Van Hayden Electrifies Hawkeye Football Game Days

VIDEO: JOHN EMIGH The Hawkeye superfan band Van Hayden—pictured here in a recent photo shoot in Iowa City—has rocked tailgates, the homecoming parade, and the annual FRYfest celebration in recent years.

An aging ambulance pulls up to a Hawkeye football tailgate off Melrose Avenue, and several Hayden Fry look-a-likes sporting aviator glasses and fake mustaches jump out.

Wearing white pants and black Tigerhawk sweaters over white-collared shirts to honor the late great Hawkeye football coach, the Van Hayden band is ready to rock.

For the past three football seasons, Van Hayden has toured tailgates from the UI Athletics Hall of Fame area to the dental lot in its refurbished “Vanbulance,” playing Hawkeye-themed parodies of Van Halen songs. Van Halen’s crowd-pleasing “Jump” becomes “Punt” in tribute to the Hawkeyes’ stifling defense that limits opponents’ options to score, while “Running with the Devil” has been reimagined as “Running with the Football,” an ode to Iowa’s offensive game. The band also puts a Hawkeye spin on popular tunes from ZZ Top, Twisted Sister, and the Zac Brown Band.

As Jake Olson (99PharmD), the drummer from Milwaukee, attests, “We’re not doing this for money. We’re not doing this for fame. We’re doing this to bring positive energy to Iowa.”

PHOTO: JOHN EMIGH Van Hayden in the pink visitors’ locker room at Kinnick

“We’re committed to the bit,” adds Andrew Olson (99BSE), Jake’s brother from Plainfield, Illinois, who plays guitar. “We love fun, wild ideas.”

PHOTO: JOHN EMIGH Robby Marvin from Van Hayden lets loose in a Hawkeye-themed den.

The family-friendly band includes Andrew’s teenage daughter, Willow, on keytar, as well as a few other friends with connections to the UI. Trumpeter Jarrett West (24BA, 24BM) of Waterloo, Iowa, is a former member of the Hawkeye Marching Band. Lead singer Robby Marvin of Marion, Iowa, is the husband and brother of UI grads, while bass player Brent Buresh of Decorah, Iowa, has sent some of his children to school at the UI. As Jake Olson says, “We’re not exactly all Iowa alumni, but we all have deep ties to the University of Iowa.”

The Olson brothers found inspiration for the band in their more than 40 years of traveling to Iowa City to tailgate and watch games with family and friends. In the 1980s, they would watch Carl Schwendinger—a longtime fan who became known as the Hawkeye Poet—stand on a cooler to recite an original Iowa football poem an hour before kickoff. More recently, the Olsons enjoyed the showmanship of Hawkeye Elvis (Greg Suckow), who joined Van Hayden in 2023 for a performance of “Suspicious Minds.” Van Hayden aims to follow in the footsteps of these pregame Hawkeye entertainers to hype up the latest crop of Iowa fans.

PHOTO: JOHN EMIGH Van Hayden frontman Robby Marvin, aka Hayden Lee Roth (top right), “might as well jump” for the joy of performing at Kinnick Stadium.

In addition to tailgates, Van Hayden has played local and national TV broadcasts and other dream gigs. They marched in the UI homecoming parade and performed at Coralville’s annual FRYfest celebration to kick off the football season. The band also headlined an Iowa football alumni tailgate, where they met their gridiron heroes such as Bill Happel (86BBA). “The Hayden Fry Iowa football teams were our ’85 Bears,” says Jake Olson. “Hayden Fry really brought that winning tradition back to Iowa.”

Through its FRYfest performance, Van Hayden received the highest honor of all after discovering that the Fry family approve of the band’s funny and lighthearted tribute to Iowa’s former coach. “They said keep up the good work in keeping his name and image alive out there,” says Jake Olson. “That actually brought tears to my eyes.”