Eight days before college football returns to Jack Trice Stadium, the venue was filled with excitement and energy on a late–August Friday.

Inside was an opportunity many people in the stadium had never experienced before.

One by one, names of participants in Iowa State’s third annual Victory Day celebration were read loud and clear for all to hear. Sixty names were announced and 60 touchdowns were scored, each one queueing up a song from the ISU marching band and a dance party with the Iowa State football players.

Iowa State football’s yearly event that gives young children with mental and physical ailments the chance to interact with players and coaches brought joy to many in attendance on the field and beyond (there were a dozen or so viewers in the stands observing.)

The event is something coach Matt Campbell pushed to have instituted when he took the Iowa State job in an attempt to carry on the Victory Day tradition he had started at Toledo.

After three years, Campbell said it’s become a big event in the program.

“You watch these kids give more than they take,” Campbell said. “I think that’s been a foundational principle in how we’ve built this program.

“This is as special of a night for me as any we have in our football program.”

Celebrations were abundant around the stadium throughout the evening as players and participants ran plays directed at the north end zone. Players lined up out of position — there were instances of junior guard Josh Knipfel lining up at quarterback, redshirt senior defensive back De’Monte Ruth snapping the ball at center and many more — and spent time guiding young ball carriers toward pay dirt. At one point, redshirt junior defensive lineman Ray Lima got trucked by a participant, falling to the floor in a heap (he was OK to continue).

The ball carriers had a variety of strategies when scoring. Some wanted to be quarterback, throwing the ball to other offensive players only to get it back seconds later, while some took it slow and steady when working their way to the goal line. No matter what, though, every player made it in, and every player got their own touchdown mob.

It was all in the name of helping others, according to redshirt senior linebacker Willie Harvey Jr.

“It’s an amazing experience,” Harvey Jr. said. “Probably one of my favorite days, being so impactful on kids that don’t have the chance to do what we do.

“It’s just a blessing from our standpoint.”

Aside from the main event, participants could run through a number of drills with various players, flexing their muscles and, for one night, getting the chance to feel like part of the team.

Campbell said the timing of the event was important for his players.

“It’s so easy to get caught in everything else right now,” Campbell said. “I think this really grounds a lot of us.”

Families said the evening was one they wouldn’t forget. Harvey Jr. said the same.

“Watching them, the energy when they score, it’s something like no other, man,” Harvey Jr. said. “It’s something that is so impactful to others, that you don’t even realize until you’re in it. It’s a really great experience for us, and probably them as well.”

In a sporting world that becomes more and more cynical and jaded by the day — especially in college football, where coaches continue to show the opposite of grace under fire and players die because they were pushed too far in workouts — Victory Day served as a respite, a chance to expose the human side of collegiate athletics.

In short, pure joy is seldom seen as often as it was on Friday night in Jack Trice Stadium’s north end zone.

“It’s the most powerful thing to me,” Harvey Jr. said of the end zone celebrations. “It’s the most exciting thing to be out here for, just seeing the excitement and energy that they have.”