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Fun College Sports Traditions
Overview
The Holiday season is in full swing! With the season being in full swing comes a lot of traditions that revolve around the different holidays that people celebrate. Each family has fun and unique traditions that they look forward to each year, whether thats running a turkey trot on Thanksgiving, baking holiday cookies, or spending quality time with friends and family. Each tradition holds a special place in the memories and hearts of every family. This is a similar to the many traditions that are seen in college sports. In this blog post we will be looking at three sports traditions that holds a special place in the teams history and in the hearts of the fans and the team.
Hawkeye Wave - University of Iowa
The Hawkeye Wave is a heartwarming tradition of waving to the Children that are receiving care at The University of Iowa’s Stead Family Children’s hospital, at the end of the first quarter of every home game. This tradition started in 2017 after the new children's hospital was opened right next to The University of Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium. The design and the proximity of the children’s hospital allowed the patients inside the hospital to be able to see into the football stadium. This fact gave Krista Young, a student at University of Iowa, the idea to wave at the children across the street during the football game. She posted her idea on social media and it received a large amount of attention, so much so that at the home opener of the 2017 season at the end of the first quarter thousands of Iowa fans turned to wave to the patients at the children’s hospital. Since that game a tradition has been born of waving at the children at the Children’s hospital at the end of the first quarter.
The 12th Man - Texas A&M University
The 12th Man is the story about one student who was willing and ready to enter the game if he was needed that has sparked the student section at basketball and football games to stand the entirety of the game to show that they are ready if they are needed. The 12th Man came to be on January 2, 1922 during a football game where Texas A&M were facing Centre College Praying Colonels, a top ranked team. During the game the majority of the team faced injuries and were taken out of the game, this left only 11 players left. The coach knowing that a current basketball player and former football player E. King Gill was in the stands called him down to the field and had him suite up in case he was needed to play. Remarkably, he stood at the sideline the entire game being the only one on the bench while the 11 remaining players went on to win the game. This gained him the title of “The 12th Man” and his readiness to serve his team is still seen today by the fact that the student section stands for whole basketball and football games.
Howard’s Rock - Clemson
Howard’s Rock is a rock that was given to the beloved coach Frank Howard by a friend (Jones) who brought the rock all the way from Death Valley to Clemson. After the rock was brought to Clemson it spent 2 years in the coaches office until it was relocated to the football stadium at the top of the hill in the east end zone. On September 24th, 1966 after the rock had been placed the Clemson Tigers had an amazing comeback during a game against Virginia and won the game. From then on Coach Howard told his players that if they were going to give “maximum effort” then they could rub the rock for good luck. This cemented the fact that the rock was a good luck charm for the team and is still in the east end zone.
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