Go to an Iowa State football game and wait for the Cyclones to score. When they do, listen for a booming sound and look for a haze of smoke in the south end zone.

When it clears, you’ll see a cannon and a group of fraternity brothers standing beside it, waiting for the next touchdown to do it all again. The process is more than a fun football game add-on — it’s a tradition.

The touchdown cannon belongs to Alpha Sigma Phi and has been with the fraternity since 1967 when a group of brothers, led by alum Dave Harner, pooled $85 and 200 hours of work that resulted in the first touchdown cannon.

“In 1972 we had our cannon stolen at some point and then we got this cannon donated to us in 1980,” said Tyler Palmquist, a junior in psychology and vice president of Iowa State’s Phi Chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi. “Someone thought it was a good idea to make a big bang. It’s a lot of fun and it’s kinda interesting – not a lot of people get to shoot off a cannon.”  

The cannon is manned by what Palmquist calls the ‘Cannon Crew,’ four members who get to go on the field and shoot the cannon at first downs, kickoffs and touchdowns. When the chapter was reinstated in 2010, the touchdown cannon tradition continued. However, the cannon’s barrel was cracked and in need of a new firing pin, so alum Todd Harris decided to step in at a reunion in fall 2012.

“After 32 years, I was rather shocked – this was not the cannon I worked with,” said Harris, a 1980 graduate of Iowa State who had the second-generation cannon during his time at the university.

Harris works as a general contractor in Elgin, Illinois, and upon seeing the beloved cannon in a state of disrepair decided to make the chapter an offer; if they could drive it to Elgin, Harris would do the work to repair the cannon. The chapter accepted and thus began a whole summer of work for Harris and his carpenters.

“I redid everything,” Harris said, who basically manufactured a whole new cannon in the span of one summer.

Harris replaced the original wagon wheels with hickory cannon wheels purchased from the Amish in Ohio and primed, painted and lettered the brand new cannon for the Phi chapter with his carpenters, who became huge Iowa State fans along the way.

“It became a whole story line,” Harris said. “My carpenters enjoyed the project.”

Harris, along with two other men, drove the cannon five and a half hours back to Ames and got it set up for the chapter, bringing the brothers of Alpha Sigma Phi the fourth-generation touchdown cannon.

The fraternity contacted Harris again about two months ago for more work on the firing pin and Harris rebuilt the whole mechanism for the cannon. Since then, the cannon continues to be used at football games, as well as at other significant Greek events that take place over the course of the school year.

“For Greek Visit Day we get to shoot it off. It’s a good attribute, gets people lured in,” Palmquist said. “We also shoot it off for a bunch of charity events, we do it for Greek Week for bed races, things like that.”

In addition to its multiple uses around campus, the cannon also made the journey to Atlanta, Georgia, for the 1977 Peach Bowl, where Iowa State played North Carolina State.

“We had so much fun driving down the interstate,” Harris said, who drove the cannon down to Atlanta with his best friend. “You don’t see a cannon driving down behind two college kids’ cars.”

Harris also noted the cannon blast shocking the stadium. The sports reporters from ESPN and his own friend were knocked flat on their backs from the blast upon scoring a touchdown.

While a new cannon may be a possibility years in the future, maintaining the current cannon, and the tradition, is of utmost importance to Alpha Sig brothers, past and present.

“I hope they maintain it,” Harris said. “It’s all about the cannon.”