Overreaction Monday: A Hawkeye State of the Union

Hello.

After taking a break for a year, it’s once again a Hawkeye State.

We’ve always known it’s a Hawkeye state, however. Iowa hosed the other team for the fourth consecutive year in football back in September, and that’s pretty much enough validation for anyone that the Hawks control the state. Men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling, volleyball, swimming, baseball, liberal arts, law school—those are all just cherries on top.

I don’t want to use this space to re-litigate the asshatery displayed by the Iowa State basketball team and its coaches after getting moosed in Carver-Hawkeye Arena this past Thursday. You already know Iowa State fans would’ve demanded Iowa disband its basketball program if Fran had acted the way Steve Prohm did. You already know Iowa players were in the right and our opponents were not. You already know, for all its warts, the Iowa athletic program excretes rainbows while the Iowa State program and its fans are but a troll army that would rival those of Middle Earth. The athletics are led by a director who is the closest thing we’ll get to a real-life Gargamel.

And that’s all I want to say about that. Here, I just want to quickly address the state of the ... state of Iowa, which is, in fact, a Hawkeye State.

Iowa football and Volleyball took down the Clones back in September. And in this month alone, both basketball teams, the Iowa wrestling team, and the women’s swim team defeated Iowa State, to clinch the Cy-Hawk with four more categories (one of which is academics) to play out.

So this week, when you log onto Twitter, or look into leaving a comment here, or interact with a co-worker, don’t feel any need to rub salt in the wounds of Cyclones. And when you interact with other Iowa fans... be nice! Everyone is already experiencing varying levels of anger with everything else at this time, so there’s no point in going at the throat of your brother in Hawkeyedom.

When you inevitably bear witness to some evil on the interwebs this week, I implore you to think about former Iowa offensive lineman Ike Boettger, who wore these cleats while playing for the Buffalo Bills yesterday.

Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Sporting the Iowa children’s hospital as an NFL player is pretty awesome. That’s something we can all get behind. Nobody is going to fight one-another in the comments about Boettger’s gesture. Nobody is going to argue that the Iowa Wave offers the Hawkeyes an unfair home field advantage.

We’re all on the same team here, right now. Not just as Iowa fans, but in life. A rising tide lifts all boats, and being damn decent to one another offers the smoothest sailing.

This is my long-winded way of saying: let’s try and be a little more decent in the comments, OK? We’ve banned and warned more people this month alone than we have in the three years since getting behind the wheel of The Pants. There’s enough nastiness going on around other boards, we don’t need that here. Max and myself and everyone else on staff is committed to giving you the best experience possible, and when people are going at each other’s throats, no one wins.

I’m not telling you guys to not engage in discourse, but let’s ignore trolls, refrain from making inflammatory remarks, but continue to publicly shame anyone who likes Big Bang Theory, alright? Those are the principles I wanted to most bring to this site. If I wanted to deal in passive-aggression I would’ve looked for a job in the football program.

So everyone go out there, be good to each other, and hold your head high knowing it’s once again a Hawkeye State.