Fifty Years My Alma Mater: An Iowa Alum Takes a Trip Back Home

PHOTOS COURTESY MICHAEL WELLMAN

At the heart of my rusting body is still the soul of a college boy.

But last New Year’s Eve while I watched Iowa beat Vanderbilt in the ReliaQuest Bowl, I was ambushed by the realization that 2026 marks 50 years since I graduated from the University of Iowa. Much reflection ensued. I took my diploma down from the shelf to use as a prompt. It was like plugging in a flash drive loaded with memories from a time when classwork was still accomplished with paper, Bic pens, and typewriters.

Just a few weeks later, one of my classmates died of dementia and another was diagnosed, a solemn one-two punch of reminders that old golden memories can fade to black without notice. That leaves my recollections of those halcyon Hawkeye years more treasured now than ever. Sifting through them at work on this postgraduate assignment—an essay for Iowa Magazine—I appreciated my affiliation with the university in newfound ways and discovered that my diploma is worth more to me than ever, despite the fact that I’m several years retired.

My degree is a Bachelor of General Studies, even though I logged enough hours in both English and journalism to qualify for those majors. I had a part-time work-study gig writing sports for The Daily Iowan. My beat was primarily intramurals, but my editors let me cover Hawkeye football and basketball occasionally too. Freshly graduated, I landed an entry-level job in the sports department at the Des Moines Register, in part because the managing editor was impressed that I spelled the word “emphases” correctly on my résumé (as in BGS with emphases in English and journalism). But I soon made a shortsighted decision, shifting into the hospitality sector for many years before eventually resuming the writing life that college prepared me for.

“Old golden memories can fade to black without notice. That leaves my recollections of those halcyon Hawkeye years more treasured now than ever.”

Besides academics, a vital aspect of any collegiate experience is extracurricular. Football games were a highlight of mine, even in the winless season of 1973. How historic, the one and only time the Hawks lost them all. When a 12-game losing streak was snapped in the first home game of 1974 against No. 12 UCLA, the student section—me included—stormed the field like a wildebeest stampede.

I also witnessed the dawning of the Lute Olson era of men’s basketball. I was there when Iowa gave Indiana, the eventual 1975-76 national champion, a run for its money on a raucous night at the old Field House with the crowd stomping up a din on the steel bleachers. That Hoosier team was the last to go undefeated.

Streaking was a fad in the mid-1970s. One night a few of us were meandering back toward the dorms after a night of revelry downtown. Dares were exchanged. What happened next is a blur that dissolves after an image appears in my mind’s eye of standing on the Pentacrest with my pants around my ankles. The rest is repressed. Thank goodness those days were pre-cell phones and social media.

And then there were the concerts, highlighted by Bruce Springsteen at Hancher in fall 1975, just as he was soaring into superstardom. The iconic Born to Run album he’d just released became the soundtrack to my senior year.

So much fun was had that the student loan check I deposited in my Iowa City bank account when I returned to campus that last year—the check that was supposed to fund both semesters—only lasted one. I still remember the amount of my monthly loan repayments: $58.46, for however many years.

Two death-defying incidents occurred while I matriculated that remain vivid in the rearview. One fine spring day in my sophomore year, we rented canoes to paddle the Iowa River behind Currier Hall. A mock naval battle broke out at close range, and my craft capsized. I swam for shore, dressed in long pants, a sweater, and a brand new pair of tennis shoes that almost dragged me under. I made it, but not without worrying that I wouldn’t, to the point where I kicked off those new kicks and let them sink away, so I could manage the last strokes to shallow water and stagger onto dry land.

Another time I caught a ride home to Des Moines for the winter break with a roommate in his little MG roadster. It was the beautiful day after a blizzard, and we hit a patch of black ice on I-80. The car spun in circles before coming to a stop in the median pointing backward. Mark and I looked at each other for a long moment without speaking. Then he broke out laughing and said, “You’re white as a ghost!”

Those close calls notwithstanding, I generally behaved like immortality was as much a part of college as U-Bills and final exams. No one flunked out of life before getting a real crack at it.

These senior years include an altogether different perspective on the big picture.

None of my three children attended Iowa, but my 8-year-old grandson has his eyes on it. We were part of the record crowd drawn to the Crossover at Kinnick scrimmage that launched Caitlin Clark’s (24BBA) senior season, and my grandson even experienced her magic touch when they slapped hands when she was leaving the field at game’s end. Time will tell the extent to which she rubbed off on him.

I swell with pride whenever and however fellow Hawkeyes do us all proud and bristle with concern over meddlesome state and federal government intrusions into academia.

I’m not a big donor or a season ticket holder. But occasionally I throw a few bucks into The Daily Iowan fund or make a point to see the Hawkeye women’s basketball team when they come to play at Drake in Des Moines. I’ve attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and enter the university’s Write Now contests from time to time in a spirit of continuing education.

“I arrived right on time or half a century late [for graduation], depending on how you reckon.”

I sport a fair share of Hawkeye gear, but it tends to predate the Tigerhawk logo era ushered in by Coach Hayden Fry. No surprise there; at 50 years removed from campus, I’m decidedly old school.

When I graduated in spring 1976, I didn’t attend the commencement ceremony. My diploma was mailed to me. I never gave my indifference about that pomp and circumstance a second thought until mid-May of this year when I was sitting in the stands at Principal Park in Des Moines watching the Iowa baseball team hosting Purdue. With this essay in mind, I wondered when the Class of 2026 was slated to receive its walking papers. Sure enough, it was the following day at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. I thought it might be worth it to go the extra 100 miles and change in hopes of bolstering this term paper.

So homecoming came early for me this year.

I left first thing in the morning for the first of two UI College of Liberal Arts & Sciences commencement ceremonies, driving straight at the rising sun. Not unlike the soon-to-be grads, I mused, alone in the car with my thoughts and the diploma that I brought along to ride shotgun. I arrived right on time or half a century late, depending on how you reckon.

From the top row, the capped and gowned black sea below seemed to shimmer because so many programs were being used as fans. I walked a lap of the concourse, listening to the student chosen to represent and address her classmates. She spoke about the future but also about memories of her years in Iowa City. The 20-page paper she wrote when she was truly ill on top of her post-Thanksgiving homesickness in her freshman year. The good Samaritans who rescued her—a California girl, I think she said—when she got stranded in an Iowa blizzard. Her roommate who woke up at 5 a.m. every day to drive a Cambus shift before classes to help pay for college.

Her focus was understandably on how much work it took to get where she and her classmates finally were at that milestone moment. But just you wait 50 years, I thought on my way out after the flipping of the cap tassels. Fonder memories will ripen and come to the forefront.

It was a good hike from Carver-Hawkeye Arena back to my car. I was relegated to overflow parking, just as I’d been to overflow housing, barracks style, in the basement at Currier for my first few days on campus way back when.

I felt jealous of the brand new graduates, just commencing their adult lives. The finish line of mine, while not imminent, is foreseeable. That latent sense of immortality is long gone, having given way to an irresistible contemplation of life’s exit ramps. But I drove away also more than a little worried on the newbies’ behalf. We their forebears are passing the buck(s) to them. They’ve got what college grads all go looking for—jobs to do. It won’t be easy, but we’re all counting on their success.

I won’t be in Iowa City for the official homecoming events during the last week in October. But in other ways, this calendar year has been a slow-rolling homecoming for me right from the start. In some traditions, a 50th anniversary year is one of restoration and referred to as a jubilee. So let that faithful and fervent spirit carry the day in Iowa’s homecoming football game against Wisconsin. It’s on Halloween, an occasion for costumes and masquerade. But I’ll come to it, via television, as I am, have been for a half-century-plus, and ever shall be—a Hawkeye.

Michael Wellman (76BGS) is the author of four books and a two-time finalist in the Indie Book Awards. His work has also appeared in the Des Moines Register, The Iowan, dsm Magazine, Cityview Magazine, Lyrical Iowa, and on Iowa Public Radio. He’s written previously for Iowa Magazine and is retired from the Des Moines Public Schools, where he was the staff writer in the Office of Communications & Public Affairs.