Clash at Kinnick: How Friday night’s football game between Iowa City High and Iowa City Liberty came about

IOWA CITY — Iowa City High football players are among a group of students from the school who clean up Kinnick Stadium the day after Iowa Hawkeyes home football games.

It’s an arduous task, for sure. Picking up empty popcorn buckets, alcohol containers and the like is not fun, just a way to raise some money for their school and program.

Funny how Saturday morning will be a totally different deal. Someone else will be cleaning up after they play a game at Kinnick.

“I think that has added to their excitement,” City High assistant principal Philip Hansen said with a laugh. “They get to play, get to go there and not work.”

There’s really no excitement that needs to be added for City High and rival Iowa City Liberty. They are opening their respective seasons by playing on the big stage, in the big stadium, in what’s being called the “Clash at Kinnick.”

Sophomores will kick things off at 5, with the varsity game to follow. This is the first high school game at Kinnick Stadium since 1980, when Cedar Rapids Washington and Bettendorf played a playoff game there.

“At the end of the day, it’s going to be a great environment,” Hansen said. “We’re looking at doubling the crowd that we’d normally have (at City High’s Bates Field) and have a great atmosphere.”

The genesis of this game goes back to last fall.

Hansen, who was City High’s activities director last school year, said the idea of playing at Kinnick Stadium was broached by members of school administration, district administration and others, with one question coming up: Would this be something that would be realistically possible?

Conversations with the University of Iowa began, and it was determined that, yeah, it was realistically possible. More conversations ensued about the parameters and pure logistics of the would-be event.

Hansen pointed out how City High uses Iowa’s cross-country course, has practiced and played baseball games at the U of I’s Banks Field, so there is a prior relationship there. Iowa also hosts part of the state baseball tournament, so it has some experience with high school events.

“It was just one of those things that obviously being in Iowa City, having (Kinnick) right next door, our student-athletes, they clean the stadium Sundays after games. They do the seat-backs, spend a lot of time there,” Hansen said. “So it’s one of those things where you’re always trying to strengthen the relationship with the university.”

Friday worked out perfectly on multiple levels. Iowa doesn’t begin its football season until next week, hosting South Dakota State.

“A positive for us, too, is it really allows us, as they say, to grease the engine and get the gears moving for next weekend,” said Josh Berka, Iowa’s assistant athletics director in charge of event management and sports camps. “It helps us to get some aspects of game operations in place this week, so we can roll and firefight into next week.”

That City High’s first-week opponent just happened to be Liberty was the capper here.

“It was a team effort,” Hansen said. “To be honest, the one thing I’m excited for City High is (we’re) always looking for that next opportunity for kids. We knew we had this great atmosphere close by, a great stadium, a great venue. And it worked out.

“I’m glad it all worked out.”

Hansen lauded the work that Berka has done in helping put everything together. Iowa is charging City High a $5,000 rental fee, with the schools partnering to take care of things such as concessions, security and policing.

Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for students and tickets are available online.

“In a perfect world, that offsets the costs of anything we are taking on as a district,” Hansen said. “But at the end of the day, this is a priceless experience that kids are going to have. And that, I think, is first and foremost. We’ve had support all the way from building administrators to district-level administrators on to the board to make this truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for our students.”

Hansen said over 250 City High students will take part in Friday’s event, whether it be football players and managers, dance and cheerleader team members and band members. Bands from each school will be seated in one of the end zones at Kinnick, with fans sitting in the west stands only, sections separated by school.

Berka said players will not be able to use locker rooms, but will get to run out of the locker room tunnel and onto the field. City High video content will be played on the stadium jumbotron.

Both Berka and Hansen were asked if they consider this a one-off thing or if it could be something that occurs again.

“I think the priority is let’s get tomorrow night right first before we start looking at the future. Let’s make sure we get it right,” Berka said. “Obviously, there will be things that will occur that we’ll learn from all the way around tomorrow night. So let’s make it as successful as possible, and then we’ll go back to the drawing board and see if it is a one-off or if it does become an annual thing.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun, just to see those kids get that type of experience on one of the most hallowed pieces of ground in the state of Iowa.”

Hansen agreed.

“We’ll see how it goes Friday night. Moving forward, we would love to give this experience to more kids,” he said. “The goal could be to possibly use this going forward and get Iowa City West involved. Maybe it’s neighboring schools like Clear Creek Amana, doing everything we can to create a great experience for our students.

“There have been a lot of moving pieces, lots of planning has kind of gone into it. But we’re just unbelievably excited to see this come to fruition on Friday night.”

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