Graduating from college and moving away is a recurring theme for most ISU alumni, but just because fans are out of state or away from Ames doesn’t mean they can’t root for the Cyclones with fellow fans.

The ISU Alumni Association sponsors gamewatches in 23 states and Washington, D.C., including seven in other parts of Iowa.

Alumni who live in bigger cities contact bars or restaurants to make sure the game will be on and reserve a number of tables for Iowa State fans.

“When we have these gamewatches, we bring some little table stands with Cy on them and we put those on the tables that were reserved for us,” said Bruce Blythe, a gamewatch coordinator in Chicago.

“You try and do something that makes a visual identity for the fans – let them know it is our home turf – at least for the day.”

Blythe has lived in Chicago for 13 years, living on the north side near Wrigley Field. He said the hardest part about holding the gamewatches is finding a site that is Big 12-friendly.

“We tend to move around every few years for some reason,” he said. “The fact that we’re in a Big 10 town makes a big difference.”

This is all extra work for the gamewatch coordinators, as they are all volunteers who just want to watch the games with some other Cyclone fans.

“All gamewatches are put on by alumni who live in the city or area around the city,” said Shane Jacobson, assistant director for outreach and events in the ISU alumni association.

“Right now we have 27 club gamewatches in the country, and we have great attendance.”

The biggest thus far was a 600-person blowout in Phoenix for the Iowa State-Iowa game. Jacobson said it was a joint operation between the Iowa Alumni Association and Iowa State. They had to move from the bar they normally show the games at to an outdoor location with volleyball courts and games.

The alumni association provides merchandise, such as T-shirts and key chains, for the volunteers to either have as door prizes or just pass out to fans at the gamewatch.

“For big games, we will always have some sort of Iowa State giveaway of T-shirts,” said Bernard Schwartze, an alumnus who runs the Colorado Springs club. “We don’t do that at every gamewatch, because we don’t know what will be on TV, so we try to budget it for one or two big games.”

Jacobson said the club gamewatches have been around for quite some time, but have recently been revamped and some new cities have been added.

“There are two ways clubs are started. One, we are contacted by an alum or a group of alumni in the area… the other way is for us to look for an area that we have a good base of alumni but no club before now,” he said. “All of the locations are restaurants or bars, and we do ask that the locations are family friendly so people can bring their children with them if they want.

“We’ve got an alumni flag that flies at the location so people know that is the place.”

The alumni association sends out an e-mail about a week in advance of the gamewatch to alumni in the area, as well as a reminder on the Thursday before for football games. The gamewatches are also beneficial to traveling fans, as they can go on the alumni association Web site and see if there is a location where they are staying that will be showing the game, plus a way to contact the local coordinator.

The locations are usually sports bars or restaurants, similar to Wallaby’s in Ames, said Jacobson. They are sometimes forced to move around, though, as some owners cater to local conferences instead. Blythe recently had to switch locations in Chicago.

“For a number of years we were going to a bar in the Lincoln Park area, and the fans wanted something a little nicer,” Blythe said.

So he found a bar called The Ivy on Clark near Wrigley Field. He held a gamewatch there for the Iowa State-Army game that drew around 50 or 60 people. The next week more than 100 people turned up for the Iowa State-Nebraska game.

“I happened to notice this one bar that just opened last spring, and I stopped by there just a couple weeks ago and watched some NFL games,” Blythe said. “I asked a waitress if they were affiliated with any team because the last place we were working with we kind of got elbowed out.”

It turned out the owner used to play football for Northern Iowa and had a feel for what ISU fans were like and agreed to show games. Blythe said he set up a drink special for the game and reserved plenty of room for the Cyclone fans.

It is hard to keep locations, though, as closer colleges get more fans in the area and ISU games get pushed to the side.

“We have a form we ask locations to fill out that they are committed to playing Iowa State games and have the game package on cable or satellite,” Jacobson said.

That isn’t binding, though, and owners can change their minds.

One thing missing, Schwartze said, is pregame atmosphere that people get in Ames. He said most ISU games don’t get any pregame coverage; the network just jumps in when kickoff starts.

Blythe found a way to get a little better atmosphere in Chicago, though.

“The owner asked if we would be interested in playing the Iowa State Fight Song during the games, so I got an old CD with Iowa State songs on it and he played it for us, which was kind of nice,” he said.

Schwartze doesn’t get the numbers that the Chicago club does, but he said that he usually gets around 30 people and they keep coming back when the Cyclones are on TV.

“Chicago is a great city; there are a lot of young people in the north side area,” Blythe said. “We just need the team to start winning some games and it will be great.”