Hawkeye Helmets Honor Coach Fry With Missing Tigerhawk

The University of Iowa announced this week the Tigerhawk will be removed from players helmets in honor of Hayden Fry when the Hawkeyes play USC on Friday at the Holiday Bowl.

According to KCRG, it is the third time both Tigerhawks have been removed from the helmet for a football game. The first was Nov. 2, 1991, the day after six lives were lost in a shooting on the UI campus. The second was the 1996 Alamo Bowl, when Diane Mitchell, the mother of Iowa linebacker Mark Mitchell, was killed in a car crash on the way to San Antonio, Texas.

Fry was Iowa's head football coach from 1979-98. He won three Big Ten Conference championships, took the Hawkeyes to 14 bowl games, and introduced the Tigerhawk logo to the athletics department, a logo that has become one of the most recognizable symbols in sports.

Fry died Dec. 17, 2019 at the age of 90.

The Hawkeye helmet will be without the Tigerhawk, but it will include a decal honoring former UI Athletics Director Bump Elliott. Elliott was Iowa's director of athletics from 1970-91. He passed away Dec. 7, 2019.

Elliott and Fry are both members of the College Football Hall of Fame. Fry is a member of the Holiday Bowl Hall of Fame.

Head coach, Kirk Ferentz says,

"We have had two big losses in the past month, so we are going to recognize Coach Elliott with a sticker on the back of our helmet that will say "Bump" on it. That was in the works a couple weeks ago. Then with Coach Fry passing last week, (we) talked to the family and I think we're all in agreement that it will be a really nice thing to take the Tigerhawks off of the helmets on both sides. A precedent was set. He did that twice during his time and it was well received by his children. That is our plan right now. Next year we'll do a commemorative patch. I think it's really appropriate the governor requested the flags fly at half-staff this last week. It is a big loss for everybody in the state of Iowa and we'll do all we can to respect that."

No. 16 Iowa (9-3, 6-3) faces No. 22 Southern California (8-4, 7-2) at the 2019 Holiday Bowl in San Diego on Friday at 7:05 p.m. (CT). The game is televised on FS1.