Inside Iowa State
December 21, 2000
Loyal Cyclone fans finally hit their jackpot
by Anne Krapfl
Cyclone fans in the first 16 rows of section N at Jack Trice
Stadium may know her by her whistle, the shrill, finger-less
variety. Mary Jo Krakau and her husband Bill have been
fixtures in the faculty-staff area of the stadium since the
1988 season. And when the Cyclone cheer squad asks for crowd
noise, Krakau goes to her whistle.
"We'll stand up and cheer and clap and make some noise for the team. But I'm known for my whistle," she admitted.
And after more regrettable football seasons than good ones since 1988, the Krakaus found lots to cheer about in this season. The 8-3 Cyclones are bowl-bound for the first time in 22 years, and the Krakaus will be among the estimated 13,000 Iowa State fans in Phoenix Dec. 28 to support them.
"We always said we'd go if they made it to a bowl game," Krakau said. "And, for us, there was always hope. We knew they'd come around."
By day, Krakau (pronounced "Croaker") wears several hats in the enrollment services office in Alumni Hall. In addition to serving as the assistant to assistant vice president David Bousquet, she is a records analyst. Specifically, she reviews the freshman and transfer applications of prospective Cyclone student athletes to make sure they meet university admission standards. She also processes so-called "blue cards," information cards completed by Cyclone coaches as a very early step in recruiting student athletes to Iowa State.
"Once in a while, I'll be watching an athlete compete and I think, 'Hey, I worked on his file,'" she said.
Since spring 1988, Krakau has held secretarial or records analyst positions in enrollment services or its admissions division.
Evenings and weekends often find her pulling for a Cyclone team, typically football, wrestling or men's and women's basketball. Former admissions colleague Bill Yungclas ("Wild Bill," to women's basketball fans) got Krakau and her family hooked on the Iowa State women's program in the early 1990s, when just a few hundred fans showed up at Hilton Coliseum.
"'It's great family entertainment. What else are you doing tonight?' he'd ask a lot of us in the office," she recalled. "It worked."
The Krakaus have season tickets for the women's program, too.
She married into it
Krakau's loyalty to Cyclone athletics goes back to the
fall of 1981, when her Guthrie Center high school sweetheart,
Bill Krakau, enrolled at Iowa State and she started attending
home games with him.
"He brought me into the Cyclone family. His family lived and breathed Cyclone football," she said.
Bill's older brother, Merv, started at defensive end for the Cyclones in their 1971 (Sun) and 1972 (Liberty) bowl game losses. Bill was 9 years old in 1972 and remembers the family driving to Memphis for the Liberty Bowl. Merv went on to play professional football for five years with the Buffalo Bills.
Krakau said she and her five siblings are evenly split on their athletic loyalties. Her brother and two older sisters are Hawkeye fans; she and her two younger sisters are Cyclones.
"We [Cyclone contingent] have had some tough years, but we've also had some success recently," she said.
Her three children are being raised as Cyclone fans. Nathan, 11; Emily, 8; and Melissa, 5; are Lil' Clone Club members, an athletic department promotion that admits school children into many home events for free and includes other perks. Nathan will travel with his parents to the Insight.com Bowl in Phoenix.
"We're all really looking forward to it, but he's way up there in the excitement level," said Krakau, stabbing the air above her right ear. Nathan has several "souvenirs" -- Cyclone players' wrist sweatbands and game gloves -- received during post-game high-fives on the field this fall. His biggest trophy, however, came after the final home game, a win over Kansas: All-Big 12 wide receiver J.J. Moses' game gloves.
The Krakaus will travel to Phoenix with one of her sisters and brothers-in-law. After thinking on Dec. 4 that they had confirmed seats on a flight, that airline called back Dec. 11 to say the flight was oversold and they had been removed from the passenger list. Twelve hours of shocked "now what do we do?" were rescued by an additional charter flight out of Des Moines announced on Dec. 12. So they'll be in Phoenix, and Krakau said they'll be at whatever spirit rally or pre- game pandemonium Cyclone fans cook up. They're accustomed to arriving early and leaving late.
Practiced fans
Like many loyal Cyclone football backers, Krakau and her
family have a Game Day routine, built over 13 years of
practice: arrive a couple hours before kick-off and settle in
at the motor home in lot A-4, where other family members and
friends huddle before the game; climb up to section N and
(with luck) do lots of whistling; head back to the motor home
for an hour or two after the game to rehash the key plays and
undo any lingering tension.
They haven't missed many home games in 13 years; just for really important events like a relative's wedding or Bill's parents' 50th wedding anniversary on Homecoming Saturday this year. And they even try to hit the road occasionally for their Cyclones: Las Vegas last fall and Manhattan, Kan., this year.
Krakau admits to getting nervous for the big games, including any game against the Iowa Hawkeyes. Her 12-plus years in student admissions is apparent as she explains: "It's a big game for student recruiting. If your football team is winning, people support you. And when you're beating the intrastate rival, it's got to be positive."
Plus, it's just downright fun.
"I know it's not all about winning. It's just easier to watch
when they're winning," she admitted. "It takes teamwork to
succeed and there are bumps in the road for every team."
So, even before nearly two dozen seniors play their last game in Cyclone jerseys next week, Krakau is thinking about next season and the 2001 football team.
"The Cyclones are graduating a lot of seniors and there will be some big shoes to fill," she said. "We're hoping this (winning) will become a way of life here. The bowl games are the gravy."
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