FRYfest Trivia Quiz – 2023.

The Johnson County Historical Society welcomes you to FRYFest 2023.

We assume you are here because you’ve taken our ten-question FRYfest Trivia Quiz. So, are you ready for the answers?

In what year did the State University of Iowa (SUI) play its first “official” football game?

A) 1873.

B) 1889. 

C) 1893.

D) 1902.

Football was first played as a club sport at Iowa in 1872, with intramural games against other colleges played as early as 1882, but it was not until 1889 that the University of Iowa first officially recognized a varsity football team. Beginning in 1892, Iowa played for six seasons as a member of the Western Interstate University Football Association against three other Midwestern flagship state universities. In 1899, again playing as an independent, Iowa completed its first undefeated football season, which led to an invitation to join the Big Ten Conference. Read more here.

When the Hawkeyes joined the Big Ten Conference in 1899, the league went by a different name. What was that league name and how many teams were in the conference before Iowa joined?

A) 5 – The Big 5 Conference.

B) 6 – The Great Lakes Conference.      

C) 7 – The Western Conference.

D) 8 – The Big 8 Conference.

In 1896, seven Midwest schools formed The Western Conference – Chicago, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Northwestern, Purdue & Wisconsin. In 1899, Iowa and Indiana joined the league, and it became known as The Big Nine. Ohio State joined in 1912 but Chicago left in 1946. It wasn’t until 1950 – when Michigan State joined – that the league became best-known as The Big Ten. Read more here.

The Hawkeyes have not always played in Kinnick Stadium. Can you name the other stadiums in Iowa City that preceded Kinnick?

A) EastSide Field & Iowa Stadium.

B) Soldiers Field & Memorial Stadium.

C) Iowa Field & WestSide Stadium.

D) Iowa Field & Iowa Stadium.

Iowa Field (above left) opened in 1895 – located adjacent to the Iowa River just west of Old Capitol – positioned between what is now Iowa Avenue and Burlington Street. SUI President Charles A. Schaeffer – a proponent of college athletics – saw to it that the university had a dedicated space to play baseball, football, and other sports. Once the new Armory opened in 1905, Iowa Field became the hub of Iowa athletics until 1929.

In 1929 – just as the Great Depression hit the nation – Iowa Stadium (above right) opened on the west side of the Iowa River. Throughout its earliest years, many thought it to be an unnecessary luxury, but then, in 1939, a young coach named Eddie Anderson came to Iowa City, recruiting some tough Midwestern Iron Men, and with the leadership of Nile Kinnick, Iowa football and Iowa Stadium was never the same. In 1972, Iowa Stadium was finally renamed – honoring Iowa’s only Heisman Award winner. Read more here.

The University of Iowa has a long history of making room for diversity on its athletic teams. Can you name the young man who became the first black football player to play at SUI – and in fact – was the first African American to play football in Iowa?

A) George Washington Carver – 1892.

B) Frank Kinney Holbrook – 1895.

C) Jack Trice – 1922.

D) Ozzie Simmons – 1933.

The son of a runaway slave, Frank “Kinney” Holbrook overcame numerous obstacles, fighting racial inequality as he embarked on a brave journey, becoming the first African American college football player in the state of Iowa. He attended the State University of Iowa (SUI) and led the Hawkeyes to their first-ever conference championship (1896). Growing up in Tipton, Iowa – just outside of Iowa City, Holbrook was described as an “irrepressible” child with a quick wit. As the story goes, when Kinney was 11 years old, someone asked him why his nose was so flat. Holbrook took the racial slur in stride, replying, “To keep it out of other folks’ business!” Read more here.

Everybody loves Herky the Hawk – right? Herky first appeared – on paper – in 1948, the creation of SUI political cartoonist Dick Spencer III. There were actually two SUI mascots that preceded Herky at Iowa football games. Can you pick them both?

A) Chief Poweshiek.             

B) Burch the Bear.                              

C) Corny the Corn Dog.

D) Rex the ROTC Dog.

E) Hammy the Hog.

F) Floyd of Rosedale.

Burch – the Black Bear – traveled with the Iowa football team when he was just a cub in 1908. But as you know, bear cubs grow up and over the next two years Burch became quite the problem for his manager while also scaring both the opposing teams and the home Hawkeyes as well. Sadly, Burch escaped from his cage in 1910 and was found frozen in the icy waters of the Iowa River. Rex – the ROTC Dog – on the other hand – was owned by the Army Reserved Officers’ Training Corp – and from 1932-1935, Rex ran up and down the sidelines, becoming a fan favorite. Hey – Rex was even featured on the 1932 SUI Homecoming badge! Read more here.

Everybody loves the ole’ coach Hayden Fry, right? As it is with most successful coaches, there is usually a “punch line” that is often associated with that coach. Can you pick the line that is most often associated with Coach Fry?

A) “The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.”

B) “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”

C) “We’ll take what the other teams give us. We’ll scratch where it itches.”

D) “The only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

When Hayden Fry came to Iowa, he immediately turned his attention toward changing a losing attitude that had developed over the years. He hired a marketing group to create the Tigerhawk – a logo to represent the University of Iowa’s athletic programs. Since both shared the colors of black and gold, Fry gained permission from the Pittsburgh Steelers, the dominant NFL program of the time, to overhaul Iowa’s uniforms in the Steelers’ image. Fry had the team “swarm” onto the field together as they left the locker room, holding hands in a show of solidarity. He also had the visitors’ locker room in Kinnick Stadium painted pink. Fry, a psychology major at Baylor, knew that pink is occasionally used in jails and mental institutions to relax and pacify the residents, and Fry claimed that it might have the same effect on visiting teams. Read more here.

Everybody’s favorite color scheme in Iowa City is Black & Gold. Can you name the year that Gold was actually chosen to be our “official” school color?

A) 1847.

B) 1860.

C) 1887.

D) 1902.

In 1847, when SUI was first formed, no one was talking about school colors. Actually, those who were in charge of this fledgling school in those early days (1847-1860) had many more important things to worry about – like lack of funding, low numbers of students, and no buildings to call their own! But by 1887, students at SUI were beginning to ask questions such as – What color represents dear old SUI?– or – Why don’t we have a school song? So, in April 1887, a senior class committee gathered for a vote and their choice of color was “Old Gold”. By May, the entire stock of gold ribbon in Iowa City had been sold to students who wore their Gold ribbons – for the first time – to a SUI/Cornell baseball game in Mt. Vernon. Sadly, there’s no record of when Black was added to compliment Iowa Gold, but from the looks of turn-of-the-century SUI memorabilia, it didn’t take too long! Read more here.

Pretty much everybody knows the words to The Iowa Fight Song. Written in 1950 by Iowa’s own Music Man – Meredith Willson – the tune, while completely original, has an eerie connection to another one of Willson’s popular songs. Can you name which one?

A) It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.

B) May The Good Lord Bless And Keep You.

C) Seventy-Six Trombones.

D) Goodnight, My Someone.

Meredith Willson premiered his new Iowa Fight Song on his NBC radio show, The Big Show, on December 31, 1950, with a 47-piece orchestra and sixteen singers. It became an immediate hit and was introduced by the Hawkeye Basketball Pep Band in the Iowa Field House on February 12, 1951, at the Iowa-Indiana basketball game. Now for the eerie part of Meredith Willson’s two classic songs. Willson was a master in composition and would often write two songs that could be sung/played in counterpoint with each other. He would do this by taking one musical idea, change up the tempo, or time signature, or by simply writing an inversion (a mirror image) of one melodic line. If you listen carefully to The Iowa Fight Song & It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas – which were both written around 1950 – you’ll hear what we mean! Read more here.

Of course, we all hope that the Hawkeyes will be going “bowling” again after this year’s football season. Can you name the first bowl game Iowa played in and the year?

A) 1939 Rose Bowl.

B) 1957 Rose Bowl.

C) 1982 Peach Bowl.

D) 1982 Rose Bowl.

While most everyone knows about Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Iron Men team, sadly, because of bowl limitations at the time, the 1939 Iowa Hawkeyes had no bowl game to be invited to. It wasn’t until 1956, when another young coach – Forest Evashevski – new to Iowa City in 1952 – finally put together a Big Ten Championship Team that went to Iowa’s first Rose Bowl. On January 1, 1957, the Hawkeyes rolled over Oregon State 35-19. Read more here.

  What year was the first FRYFest?

A) 1999.

B) 2006.

C) 2009.

D) 2013.

FRYfest was created in 2009 as a collaborative effort between the Iowa City/Coralville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, City of Coralville, and University of Iowa Athletics to kick-off the Hawkeye football season. The event is named after one of the greatest Hawkeyes of all time and the man who is responsible for bringing the Tigerhawk to the University of Iowa: Hayden Fry. Read more here.

0-2 – Go home, hit the books – come back again next year!

3-4 – Good try, but are you sure you are really a true Hawkeye fan?

5-6 – Hey, not bad. Being average can be fun, can’t it?

7-8 – You, my friend, are a top-notch FRYFest Quiz player!

9-10 – Yup, u da true Hawkeye fan – Black & Gold must run in your blood!

 11 – You deserve a 50-yard-line seat at Kinnick and a big kiss & hug from Herky!

Enjoy FRYfest – and come back to Iowa River Landing soon to visit the Johnson County Historical Society Museum. We have something of interest for everyone – even those pesky Cyclone fans! Read more here.

THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING in this year’s JCHS FRYFest Trivia Quiz!