Athletics
The "Cyclones" name dates back to 1895. That year, Iowa suffered an unusually high number of devastating cyclones (as tornadoes were called at the time). In September, the Iowa State football team traveled to Northwestern University and defeated its highly-regarded team by a score of 36-0. The next day, the Chicago Tribune's headline read "Struck by a Cyclone: It Comes from Iowa and Devastates Evanston Town." The article reported that "Northwestern might as well have tried to play football with an Iowa cyclone as with the Iowa team it met yesterday." The nickname stuck and the Iowa State team had made a name for itself.
The school colors are cardinal and gold. The mascot is Cy the Cardinal, introduced in 1954. Since a cyclone was determined to be difficult to depict in costume, the cardinal was chosen in reference to the school colors. A contest was held to select a name for the mascot, with the name Cy being chosen as the winner. In early Summer 2007, Cy was voted by fans on the CBS Sports website as the "Most Dominant College Mascot on Earth". In 2009, Cy won the Capital One Mascot competition.
The Iowa State Cyclones are a member of the Big 12 Conference and compete in NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), fielding 16 varsity teams in 12 sports. The Cyclones also compete in and are a founding member of the Central States Collegiate Hockey League of the American Collegiate Hockey Association. Iowa State teams and individuals have achieved great success, including national championships in wrestling, gymnastics, cross country, and club ice hockey.
Iowa State's intrastate archrival is the University of Iowa whom it competes annually for the Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series trophy, an annual athletic competition between the two schools. Sponsored by the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the competition includes all head-to-head regular season competitions between the two rival universities in all sports.
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