‘The Wave’ Wins Iowa Football Program Disney Sports Spirit Award

IOWA CITY, IA — “The Wave” started in September as an empathetic gesture by Iowa Hawkeye football fans to tell some very sick kids watching from the 11th floor of a nearby children's hospital that the battles they're fighting are more important than any rivalry that plays out on the Kinnick Stadium field below. The stadium-wide fan gesture toward University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital patients, who have a "press box" perch to watch the game, wins hearts as one of the best things ever in college sports, and next month, it will be celebrated with a Disney Sports Spirit Award.

The new tradition at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City joins fans from Iowa and the opposing team in a moment that transcends the rivalries of the game, brightening the day for scores of kids who deserve something good in their lives. At night, cellphones light up the stadium, a beacon that gives sick kids momentary escape from the rigors of chemotherapy, surgeries and therapies. The organic spread of this simple gesture to make a situation a little less horrible shows the power of kindness, what Iowans have self-branded as "Iowa Nice."

The Wave has a powerful ripple effect on the kids, say parents like James Smith, a Mason City dad whose 9-year-old daughter, Blair, has been through chemotherapy and spinal taps in preparation for bone marrow transplants.

"Words can not describe the feeling it was to watch Iowa Hawkeyes fans turn and wave to all the kids after the first quarter of the football game,” he wrote in a post on the family’s Team Blair Facebook page. "All these kids are going through the worst thing ever, and to see them so happy when the fans do this it brought tears to my eyes and chills down my back!"

"It's incredible," said Jennifer Smith (no relation), whose 9-year-old son, Maddox, was treated for a golf ball-sized brain tumor, told The Associated Press. “Life is too real for these kids.”

“This is such an amazing thing that all of the fans are doing for kids,” James Smith told ESPN, letting his tears flow.

“The Wave” was a tradition long before its current iteration. The university opened its original children’s hospital in 1919 and Kinnick Stadium opened a year later across a tiny two-way street. The hospital campus and the stadium underwent numerous additions and renovations in the years that followed, but the children’s hospital vantage point was never interrupted.

When leaders began planning the Stead Family Children’s Hospital that opened in February, the pristine views of Kinnick Stadium were not only preserved, but architects accentuated the locational quirk with what they call the "press box," an event and game-watching space for patients and their families, on the top floor.

The Hawkeye football program has a long history of kindness toward kids battling life-threatening illnesses, and players have become genuine ambassadors and advocates for them.

For example, since 2009, one current or former Children’s Hospital pediatric patient has been chosen from 3,000 applicants to serve as “Kid Captain” at games, whether at home or away. They get premium seats, they’re announced to the crowd before the coin toss, their pictures are featured on trading cards, and they get to brush elbows with Hawkeye players during an annual behind-the-scenes tour of Kinnick Stadium before the football season begins.

When the current week's Kid Captain is announced, "it’s always a goosebump moment,” Cheryl Hodgson, director of marketing for the children’s hospital an cofounder of the Kid Captain program, told ESPN.

It’s a sweet tradition that has generated deserved props for the football program, but it’s nothing to what happened when Hawkeye devotee Krista Young posted a call-out on a fan site, Hawkeye Heaven, in June, calling on fans to “wave to the kids” at the new hospital. Levi Thompson, who administers the page with something like 100,000 followers, liked the idea and pulled a few strings to make "The Wave" happen at the end of the first quarter.

The football players and fans began waving Sept. 2, the patients waved back, they’ve all been waving at each other at every home football game since and Iowa head Coach Kirk Ferentz expects "The Wave" to become a cemented Iowa tradition.

“I didn’t expect it to go national, but I had a good feeling it was going to work,” Thompson told ESPN. “If nothing else, let’s get them to smile.”

The genuine enthusiasm behind the wave embodies the state’s enduring "Iowa Nice" cache.

“It’s really the unique thing about Iowa," Hodgson said. "People care about kids and families everywhere, but we have noticed — first through the 'Kid Captain' program and now 'The Wave' — how much it means to people even if they don't have a family member directly affected. They really kind of adopt those kids, and it feels like they're their own and they want to go out of their way to support them."

Ferentz says he’s “proud that a kind gesture has had a profoundly positive impact on so many people in our state and the nation,” calling it in a statement a “simple way for 70,000 people to recognize the kids, the parents and hospital staff who are the real champions, fighting every day to overcome significant medical challenges.”

He and his wife, Mary, have build a legacy of strong charitable and personal support of the children's hospital, helping set the tone for growth of the sprawling medical center and its affiliated sites, Scott Turner, chief operating officer and executive director of the Stead Family Children’s Hospital told ESPN.

“They’re understated people, but there’s nothing understated about this relationship,” Turner said. “It’s genuine and authentic, just like Kirk and Mary.”

The Ferentzes know how important the university’s hospitals are to Iowans. Children with challenging diseases and medical conditions look to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for help. The Ferentzes feel personally connected as well: Four of their' five children were born on the campus, their oldest son underwent a knee surgery there and their daughter-in-law lost a daughter 21 weeks into her pregnancy, prompting the couple’s latest financial gift, $1 million for a neonatal unit dedicated to raise the survival rate of premature babies.

"We signed up to do what we could, and one thing led to another," Mary Ferentz said. "As we see more, we truly understand how important it is, and it's become that much more important to us. We've been inspired by those people over the years.

"They inspired us."

The Disney Sports Spirit Award will be presented Dec. 7 during the Home Depot College Football Awards Show at the College Football Hall of Fame in Georgia. ESPN will broadcast the ceremony live. In a news release announcing the award, Disney Sports called The Wave a “simple but moving gesture.” The annual award recognizes college football’s most inspirational player, coach or team.

Watch: 'The Wave' Becomes Sweet, New Football Tradition

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In this Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017 file photo, Iowa fans wave to children in the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital at the end of the first quarter of an NCAA college football game against North Texas in Iowa City, Iowa. The most heartwarming new tradition in college football, “The Wave” occurs at the end of the first quarter, everyone inside Kinnick Stadium is encouraged to turn and wave to the young patients watching the game in the nearby children’s hospital. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)