Manufacturing rivalry (sponsored by...)

This morning, the UI and University of Nebraska-Lincoln unveiled the name for the annual (for now) Hawkeyes-Huskers football series kicking off this fall: the Hy-Vee Heroes Game. The traveling trophy will probably be called the Hy-Vee Heroes Trophy.

From the official news release:

The institutions plan to honor one citizen of Iowa and one citizen of Nebraska prior to each Heroes Game for their extraordinary act. These heroes will be nominated by friends, neighbors or co-workers and will be guests of the two teams at the game where they will be honored on-field during game day. Each will also have their name and hometown etched on the to-be-created Heroes Game trophy.

Gag me with a spoon…after using it to scoop a big dollop of Hy-Vee mustard-style potato salad. This gives the corny moniker “Farmageddon” a nice ring to it. (Interestingly, Farmageddon is the unofficial nickname of the Iowa State-Kansas State series.)

Ever since the Big Ten announced the addition of Nebraska, there was an automatic assumption the Hawkeyes and Huskers should play, be heated rivals, and duel for a trophy in a huge, hyped gridiron battle. Besides the fact the states share a border, I am unsure why. Obviously, Hawkeye fans badly want to beat Nebraska, regardless, and I will admit there is a tiny bit of good-natured competition borne out of our geographical proximity (“Our flag’s better than yours!”). But is the little history there is between the teams enough to earn the upcoming series an official name and trophy? I don’t think so. Other than the 1981 upset, when Hayden Fry’s Hawkeyes first made a national name for themselves, and the recent home-and-home series in 1999 and 2000 (both lopsided victories for the Huskers), I cannot think of any reason to honor the series.

So why the name and trophy? Money — which was the bottom-line for expansion all along — and TV ratings, which have the potential to bring (drum roll, please) more money. It is no surprise Hy-Vee is the sponsor since it lost, or possibly quit, the sponsorship of the less known and less prestigious Cy-Hawk Series.

Commendable, though, is the fact the series will be used to raise funds for non-profit organizations; the Iowa and Nebraska chapters of the Red Cross will be beneficiaries of the first two Heroes Games. But the whole concept makes me roll my eyes. The “hero” term has been used ad nauseam since 9/11, and has all but completely lost any meaning; the police are universally loathed, fire fighters and teachers are victims of budget cuts, and I once heard in college that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan needed to supply their own toothpaste and pillows. (Now that’s how you treat heroes.) However, my major beef is the fact people are manufacturing a college football rivalry just because they think they should.

Rivalries in college football, and the trophies that sometimes accompany them, are rich with history. The reasoning and stories behind them go way back and often transcend the sport. Compared to the significance of Iowa’s rivalry with Minnesota and Floyd of Rosedale, the meaning behind the Hy-Vee Heroes Game and its yet-to-be-revealed trophy is Mickey Mouse shit. You cannot manufacture a rivalry game just to do it, as Michigan State and Penn State discovered. (And do not let a head coach design a trophy.) The fact that a bunch of suits sitting in a big conference room around an expensive table can create a college football rivalry out of thin air for the sake of marketing and hype dilutes the importance of genuine rivalries, those that developed over years of hard fought battles, instilling both programs with a mutual hatred. Frankly, if Iowa has a third major in-conference rival besides Minnesota and Wisconsin, I think it is currently Northwestern. Everyone hates Illinois, but we have not played the pumpkin heads since 2008, and I do not think the two teams will meet for a while.

The Hawkeyes and Huskers could very well develop a heated rivalry. But from the start it should have been allowed to happen on its own, without the fat, meddling fingers of corporate executives getting in the way.