Hawkeye Wave voted best college sports tradition

(KCRG) — The Hawkeye Wave has been awarded the 2024 Readers’ Choice for Best College Sports Tradition, USA Today announced Tuesday.

The Hawkeye Wave tradition began at Kinnick Stadium in 2017.

It sees fans, athletes and coaches from both college football teams stop at the end of the first quarter to wave at pediatric patients and their families inside the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital, which overlooks the stadium.

The University of Iowa and the UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital also collaborate on the Kid Captain program, which started in 2009 to honor and share the stories of pediatric patients.

Each Kid Captain gets a commemorative jersey, a behind-the-scenes experience with the Hawkeyes football team, and they get to choose the song that plays at the stadium during the Hawkeye Wave.

Originally, the University of Iowa asked fans to vote for a new song to play during the wave, but it later decided to leave the choice up to the Kid Captains.

Other college sports traditions that earned honorable mention this year, include the Army-Navy Game, Purdue’s Big Bass Drum, Wisconsin’s Jump Around, Texas A&M’s The 12th Man, Virginia Tech’s Enter Sandman, and Script Ohio.