Oct. 26, 2006
IOWA CITY, Iowa — The UI Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and fans of the Iowa Hawkeyes will push to near 40 percent of their goal of a million “engaged fans” this weekend with the staging of the fifth home game of the 2006 college football season Saturday at historic Kinnick Stadium – Blackout Saturday against Northern Illinois, the 15th annual Black and Gold Basketball Blowout Saturday in Carver-Hawkeye Arena and the annual Head of Iowa rowing regatta Sunday at City Park in Iowa City.
The UI’s “March to a Million” currently stands at 309,165 thanks to a school-record-setting attendance at the Iowa soccer team’s home match last Friday against nationally ranked Indiana – a match won by the Hawkeyes – and two more home matches of Coach Cindy Fredrick’s Iowa volleyball team that boasted attendance in excess of 1,000 fans of the Hawkeyes.
“We probably won’t crack 400,000 this weekend, but we could get very close and, more importantly, we remain on pace to reach one million engaged fans by Augsust 2007,” said Rick Klatt, the UI’s associate athletics director for external affairs.
Attendance at all home events of the UI football and men’s basketball team are included in the March to a Million. Sunday’s Head of Iowa rowing event is the designated March to a Million event for Coach Mandi Kowal’s squad. The regatta is an all-day event that has attracted a record number of entries and – if the weather experts are correct – a beautiful fall day.
“Fans attending the Head of Iowa will be introduced to the sport of rowing, enjoy great weather and could be one of 100 randomly selected winners of a `March to a Million’ t-shirt and those could be pretty valuable because 10 of those have certificates in them for some fun prizes,” said Klatt who noted that the list of prizes range from pairs of tickets to home events of the Iowa men’s basketball, women’s basketball and wrestling teams to gift certificates to the Official Iowa Hawk and a pair of outdoor club seat tickets to one of the remaining home games of the 2006 Iowa football team.
For more information about the Hawkeyes’ March to a Million, click HERE.