A Salute to the Late Great BIG 8

A SALUTE TO THE LATE, GREAT BIG 8

I had trepidation regarding my 2016 trip to America’s heartland.   My last trek to Nebraska was in 2012 to see Denard Robinson’s Michigan team make their first visit ever to Lincoln.  That October 27 night was frigid.  So, I assumed the weather in early November could be even less forgiving, especially for another night game in Ames, Iowa.  To my surprise and amazement, the weather proved to be idyllic short- sleeve weather during the days.  If this planet is going to hell via global warming,  we should at least enjoy parts of the journey.

After flying into Omaha’s Eppley Field, FFF (“French Femme Fatale”) and I had the pleasure of a gorgeous drive through rolling Western Iowa farmland with the trees providing a carousel of fall colors.    I was excited to make my maiden trip to Iowa State.  I regarded long-suffering Cyclone fans as among the most loyal in college football.  It is one thing to get behind powerhouses like Alabama or Ohio State – quite another to support a perennial loser like Iowa State.  When grading on a curve, I place fans of Iowa State and South Carolina on a special plateau.  Decades of generally mediocre football have never deterred strong attendance at their turnstiles.  In the generation before Hayden Fry turned around the Iowa program, I would have put Hawkeye fans in the same lofty category.

The 2016 Cyclone team was not having an unusual year, coming into the night’s Oklahoma tilt with a 1-7 record.   In their opener, Iowa State demonstrated why the Cyclones are often the third best team in Iowa by losing  to perennial 1-AA power, Northern Iowa.  However, the Cyclones are usually good for one upset or scare each year in Ames, the biggest upset being a November 2011,   37-31 shocker of Oklahoma State which cost the Cowboys a BCS berth and allowed Alabama to back door into a title rematch with LSU.  I was worried that Iowa State had already shot their “scare wad” for the year as the Cyclones coughed up a 2-TD lead in losing, 45-42, to then undefeated Baylor,

Iowa State was competitive but lost 34-24 to the Sooners.  The Cyclones had  some moments of glory and briefly took a 17-14 lead.  However, the last of Baker Mayfield’s 4 first half TD passes came right before halftime, making it 28-17 and taking a lot of wind out of the ISU sails.  Oklahoma wide receiver,    Dede Westbrook had another spectacular game  with 131 yards of receiving in addition to a scintillating kickoff return.      Like Cam Newton, Westbrook was another spectacular product from Blinn Community College.    Defenses had a conundrum.  Westbrook’s excellence  demanded a double team but that left one less defender who might be able to help put pressure on an OU offensive line that proved excellent in providing ample protection for the accurate passes of Baker Mayfield.

During the game, we found out the reason for the name of ISU’s Jack Trice stadium.  Trice was an African American Cyclone in 1923 when not many blacks were allowed to play.  The 21-year-old Trice died during a game.  Who knew?  I previously assumed Jack Trice was some megarich donor along  the lines of Oklahoma State’s Boone Pickens or Oregon’s Phil Knight.  The following day, we toured Des Moines and received another reminder that Iowa was a strong Union state during the Civil War.  The Des Moines museum has a memorable room featuring the Civil War with an emphasis on Iowa’s involvement in the massive conflict, especially against its slave-state neighbor to the South, Missouri.   The narrative was eye opening as the history books’ focus on the Civil War is almost exclusively based on battles east of the Mississippi River.  One does not think of Iowa as an unusually  strong supporter of black rights, but another reminder was  Missouri’s refusal to schedule its nearby northern neighbor in Iowa City (less than 200 miles separate the campuses) for 100+ years.  In 1910, Iowa’s roster included a star African American tackle, Archie Alexander.  In the Hawkeyes’ last EVER visit to Columbia, Alexander was forbidden to play in Missouri’s 5-0 win.  After the game, Hawkeye coach, Jesse Hawley, vowed never to play in Columbia again.  His stance was partly pragmatic.  Iowa only had 19 players on its squad and most played both sides of the ball.   Alexander’s status triggered a correspondence war between the Presidents of the two institutions.  The Iowa president, George MacLean, proposed that when Missouri next played in Iowa  in 1911 that Alexander be allowed to play using the metaphor “When in Rome, do as the Romans.”  The response from the Missouri President A. Ross Hill in far less politically correct times stated that Mizzou was not to going to play against any “niggers.”  Period.  End of rivalry.  If there was a defense in Hill’s posture, some previous Iowa visits to Missouri had resulted in brawls with fans, spilling out of the stands.  Much more mayhem than the typical Trump rally! For Alexander, the snub was only a temporary setback as he later became the Governor of the Virgin Islands.

Almost a century later, Missouri was finally scheduled to play Iowa from 2005-2008 until the Tigers backed out.  Thanks to a third-tier bowl game, the 2010 Insight Bowl, the Hawkeyes and Tigers finally met on the gridiron a full century after Alexander was relegated to spectator status in Columbia.  If one doubts that Missourians felt strongly about its previous stance on race relations, one need only remember that the Show Me State is the only state in the union that precipitated a shooting war with another state (abolitionist Kansas in the years leading up to the Civil War).

I heartily recommend visiting the Des Moines museum for multiple reasons.  Another spectacular exhibit exists that will thrill political junkies.  The museum has a room celebrating Iowa’s status as the kick off for each Presidential election.   Stickers  and photos of a zillion candidates, many long forgotten, are featured.  As you leave the museum and look one block up the large hill to the east, one can view the most spectacular capital building I have seen.  The capital offers unique, 5-domed majesty.  Simply spectacular!

As this was a doubleheader weekend,  we left Des Moines en route to the Little Apple:  Manhattan, Kansas.  I love eschewing the Interstates and taking isolated country highways, often spotting gems of small towns that time has forgot.  There was ample reward 40 miles southwest of Des Moines.  We were smack dab in the middle of Madison County.  “The Bridges of Madison County” is one of FFF’s all-time favorite romantic novels.   We toured the County and loved the covered bridges.  The county seat of Winterset is a magical farm town.  As we departed, FFF expressed her profound happiness that the movie’s co-star, Meryl Streep finally got to marry long-time love, Robert Redford.   She wistfully observed that Redford would have been a much better choice as Streep’s co-star than Clint Eastwood.

Later that evening, we arrived in Topeka.   Kansas’ capital was sure no Des Moines.  Not only was the state capitol entirely outclassed by the treasure we saw earlier that day, the city was badly in need of a redo.  The buildings were old, replete with dated, drab brick buildings   and devoid of anything remotely resembling architectural creativity.  There are many Topekas in the rural states.  As family farms became unable to compete with the large, agri-corporations in the 1980s and 1990s, the general prosperity of the middle class  eroded.  Topeka did hold one surprise.  Washburn is the local university.  Their nickname is Ichabods.  What is an Ichabod???

Our Saturday arrival in Manhattan produced two surprises.  I expected a small  to non-existent town a la Starkville Mississippi.  Instead, Manhattan was  modern and reasonably sized.  Now for the real shock:  Next to campus, on Moro Street, one was in the midst of “Aggieville.”  At one intersection, there are a half dozen sports bars within one block.  FFF dissented.  She claimed the number was closer to ten.  Now, if there is one element in which the Odyssey has allowed me to have unparalleled expertise, it is on the general subject of sports bars.  Would it be arrogant for me to proclaim that I have no peers in this realm?  As such, I hope the following comment has the appropriate gravitas:  Manhattan, Kansas is the sports bar capital of North America.  Maybe this makes sense.  After the crops have been harvested and the corn stalks have been plowed back into the earth, maybe there is little else to do for 4-5 months but drink and watch sports.

I was really excited to get to the Bill Snyder Family Stadium.  How cool is it to be able to see a 77-year-old living legend still coaching em up?  VERY cool!!! When one enters the Stadium from the West, you are entering  the Bill Snyder kingdom.  Literally!  Behind his life-size statue, the stadium façade is a fortress, turrets and all.  Every accolade Snyder gets is well deserved.  Iconic Oklahoma coach, Barry Switzer, once opined, “Bill Snyder is not the Coach of the Year and not the Coach of the Decade.  He is the Coach of the Century.”  Before Snyder’s 1989 arrival, Kansas State was the losingest program of the previous half-century.  By far!   He used numerous junior college transfers to great effect.  He smartly got his new ranks to mesh more easily by employing tissue-soft non-conference schedules to ready the squad for the Big 8/12 schedule.

Like a rock star, Snyder could not resist  when the adoring audience asked for an encore.   After two mediocre years, Snyder retired in 2005 at the spry age of 66.  His successor, Ron Prince, was canned after three less-than-mediocre years.  By proclamation, Snyder returned in 2009.  One gauge of Snyder’s current popularity was evidenced by the 32^nd consecutive sellout of 52,000 partisan Wildcat fans. His run-first philosophy is clearly at odds with what the Big 12 had morphed into: super high octane passing offenses with defense often an afterthought.  But it is understandable to be “old school” when you are very old.  A prototypical Big 12 team was visiting Manhattan:  Oklahoma State with its prolific passing attack featuring third-year starter, Mason Rudolph.

We entered the stadium 20 minutes before kickoff and encountered the second-most patriotic afternoon ever at a football venue (I attended an Army game at West Point in 2011 on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11).  The band would have made John Sousa proud and was highlighted by a rendition of The Stars and Stripes in which not only were the lyrics posted on the jumbotron but you could hear loud singing:  a development that would NEVER happen on either coast.  Later, at halftime, the Wildcat band saluted all five of country’s military branches (yes, even the Coast Guard was recognized) with innovative marching formations, capped by a unfurling of the American flag at mid-field by a number of soldiers.  This outpouring of patriotism provided further evidence that we are two Americas.  I felt sorry for these fine people that their coming choice in the presidential election, three days hence, was between a pair of serial liars, one corrupt and the other a megalomaniac.   They, and all of us, certainly deserved better.

The game proved to be an absolute thriller, easily one of the best of the hundreds I have attended.  KSU could not stop the pass.  Oklahoma State (sorry, I cannot use OSU because that acronym means something so galactically different to me) could not stop the KSU running game, featuring the keepers of QB Jesse Ertz.  One of the game’s many pivotal points occurred with just under 9 minutes to go in the game.  KSU was leading, 37-28, courtesy of three Cowboy turnovers.  The Wildcats had 4^th and 1 at midfield.  The players begged the sideline to let them go for the first down.  Snyder demurred and made a reasonable decision to punt the ball.   One Rudolph bomb later, the score quickly changed to 37-35, as Rudolph was in route to passing for 457 yards.  The Cowboys got the ball back and scored again to take the lead, 43-37, with 1:45 to go.  K-State was far from  done (At K-State, the hyphen is quite important!  The hyphen is emblazoned in the end zone.  When the cheerleaders run around with lettered flags after the score, there are 7 flags, not six.  The hyphen is included.    I wonder if the decision makers were worried that the populace would not understand “KState” without the hyphen.  Who knew that the Little Apple would be the king of both the sports bar and hyphen worlds?).

With ten seconds left, K-State had marched down to the Cowboy 3 as the raucous crowd was going nuts.  On the ensuing pass play, the Wildcats were called for a rarely called offensive pass interference penalty.  On the last play of the game, from the Cowboy 18, Ertz’ pass was intercepted in the end zone.  Ball game on a magical Saturday afternoon.

More, please!!!  And when Oklahoma hosts Okie State in Bedlam, they may well win but their suspect pass defense will be hard pressed to hold the Cowboys under 40 points.