IOWA CITY, Iowa — Fifteen years ago in the heart of downtown Minneapolis, Iowa fans became

the most unwanted house guests in the history of Minnesota football.

On that mid-November afternoon at the Metrodome, more than 32,000 Hawkeyes filled seats
from corner to corner. It was a generational tradition for either Iowa or Minnesota to end its
season against the other and fans from the south often made a weekend of it. After time, the
indoor structure was nicknamed Kinnick North for its boisterous complement of Iowa fans.

But Nov. 16, 2002, was a day that lives in Twin Cities infamy. That's the day when the Gophers'
home finale turned into a nightmare. It was the equivalent of a teenager hosting a party and
the rowdiest group of teens showed up in pick-up trucks and emptied the house of all edible
goods and beverages. And on their way out, they broke off the front door because they could.
And there was nothing anyone could do about that.

That's what happened the day Iowa fans took over the Metrodome, charged the field and broke
apart the goal posts. Even in a century-old rivalry filled with contentious moments and lore,
perhaps nothing was quite as degrading for a home team as that day in Minneapolis.

Season finale
Four years earlier in 1998, Minnesota drilled Iowa 49-7 in what was Hayden Fry's final game in
his legendary Hawkeyes' career. It was Iowa's worst loss in that series since 1949 and only a
last-second touchdown prevented a shutout.

"I went to shake his hand. I had no idea that he was done," said former Minnesota coach Glen
Mason, now a broadcaster with BTN. "You know how Hayden was. He kind of chuckled and he
says, ‘Helluva game. I hope you win ’em all from here on out.’ I thought it was a funny
comment. Then boom, he was done."

Iowa athletics director Bob Bowlsby conducted a coaching search and ultimately hired Kirk
Ferentz about two weeks after Fry's retirement. For the next two years, the Hawkeyes endured
losses at the hands of their northern neighbors and each time the Gophers took home the
iconic Floyd of Rosedale traveling trophy.

In 2001, Iowa beat Minnesota at home which gave the Hawkeyes enough wins to earn a bowl
bid. By 2002, the Iowa football team became a machine. It rolled into Minneapolis unbeaten in
Big Ten play. Before facing the Gophers, the Hawkeyes outscored its five most recent Big Ten
opponents 184-46. That included a 34-9 stomping over No. 8 Michigan, a 20-3 win against
Wisconsin and a 62-10 pounding of Northwestern. At 10-1 overall and 7-0 in Big Ten play, Iowa
was ready for its final step en route to a perfect league campaign.

"We had a really good football team," said Bowlsby, now commissioner of the Big 12
Conference. "Robert Gallery was on that team. Ben Sobieski, Dallas Clark, Bob Sanders. We had
a bunch of good football players. Brad Banks was the runner-up for the Heisman and so we
were pretty darn good. So that was sort of the culmination of a lot of years of recruiting and a
lot of years of hard work. So I think that team went out expecting to win and they did. It was
fun to watch and fun watch them succeed."

Another Iowa victory

Cole Pederson was in his first semester at Division II Minnesota State-Mankato after playing
junior-college baseball at Waldorf in northern Iowa. He followed the Hawkeyes closely that year
and joined a friend and his friend's roommates and drove to Minneapolis that morning for the
2002 game.

Pederson grew up in Garner, Iowa, located about 30 miles south of the Minnesota border in
north-central Iowa. He watched Twins baseball games in the Metrodome as well as other Iowa-
Minnesota battles. But this game was more intense and louder than he could recall.

"It didn’t seem like a home-field advantage for them whatsoever," said Pederson, now a
teacher and coach in West Des Moines, Iowa. "Anything that went well for Iowa, the crowd was
much louder than it was for Minnesota."

Whenever Iowa and Minnesota meet, it's a spirited game. This was no different. Iowa running
back Fred Russell scored on a 10-yard run just 3 minutes, 16 seconds into the game. Minnesota
knotted the game at 7-7, but the Hawkeyes kept coming. Running back Jermelle Lewis ran in on
an option late in the first quarter, and quarterback Brad Banks kept an option for a touchdown
early in the second quarter. Banks hit Maurice Brown for a 31-yard touchdown pass not even
halfway through the second quarter to take a 28-7 lead.

The crowd grew louder and rowdier as the game progressed, and Iowa pounded the Gophers at
will. The Iowa Marching Band played "On Iowa" after a touchdown like it was at Kinnick
Stadium or at least a bowl game. The outcome was pretty much decided midway through the
fourth quarter when Iowa safety Bob Sanders missed a tackle on a punt, then got up and forced
a fumble with a backside hit. The Hawkeyes scored on a Banks sneak to push the score to 45-21
in the fourth quarter. That's how it ended.

Iowa rushed for 365 yards — still the most for a Ferentz-coached team — and forced 6
turnovers. Banks threw for 2 touchdowns and ran for 2 more. The band's "Victory Polka" blared
from the Metrodome as Ferentz met Mason at midfield for a postgame handshake. The sound
nearly drowned out Ferentz's ensuing interview with ESPN's Holly Rowe.

Players celebrated on the turf and many hoisted roses. Banks put one in his teeth and a smile
enveloped the traditional Big Ten championship emblem. The Big Ten turnaround from 0-8 in
1999 to 8-0 in 2002 never felt or smelled so good.
"They were handing out the roses," said former Iowa linebacker Chad Greenway, who later
played 11 seasons with the Minnesota Vikings. "We all thought we were going to the Rose
Bowl. Obviously we won the Big Ten."

"I’m not sure how the roses got there," Bowlsby said. "I didn’t orchestrate it. But there were
certainly a lot of roses there."

Often a Rose Bowl representative will hand out the flowers to make the official invitation to the
Big Ten champion. Iowa's season ended a full week before Ohio State, which still was unbeaten
and had to play Michigan. Plus, if a Big Ten team was plucked for the BCS championship game,
the Rose Bowl might select a different team. That was true of another bowl game.

Downpour of fans
Fry used to laughingly say Iowa fans would take one set of clothes and a $20 bill to the Twin
Cities and not change either one once they got there. After Minneapolis newsmen mocked the
state of Iowa and the football team the week before their 1982 game, Fry changed into
overalls, a flannel shirt and a straw hat to conduct a postgame news conference. Insults are
commonplace among fans of both teams during what the Gophers refer to as "Hate Week."

When the Gophers moved from aging Memorial Stadium to the Metrodome in 1982, their fans
and students responded tepidly. That led to neighboring rivals taking up a third or more of the
seats.

"In that dome, even when we were good, when you played Iowa or Wisconsin you had a chance
to get more of their fans there than our fans," Mason said. "Go figure."

The 2002 game was the epitome of that. The Hawkeyes' celebration started as the game
concluded. Many of Iowa's 32,000-plus fans gradually moved closer to the field in the fourth
quarter. At game's end, the fans flowed on to the Astroturf surface.

Pederson moved from the upper deck to the field level in the fourth quarter. After his Gophers
friends stayed in their seats, Pederson and another Iowa friend hopped on the field. They
instantly became separated.

"It was just a sea of people rushing in," he said. "I remember Brad Banks came and they picked
him up and everybody was clamoring toward him. I think Dallas Clark might have been in there,
too. They picked him up and everybody was going over there. Then I was just kind of wandering
around and I was looking for my friend."

Ferentz was carried off the field on his players' shoulders. Clark and others also were hoisted
around. As Rowe tried to interview Banks on the field, so many fans crowded around them,
Banks couldn't hear her questions. It was madness.
"I’m thinking there were at least 10,000 on the field after the game," Haddy said.

With the remaining Gophers fans booing loudly, Iowa fans descended upon the goal post in the
south end zone. Kinnick Stadium's goal posts became collapsible in the 1980s so fans never
could take them down. However, in Minneapolis, they were metal. The fans attacked it, and the
goal post snapped to thunderous applause.

"You kind of stood there and marveled at it," Bowlsby said. "The Iowa fans are the best in the
country. They’re so loyal and things like the wave to the children’s hospital, those things don’t
happen every place and it says a lot about Iowans and it says a lot about their values. Part of
their values is Iowa always has had a reputation for traveling very well. That was never more
evident than that night in Minneapolis."

"It’s just a sense of astonishment, to tear down the opposing team’s goal posts," said retired
Iowa sports information director Phil Haddy. "Minnesota being what they are, Floyd of
Rosedale, everything. To do that on the field of an opposing team is pretty special. They don’t
think much of you, but it’s pretty special. As a staff you kind of sit there in amazement because
you don’t want to be promoting it."

"I have a good friend who I coached with at Maine actually who called right after that and he
said he's never seen anything like that," Ferentz said. "He's probably right. It's probably never
happened before. He also said your fans aren't very smart. They tried to take it through a
revolving door."

"I couldn’t have been less surprised that that happened," Greenway said.

Iowa fans were far from done once they tore down the goal post. They carried it from one end
of the Metrodome playing surface to the other as some fans surfed on top of it. The goal post
then snapped in two giant pieces and warnings were issued.

"They turned on this really loud noise on the speakers," Pederson said. "It didn’t deter anybody.
We’re still taking the goal posts around in a circle. A couple of guys would get on top and surf
with it. Then somebody on the loud speaker got on and said something to the effect that
anyone still on the field is subject to being arrested. So I thought I’d better get out of here.
Right as I did that, this crazy drunk guy was leading the pack and he started leading it up the
stairs and so I just grabbed on to the post and it was funny. There were still fans there and
they’re slapping high-5s to us on the way up.

"When we’re carrying it up, somebody turns around says, 'We’re taking it back to Iowa City.' I
don’t think we thought of the logistics of how that would have worked out. We got to the first
door. I think there’s two double doors there. The revolving doors were on the middle so we
were on the left side, and we were going to go out that left door."
With that goal post's snapped portion in their hands, Pederson and other Iowa fans met a
security guard at the open, non-revolving door. The security guard radioed to other guards and
dozens came to stop them. The craziness seemed to meet its conclusion.

"We all just looked at each other sheepishly and they started to pull it and they started to take
it back down," Pederson said. "This guy that was in front takes a running start and pushes that
post as hard as he could. The security guard fell down. It could have been really bad. I don’t
know what he was thinking. That was an experience for me."

The revelers gave up and the goal post was taken back to the field. A Division II game between
Concordia-St. Paul and Southwest (Minn.) State was scheduled for that evening. Stadium
employees tried to patch the goal post back together. It didn't take, and the Division II schools
had to kick extra points and field goals only at the stadium's north end.

Aftermath
Bowlsby, Ferentz and everyone involved with Iowa enjoyed the Metrodome experience. A few
days later, the athletics director received a letter.

"A week after that game in Minneapolis, the executive director of the Metrodome, a guy I had
worked with on a couple of Final Fours, he sent me a note that said 'I’m just going to guess that
it wasn’t the Minnesota fans that tore down the goal posts,'" Bowlsby said. "So he sent me a bill
for $2,500 and then he sent me the bottom six inches of the goal post. That was still sticking in
the bottom of the floor at the Metrodome. I have that as a fond remembrance of a big night in
Minneapolis."

Bowlsby keeps that goal post stump in a case at his home office alongside game balls and other
memorabilia.

The Metropolitan Sports Commission charged Iowa athletics for the final cost with shipping,
which was $2,761.15, according to a document obtained by Land of 10 through a state open-
records request. The goal post was sent from Gilman Gear in Gilman, Conn.

Mason had to deal with the aftermath in the Twin Cities. The Gophers played Wisconsin a week
later, but fans were angry about the Iowa incident.

"It became a bigger issue with the fans and the media than it ever did with me. It really did,"
Mason said. "It was like people got mad at me because I wasn’t outraged. Really. I can’t believe
it. I said, 'Listen if you want to be outraged at me, the reason they tore down the goal posts is
because I let them tear the goal posts down because they beat us so bad. So, I don’t know what
you want me to do.'
"They were mad at me. They became more mad at me than they were at Iowa. They wanted
me to say they’re classless, they’re this, they’re that. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do. But
I said hey, it’s like when all the sudden a coach gets mad at the end of the game. Someone’s
running up the score. It’s my job to stop you from scoring."

Iowa ended up in the Orange Bowl, where the Hawkeyes lost to USC. The Gophers finished with
8 wins after beating Arkansas in the Music City Bowl.

Now, 15 years later, Minnesota has its own on-campus stadium. While Iowa fans still buy a
significant number of seats for football games in Minneapolis, it's nowhere near what they did
at the Metrodome.

The incident does beg the question. Would Iowa fans tolerate another school's fan base
celebrating on the surface of Kinnick Stadium and attempting to drag a goal post on to Melrose
Avenue?

"I just don’t foresee that ever happening so no," Iowa defensive end Parker Hesse said. "It’s
hard to envision."

"I don’t think they’d make it to the goal post," said Iowa safety Amani Hooker, a Minnesota
native. "I think they’d get stopped before they make it there."

"Visiting teams don’t win very often in Kinnick," Bowlsby said. "So, it would be hard to imagine
that happening. They certainly don’t get 32,000 tickets as a visiting team."

Minnesota fans chant "Who Hates Iowa? We Hate Iowa!" at every football game, no matter the
opponent. Their rivalry began in 1891, and they've missed only one season since 1917. But it's
fair to say the rivalry intensified Nov. 16, 2002, when Iowa's fans became the rowdiest house
guests in Big Ten football history.

"That’s what that rivalry kind of symbolizes," Greenway said.