November 9, 2005
Pink

Once again there’s “Trouble in River City”.  Iowa is seeing red over pink.  Having lived in Grand Junction 38 years makes one feel like a Coloradoan but you still can’t resist checking in on the happenings “back home”.  And folks living between the Mississippi and the Missouri are torqued to the max over the possibility of losing their pink. 

It all started back in the late seventies when Hayden Frye took charge of the dormant Iowa University football program.  Frye, now retired, became a legend to folks from Davenport to Sioux City by taking the Hawkeye’s from Big 10 doormat to perennial title contender, a situation that continues today under head coach Kirk Ferentz. 

(Since both my wife and youngest daughter are Iowa University alums and I’m an Iowa State guy duty demands pointing out as good as the Hawkeyes are, they were throttled by my mighty Cyclones earlier this year.) 

But back to the Iowa color controversy.  While building the Iowa program Frye decided the visiting locker room should be painted pink.  The coach, a Psychology major in college, said with a wink that pink was a passive color that would mellow visiting teams.  While most Big 10 opponents took suiting up in a parlor of pink with a grain of salt, Illinois coaches in ’89 wore pink hats on the sidelines as the Illini won, others such as Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler were so bothered by the pinkness of it all Bo would send an assistant coach in a day early to cover the walls of the locker room with white paper.  A tradition was born.  

Two years ago Iowa spent a cool 88 million re-furbishing Kinnick Stadium including the visitor’s locker room. Sinks and ceilings are now a shade of pink called “Innocence” while the carpeting is pink and brown and the urinals are done in “dusty rose”. But not everyone is happy with the cotton candy decor. 

Enter Jill Gaulding, an Iowa law school professor.  Gaulding claims a locker room the color of Pepto-Bismol, “sends a misogynistic message and represents a serious obstacle to gender equity on the Iowa U. campus.”  When reminded the pink locker room was a joke Gaulding responded, “I resent sexist jokes being paid for by my employer, a public institution.” 

It turns out in the land of the Hawkeye hell hath no fury like a locker room scorned.  Now instead of the usually ever-present black and gold at Hawk games you see pink T-shirts imprinted  “Locker Room Defense Fund” and “Give That Academia Nut Her Pink Slip.”  An enterprising entrepreneur quickly sold out his entire stock of pink toilet seats featuring the Iowa “Tiger Hawk” logo.  Other huge sellers are carnation colored sun visors, mauve tinted coffee cups and salmon baby clothes, all adorned with the Iowa U logo. 

The school president, when forced to choose between 60,000 season ticket holders and a tenured faculty member, wasted no time in stating, “The visitors locker room will stay pink.”