Most Random Place You've Run Into A Cyclone Fan

GMackey32

TJ's spy team member
Nov 2, 2009
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Ames Via Cedar Falls
A little fun Friday thread.

What's the most random place you've run into a Cyclone fan? I'm not talking about seeing someone in Memphis during the Liberty Bowl, but a place where Iowa State didn't have anything going on (sports or academic) and you've run into a Cyclone fan?

My wife and I were in the Bahamas in March of 2019 (Big 12 tournament weekend, actually) for a nice little getaway. Was in a brewpub, decked out in Iowa State gear waiting for the Championship game against Kansas to start, and a married couple wearing Iowa State gear walks in.
 
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I was in a hotel lobby in Deerfield, IL about 7 years ago. Sister had an AAU tournament. I was wearing an ISU shirt and this man also wearing one came up to me. Talked for a couple minutes. He said he was friends with Fred's dad.
 
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Flying to Washington some years ago, had a short layover at the Denver airport. Went to the tequila bar - it was MBB tourney time, and the Cyclones were playing - and there was a group of Cyclone fans gathered around the television.

We got pretty animated. The tequila wasn't helping. But is sure was fun!
 
This game would be a lot less fun for hawk fans. America is covered with Walmart’s
 
Returning from a vacation in Cancun in early 2017 we saw someone in the airport wearing an Iowa State hat so I gave a "Go Cyclones" and he looked confused at first and then remembered his hat. He said his brother had recently started working for the football team (was just after Campbell's first year). I didn't continue the conversation because he didn't seem interested and I didn't know enough about the other coaches to speak intelligently about them but I'll always wonder who it was.
 
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I have a handful:

First the bad--I ran into a family wearing Iowa junk at our hotel in Beijing, with a "Go Hawks" when they saw my ISU stuff.

Now the good--I saw someone wearing an ISU shirt on the ferry from Cozumel to Playa del Carmen.

Had a chat with a hotel worker in Maui who saw my ISU shirt and had family who played football there in the 80s/90s.

Last year ran into a family in the Columbia River Gorge area who went to ISU after they saw our ISU shirts.
 
The store manager at a local Lowe's is a former student.
At breakfast in an inn in Luxembourg
Bar Harbor, Maine.
I have a decal on my car and was almost run off the road by a woman who graduated from ISU during the time I was there. Saw her again two weeks later in a liquor store in New Hampshire.

My license plate is IOWAST and I live in New England.
 
The parking lot of a strip mall in Kittery, Maine.

Also, watched the ISU-Oklahoma game last season at a huge bar in Hoboken, NJ. There was one other ISU fan there that I ran into, and watched with. By the end of the game, there was a huge group of people invested in watching the game with us. Got some free drinks from some Jersey bros after the failed 2 point.
 
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ran into Dan McCarney on Clearwater beach back in like 2014.

Super nice guy, actually approached me because i had ISU hat on.

Talked with us for like 15 minutes
This is not in line with the rules of the thread but it's an interesting story about Mac. Dan was at the Gridiron Club event at the Camping World Bowl. He walked by me while I was at the bar and I mentioned the Cedar Rapids banquet as he was passing by. He stopped to chat about it and during the conversation I mentioned being interviewed by KWWL before the 1998 Iowa game. He really lit up with mention of that game. For those that don't remember that was the game that broke the long losing streak to Iowa. Mac then says "I've got to show you something. Follow me."

So he leads a group of four of us through the crowd in Pied Piper fashion to one end of the bar. He looks around for a while and then leads us to the other end of the bar. That is where we met up with Terry Allen. I don't know if Terry had his phone or what the deal was, but Mac opens his phone and starts searching and searching for something. Finally he finds a picture that his daughter sent him of Mac and Hayden Fry meeting at mid-field after that 1998 game. Mac says "Hayden was pissed" and you could clearly see that on his face.

I wish I had that picture, but the real memory was the way Mac led us through the crowded bar from one end to the next to show it to us. We had a good time talking with Dan and Terry until it was time to go to the Cyclone media event at a different bar. We saw Mac there too.
 

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