He sports a gold double-breasted suit coat, cardinal pants, a striped Iowa State tie, distinctive black-framed glasses and a bald head. And he makes it clear that Iowa State’s colors are cardinal and gold, not red and gold.

Prior to the beginning of women’s basketball games, footage of his trademark stance is featured on the Hilton videoboard.

Bill “Wild Bill” Yungclas, famous for his vibrant garb and for heckling opposing players, coaches and referees, has been a conjurer of Hilton magic at ISU’s women’s basketball games for the last 13 seasons.

Yungclas stirs up the Hilton crowd by issuing cheers, yelling through his cupped hands at missed calls and waving his gold ISU towel.

“You just want to make sure that our team gets as fair of shake as possible,” he said. “It’s almost like a justice issue. I want to make sure that our team gets good calls.”

Crowing at opposing players and coaches is a tactic Yungclas uses to provide his team with the home court advantage.

His goal is to “get them thinking about [him] instead of what they should be thinking about.” He tries to “take them out of the game.”

His effusive taunting seems to be rubbing off on ISU fans sitting near him opposite the ISU women’s bench.

Last season, a group of ISU students began dressing in referee shirts and gold ISU caps to cheer on the team and scrutinize referees.

Jason McLatchie, senior in management information systems, is one of the five students who dress up in the striped shirts for women’s basketball games. He said Yungclas, in addition to the Cyclones’ solid record, has helped to boost attendance at women’s games.

McLatchie said if all fans shared Yungclas’ enthusiasm, Hilton would be left trembling.

“If everyone did what Wild Bill did, the place would be absolutely nuts,” he said. “He’s probably the greatest fan Iowa State’s ever seen all around.”

Matt Herman, senior in computer science, prizes his seat near Yungclas. As a tribute to Yungclas and in support of the team, Herman wears a cardinal jacket and pants, a yellow dress shirt, a Cyclone tie and suspenders, a red wig and dark glasses, similar to Yungclas’ trademark frames.

Herman gushed about the electricity that Wild Bill generates.

“He’s an archetypal superfan,” he said. “He’s the fan which all other fans should model [themselves] after.”

Another Wild Bill emulator, Kevin Velasquez, freshman in mathematics, said when he learned tickets were available near Yungclas, he and his friends didn’t hesitate in snatching them up.

“[My friends and I] called the ticket place and asked what the best seats they had were,” he said. “They said ‘We have three seats in the second row right next to Wild Bill.'”

Though his ties to women’s basketball span back to his mother lettering in basketball in the early ’20s for Ames College, Yungclas hasn’t always been a strong supporter of women’s basketball. He went to a high school where girls didn’t get any court time.

“I didn’t particularly care much for girls’ basketball,” he said. “I never watched it or had been exposed to it.”

Thirteen years ago, when his daughter Marjorie, now 23 and a senior in microbiology at ISU, was in fifth grade, Yungclas decided to expose his daughter to college hoops.

“We decided to spur her on and to have her watch some better basketball,” he said. “There were like 100 or 150 [fans] at Hilton then.”

He went all out then and hasn’t let up since.

“If I do anything, I’m going to be enthusiastic about it,” he said. “You either do something or you just don’t. I’m sort of an all or nothing person.”

Women’s coach Bill Fennelly said Yungclas “adds a lot of enthusiasm and brings a lot of excitement to the game.”

“There’s no question. His enthusiasm is definitely contagious,” Fennelly said. “He provides entertainment when we can’t.”

ISU forward Megan Taylor, sophomore in sports management, said she doesn’t notice Yungclas’ ravings while on the court, but she hears him while sitting on the bench.

“He’s kind of hard to miss,” she said.

Yungclas pointed out that being a fan means being a fanatic, even through the bad times.

“Anybody can scream and holler when you’re ahead and winning,” Yungclas said. “The real fans are there for the team at the beginning of the game and at the tough times.”

He said he hopes people take his “wild” epithet to mean he’s crazy about the school’s sports teams and not that he’s a lunatic.

“I hope that ‘Wild Bill’ reflects that I am wild about Iowa State,” he said.