breed, one of the few remaining Panther-Clones.
My entire up-bringing was filled with the Cyclones. Watching them on TV or listening to them on the radio. If the football or basketball game wasn’t on TV, I’d turn on my radio to 1600 AM and listen to the game, keeping my own box score in a spiral notebook. I even printed out the entire football roster on my mom’s nice resume paper even though she explicitly told me not to (we were out of regular paper, sorry Mom), so I could manually input all of the names into Iowa State’s roster on NCAA Football 2003.
My first basketball game was the Women’s NIT Semifinal at Hilton Coliseum vs UNLV in 2004. I remember being absolutely flabbergasted by the environment and the rabid fans. The Cyclones ended up losing, but my fandom was cemented forever.
Throughout the years, I closely followed all sorts of Cyclone greats. I took pleasure in watching Bret Meyer, Todd Blythe (my favorite Cyclone of all time), and Stevie Hicks light up the scoreboard and even gain a national ranking before playing a game at Army (which I was unable to watch on TV due scheduling conflicts with my Boy Scout troop’s Red Flannel Campout). That same year, Curtis Stinson, Will Blalock, Rahshon Clark, Damian Staple, Jared Homan, and John Neal beat Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse and made the NCAA Tournament. I couldn’t get enough of it.
A few years down the road, I arrived at the campus of Iowa State University to begin my studies as a Construction Engineer. In my 4 1⁄2 years at Iowa State, I never missed a single home football game or women’s basketball game, and missed exactly one men’s home game due to a final exam. I sat in the front row for everyone single one of those games, starting with my sophomore year and was the flag runner for the final 2 1⁄2 seasons. I met a ton of people and made a bunch of great friends, some of which I’m still in contact with today.
While all of these experiences are part of the experience of being a Cyclone fan, my reasons for donning the cardinal and gold damn near every day are much more personal.
My hometown of Cascade, IA is dead-nuts in the heart of Hawkeye country. All I ever heard at school was Brad Banks this or Drew Tate that. The name Shonn Greene still sounds like nails on a chalk board to me. Most of those years coincided with some down years for Iowa State football, which only contributed to the black and gold word-shaped farts falling out of the front of their faces. Coincidentally (or not), the few Cyclone fans I went to school with often ended up on the fringes of the raging cliquedom that was my elementary and high schools.
Guess where I ended up. Yeah, I wasn’t even in the same time zone as the “cool kids.” I was always on the outside looking in. I will place some blame on my unrelenting lack of talent in most sports and the fact that I never hit the 5’ tall mark until part way into my freshman year of high school, but that’s not the point, and asking a 9 year old to choose their friends based on personality and common interests is pretty unrealistic. I also just never really meshed with my classmates, and me being the target of all the “Iowa State sucks” jokes just piled on top of an already suffering social network.
Through elementary and high school, I never made many friends and felt pretty isolated most days. The few friends I did make have become lifelong friendships that I’ll cherish, but the vast majority of my classmates were distant on good days, and downright mean on the not-so-good days. Through all of it though, Iowa State athletics was a shining beacon. The football team sucked and Greg McDermott (a native of my hometown) was busy driving the basketball team straight down the toilet, but I didn’t care. My fandom almost intensified as the team got worse since I had to hear about it everyday and constantly felt the need to defend myself. I took it personally. It was me vs. the cool kids.
After graduation I accepted a position with a contractor out of Chicago, but worked on projects pretty much everywhere besides Chicago. Over the course of two years, I lived in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia, usually for less than 6 months at a time. At Iowa State I had finally found a community where I felt at home, now I had a new home every six months. Every time I would start to make friends in my new city, I would have to move just a month or two later. I was miserable.
By the time I got to West Virginia I had completely stopped trying to make new friends. After work, I would just go to the gym (an area which I am generally clueless in), go home, play Xbox, then go to sleep. Rinse and repeat. I had no friends within 1,000 miles and most of my in-person interactions had been reduced to work-related discussion.
In the end though, it all worked out. This past March I finally decided I had had enough. I accepted a new job in Des Moines and moved home. I was finally where I knew I belonged, Next to family, friends, and the Cyclones. I’ve since purchased season tickets and can’t wait to get back to tailgating amongst the Cyclone faithful and my new friends at WRNL.
Our beloved Cyclones, especially the football and basketball programs, have bright futures, and I have my family and friends around me to enjoy every moment. I really couldn’t ask for anything more.
That’s why I’m a Cyclone.