For those not familiar, there is a huge water tower outside of Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. It is blindly, glaringly lacking any sort of Tiger Hawk, and for that mater, any black OR gold paint at all. It’s one of those things that after a morning of tailgating, and seeing roughly 150,000 Tiger Hawk logos around you (I’m not exaggerating, that would be just over 2 per fan, which is actually probably quite low, and that’s just in the stadium), you look up at this enormous looming structure over the stadium and go, “What the hell?”
Let me illustrate with a couple of pictures I found on the web (I’d go take one myself, but that whole 5 hour drive each way thing…):
Look at that celebration on the field!!!! And what's that up in the sky? A bland, white water tower.
Look at that school spirit, all those Tiger Hawks, that great college atmosphere. And that bland, white water tower.
Now why, you may ask, would you leave something so imposing and prominently visible unadorned? Well, from what I can find, it’s because the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) owns the water tower and hates Iowa Football. Iowa in general really. As well as fun. They hate fun, Iowa Football, Tiger Hawks, Kinnick Stadium, Iowa fans, school spirit / pride, and the state of Iowa at large. In short, they hate all things good and holy in this world.
However, the forces of good are gathering. There is currently a petition to get the water tower painted. And a Facebook group. Also, Gary Barta, the Iowa athletics director, is on board. Let’s get that sucker painted.
To help facilitate this, I’m not only blogging to raise awareness, and promoting the Facebook group and the petition, I’d like to offer some poorly photoshoped design ideas, as what to put on it still seems pretty nebulous.
I’ll present them in order of least offensive to the Fun Haters at the UIHC, to most awesome.
Candiate One:
Still pretty lame
So, it’s still lame. It’s still isn’t really football or Hawkeye, but it does at least get UI up there in some form. It would let the UIHC feel like they have continued to thumb their collective noses at football fans, but it’s something. And perhaps it will at least remind the opposing team’s players that they may be on the way to the hospital.
Candiate Two:
meh
Incrementally better. At least now we’re talking about the school. It’s still white so you can’t really claim any safety concerns for helicopters crashing into it (though really you could paint it any color and put some lights on it and still get over that, there are plenty of other darkly colored structures in Iowa City they’ve managed to avoid so far.). It’s a middle ground. We’ve got something that could be associated with the hospital, or the school, or the team. It shows a little pride and is dignified. It strikes me as feasible if a little boring.
Candidate Three:
Now we're talking
We’ve got some school colors up there. It’s simple, it’s clean, it sticks to school spirit while still potentially being acceptable to the overlords at the UIHC. With some decent photoshopping skills, it might not look to bad at all. But, we all know what really belongs up there…
Candidate Four:
Aaahhhhhhh, perfect.
You can’t argue, it’s perfect. It’s the logo of the school and says nothing of the UIHC, but they can paint the other side with whatever they like (though if it’s a Cyclone just to spite football fans they may be lynched, just saying). It’s a hawk flying in the sky. It’s what belongs there. End of story. I admit that it may be a little hard to get it to look right with the curve of the water tower and the perspective of the field, but think of all the graduating Art Majors with no jobs – let’s put them to work.
As a bonus, just think of what it would look like if properly illuminated at night (you know, for the helicopter’s safety and all):
The Hawk Signal. Hell Yeah.
You should go sign the petition, and join the Facebook group.
