It's GREAT to be a Hawkeye but you gotta be tough.

QUOTE from Dan Gable, the famous wrestler at Iowa State, in the Olympics in 1972 and legendary wrestling coach at Iowa from the 1970s to the 1990s:
"Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy."


Our son Brad came home last Friday night so we could go to the Hawkeye-Tennessee Tech game on Saturday. He had flown from Copenhagen, Denmark to San Francisco the previous Monday to attend a business conference. Brad is what you call a died-in-the-wool Hawkeye fan and and for reason just manages to get to Anamosa 3-4 times each fall to attend Hawk games.

Even though the forecast was for an 80% chance of heavy rain he and I went anyway. The weather forecast was right on. We got to the parking lot at 9 AM and by 10:30 the rain started. We got our rain gear on and headed for the stadium. When I sat down I moved my toes and it felt like I had a half inch of water in my shoes. It rained most of the first quarter then let up and even stopped for most of the second quarter. BUT during halftime it the rain started bigtime again with the wind blowing 20-25 mph. By the middle of the third quarter the fans started exiting the stadium. Finally, with about five minutes left in the third quarter I told Brad I'm leaving and I'd listen to the rest on the radio. The Hawks were ahead 34-0 anyway so I just wanted to get warm in the car and get out of the downpour.

In the car I heard Gary Dolphin announce that the stadium was ordered to be evacuated immediately and the players were to go to the locker room. The danger was the lightning. There was about 3-4 minutes left in the third quarter. Shortly thereafter I was joined in the car by Brad. He said that it would only be a half hour delay and then the game would resume and he was going back to watch the rest of it. The NCAA rule is if there is lightning in the area the game must be delayed by a half hour. If lightning is spotted again at 29 minutes the game will be delayed another half hour. Well, that is what happened - the game was delayed about an hour and twenty minutes. In the final quarter only about 2,000 fans went back in, the game started with 65,000.

After the second delay Brad was ready to go. When we got home it was still pouring down rain. We didn't unpack. I went in the bedroom and changed clothes. Every piece of clothing I had on was soaked. Even though I had raingear on the wind had blown so hard it came in through the front of my neck. Did warm dry clothes feel good.

Brad and I were part of a history making event as Kinnick Stadium had never been evacuated. It opened in 1929.

AS I said "It's great to be a HAWKEYE but you gotta be tough." Sixty five thousand Hawkeye fans proved that on Saturday, September, 3, 2011.