Bob Updegraff, co-creator of the Cy-Hawk Trophy, passed away this morning at the age of 65.

According to Updegraff’s long-time friend Brian Conley, everyone knew where Updegraff’s allegiance was in terms of the rivalry.

“Bob was a huge Iowa state fan. The last couple of years, he’d either come over to my house or I’d go over to his house and we watched every football and basketball game that we weren’t at. Those were fun times, dearly missed,” Conley said. “He was a Cyclone fan and didn’t have a whole lot of respect for anything Iowa.”

Updegraff, along with his friend Jim Duncan, spent time as  broadcasters, covering Dowling High School football games as well as home Iowa State men’s and women’s basketball.

Duncan said the idea of the Cy-Hawk Trophy spawned during a weekly dart game.

“There were a group of friends in Des Moines that gathered weekly to play darts and during one of those dart games the idea of instigating a trophy for the soon to be resumed for the Iowa-Iowa State football game came up,” Duncan said. “We investigated what it would cost and we formulated an organization called the Greater Des Moines Athletic Club and we all contributed about $75 and that went to the expenses of the trophy.”

Duncan said Updegraff had a gift for making people laugh, something he continued to do till the very end.

“He was extraordinarily funny in a dark way,” Duncan said. “He had a very sarcastic sense of humor that never failed to make people laugh and he was still making people laugh on his death bed.”