Iowa Hawkeye fans invade Florida

They came in droves and in both colors, black and gold.

See more photos on HawkeyeBowlGame.com.

On Monday, University of Iowa football fans piled into the Miami Beach Convention Center, 8,000 deep, to revel in the Hawkeye Huddle, an annual party that precedes the bowl game. Tonight, the Hawkeyes face Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, one of college football's most prestigious bowls.

Iowa fans flew in from Las Vegas, like Danville native John Geng, 39. They drove from their Florida winter haven, like 62-year-old Waterloo native Bruce Keith.

There were politicians, like Sen. Chuck Grassley, and former Hawkeyes, like Ed Podolak. There were crazies, like the gray-haired man who took off his hat to show his identification to buy alcohol. There were people like 52-year-old Marengo resident Dale “Stumpy” Kinzenbaw, who made today's game his first bowl trip and saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time Monday morning.

Kinzenbaw was decked in black-and-gold beads and an Iowa basketball jersey and double-fisted a pair of Bud Lights. The most unusual part of his outfit was a corn hat, which he's worn for 15 years in the north end zone at Kinnick Stadium.

“It's just my gimmick; it gives me identity,” Kinzenbaw said. “A lot of people don't know me by name, but they know me as the corn hat dude.”

Parents like Kathi Bulaga, mother of starting offensive tackle Bryan Bulaga, came to support their sons. Administrators like Iowa President Sally Mason came to breathe more life into the party atmosphere.

They were there to rekindle old memories, like Keith, whose plane nearly crashed flying into a snowstorm en route to the 1982 Rose Bowl. They were there for the first bowl trip, like Keswick residents 6-month-old Emery Hall, her 28-year-old mother, Jill, and 11 other family members.

They were ageless, raceless and shameless, but most of all they were Hawkeyes.

And all of them were in their black-and-gold element.