FINAL THOUGHTS ON THIS PAST WEEK: I've been a Hawkeye fan for more than 40 years, and I'm sitting in my garage close to midnight on Saturday with a drink, watching Caitlin Clark highlights on YouTube and feeling proud as hell. Which is kind of strange when you think about it. Caitlin and the Fever were eliminated from the playoffs this week. Iowa just got rolled by Ohio State. Normally, that sounds like a pretty miserable few days to be an Iowa fan. But somehow, it doesn't feel that way. College GameDay came back to Iowa City. Nike turned Caitlin's shoe launch into an event on the Pentacrest, building a temporary basketball court right next to the GameDay stage. Caitlin came home and was the guest picker. She picked Iowa, of course. 😅 And then came the Wave. After the first quarter, 70,000 people inside Kinnick turned toward the children's hospital. The cameras went up to the windows, where the kids and their families were waving down at the stadium. And standing up there with them, waving back at Kinnick, was Caitlin Clark. Maybe the most famous athlete the University of Iowa has ever produced. One of the most recognizable athletes in the world. And somehow, in that moment, she wasn't a global superstar making an appearance. She was a Hawkeye who came home. One of ours. That's what I've been thinking about tonight. At Iowa, we're probably never going to measure our fandom by a trophy case full of national championships. That doesn't mean winning doesn't matter. Of course it fucking matters. 😂 I wanted the Fever to keep playing. I wanted Iowa to beat the hell out of Ohio State. Losses hurt. Bad seasons piss us off. We bitch about coaches, officials, play calling, recruiting and everything else sports fans bitch about. But the older I get, the more I realize that being a Hawkeye has never really been dependent on any of those things. It's deeper than wins and losses. I've never been part of another collegiate fan base, so maybe others feel the same way about theirs. But Hawkeye fandom has always felt like a family to me. In Iowa City, it's everywhere. You can feel it walking down the street. But I live in Minnesota. And I can't tell you how many times I've been walking through a store wearing an Iowa shirt and heard some complete stranger yell: "LET'S GO HAWKS!" And immediately, you know. You're one of us. A 6'4"-6'5" kid commits to Iowa women's basketball, someone I've never met and probably never will, and my first thought isn't just, "Great pickup." It's: WELCOME TO THE FAMILY. That's what being a Hawkeye feels like. Players come and go. Coaches come and go. Seasons come and go. There are incredible wins we'll talk about for the rest of our lives, and absolutely brutal losses we'd prefer to erase from our memories. But the Tigerhawk remains. The people remain. The family remains. Wins are something Hawkeyes celebrate together. Losses are something Hawkeyes suffer together. But being a Hawkeye? That doesn't change. So yeah. The Fever lost. The Hawks got rolled. And somehow I'm sitting here tonight feeling more proud than ever to say: I'm an Iowa Hawkeye. Always have been. Always will be. 💛🖤 GO HAWKS. – at Byron, MN