After meeting last Friday to discuss fan submissions for a new Cy-Hawk football game trophy, the Iowa Corn Growers Association has begun developing drawings of the top trophy submissions that it plans to have available for fans to vote on this spring.

Iowa Corn received almost 500 submissions for the new trophy that will be awarded to the winner of the annual Cy-Hawk football game between Iowa and Iowa State, said Mindy Williamson, Iowa Corn director of communications and public relations.

A new trophy is needed to replace the trophy that was revealed this past August but lasted only four days after outcry from fans prompted Iowa Corn to announce plans for a new trophy for 2012.

Before fans will have the final decision on the trophy’s design, a committee, which will include among others former Iowa and ISU football players, will narrow down the top submissions.

“What has to take place in our time line is that first someone has to make a rendering of the top ideas and then our committee of former athletes, members of each athletic department and corn growers will narrow those ideas down to what the fans will then vote on as the new trophy,” Williamson said. 

Williamson said the number of ideas that will be rendered and the final number of ideas that will be voted upon have yet to be decided and no former athletes have been contacted at this point about being a member on the committee.

Williamson mentioned a few trophy ideas among the 500 submissions that were discussed at Friday’s meeting. They include a trophy featuring stadium namesakes Nile Kinnick and Jack Trice, the school mascots Cy and Herky, a corn belt resembling a professional wrestling belt and a football resembling an ear of corn.

As for the trophy that was revealed in August, Iowa Corn has received numerous offers from a variety of entities including charities, schools, car dealerships and insurance companies.

“There are a lot of ideas, not as many as trophy submissions, but we haven’t decided on where its home will be,” Williamson said.

Trophies for both the men’s and women’s basketball games were also discussed on Friday, but any decision would be for the 2012-13 basketball season at the earliest.

“We’ll probably go through the same process as the football trophy,” Williamson said.

Aside from men’s and women’s basketball and wrestling — which will debut the Dan Gable trophy this season — trophies for the other six sports and the academic competition that the the two schools compete in have not yet been discussed.

Williamson noted that Iowa Corn will be doing its utmost to promote the smaller market sports such as gymnastics, swimming and softball and the academic portion of the Cy-Hawk series.

The next meeting between Iowa Corn, Learfield Sports and representatives of the universities has not yet been set, but Williamson said they are hoping the renderings of the trophies will be completed this fall.

When voting becomes available, fans will be able to vote on the series website (www.cyhawkseries.com.) where there is also more information and the updated series score.