Despite possessing a nickname that conjures up images of destroying their opposition in a swirling wind of football excellence, the Iowa State Cyclones mascot isn’t quite what you’d expect. We’ve got all the answers to the questions you could ever have about the Iowa State mascot.
What Is the Iowa State Cyclones Mascot?
The official Cyclones mascot is Cy the Cardinal. No, not Cy the cyclone, Cy the Cardinal. A bird that is the official face of multiple college football teams might not seem like an obvious choice to many people, so allow us to explain.
Capturing the weather phenomenon that is a cyclone proved somewhat difficult to turn into a costumed mascot, so when Iowa State decided to introduce a mascot in 1954, the program had to reach deep into the creative bag to find a suitable alternative.
It was decided that the cardinal was the perfect choice as the combination of colors on the bird matched the official Iowa State university colors of cardinal and gold. With the face of the Iowa State mascot decided, all that remained was a name.
Cy the Cardinal was officially born as a result of a contest where Mrs. Wilma Ohlsen submitted the name before anyone else, earning herself a place in Cyclones mascot folklore. She also won a stadium blanket in the school colors for her creative excellence.
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Speaking of creative excellence, the original Iowa State mascot costume was an eight-foot-tall monstrosity made from chicken wire and aluminum. Cy the Cardinal has had multiple redesigns since the 1954 original, but the name has never changed in that time.
In addition to patrolling the sidelines at Jack Trice Stadium for CFB games, the Cyclones mascot is seen at all athletics events while being used across numerous other events.
Meanwhile, Cy the Cardinal was named the CBS Sportsline Most Dominant College Mascot on Earth in 2007. The following year, Cy was the Capital One National Mascot of the Year.
Despite not being the anthropomorphism of a natural disaster, you could say that the Cyclones’ mascot blew away the competition in both of those events.
What Was the Iowa State Mascot Before Cy?
Although Cy the Cardinal has been the official Iowa State mascot since 1954 and has become synonymous with the program, he wasn’t the first. In fact, there were several Cyclones mascots prior to Cy’s introduction in the mid-1950s.
The first Iowa State mascot was a Great Dane belonging to Ames resident Vivian Snook. While the dog’s actual name was Durban von Der Gartenstadt, he became the first “Cy” and was seen on the sideline of Iowa State games wearing a blanket of cardinal and gold.
Sadly, Durban lasted just two seasons as the Cyclones’ mascot before passing away from sickness in September 1933.
A new mascot was hurriedly found for the 1933 football season. “Stormy Weather” — a somewhat more aptly named Cyclones mascot — was the goat face of Iowa State football. No, not goat as in the acronym for Greatest Of All Time, but an actual goat.
Like Durban before him, Stormy Weather didn’t last too long as Iowa State’s mascot. During the offseason, the animal ran amok on campus leading to an untimely end. We’ll let the Jan. 18, 1934 edition of the Ames Daily Tribune and Times tell the final stages of the tale.
“After the close of the football season, the goat developed into a problem. At the sheep barn he soon became unpopular. At the hog barn he chewed up rope, buckets, and fork handles. When he began to eat through the side of the barn, Stormy Weather’s career came to an abrupt end under the butcher’s knife.”
Why Is Iowa State the Cyclones?
Although the Cyclones mascot bears no resemblance or reference to the natural disaster, the nickname of the program is directly linked to the weather phenomena. Iowa State has been named the Cyclones since 1895, a year that saw an above-average number of tornadoes.
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When Iowa Agricultural College — the original name of Iowa State — obliterated Northwestern 36-0 in 1895, the Chicago Tribune ran the headline “Struck by a Cyclone: It Comes from Iowa and Devastates Evanston Town.”
From that day until now, the name has stuck, resulting in the Iowa State Cyclones football program that we know today.
