After Cancer Fight, Hawkeye Superfan Finds Joy in the Wave
George Scully (70BBA) has been a diehard Iowa Hawkeye fan since he attended his first football game at age 7. “Legendary Kinnick Stadium is a second home to me,” says Scully, who has been a season ticket holder for nearly 50 years. “I love being in the stadium with the fans and friends around us. It’s just a special time, special place.”
Game days in Iowa City are a fall ritual for Scully, his family, and closest friends. That is, except for the 2022 Iowa football season. A few months before the season opener, Scully went to see his local doctor in Waterloo, Iowa, about persistent back pain.
It was pancreatic cancer.
“My life changed immediately because I didn’t have the ability to be out and about like I usually am,” says Scully, who overcame prostate cancer a few years prior. Scully began pancreatic cancer treatment at University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, where chemotherapy and radiation sessions left him too fatigued to attend Iowa’s games.
At Scully’s last appointment in January 2023, his wife, Mary, and son Ben helped surprise him with some of the energy and excitement of Iowa athletic events. Family, friends, and members of the Hawkeye Marching Band showed up to demonstrate their support.
“It was kind of a special celebration that my treatments were over,” says Scully. “It was very surprising, kind of emotional. It was a special day.”
Now that Scully is back to cheering on Hawkeye football, his opportunity to take part in the Hawkeye Wave—where fans, at the end of the first quarter, wave to pediatric patients at UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital—takes on much more significance.
“When you wave to those kids in the hospital, you realize that they’re the real warriors,” says Scully.
