Stanford is the Farm, but Iowa is one of the favorite teams of the American farmer. That’s because since 1985 the Hawkeyes have worn an “ANF’’ emblem on their helmets. It stands for “America Needs Farmers.’’
Former head coach Hayden Fry came up with the emblem during the farm crisis of the mid-1980s, when many farmers whose land had been passed down to them by generations were forced to sell. Some 20,000 family farms went under in a state that produces an estimated 10 percent of the U.S.’s food supply.