The Dakota Marker is at stake

  I dressed carefully on Saturday. I chose brown pants, a green turtleneck and the closest thing I had to a gold sweater. I added gold earrings and a gold barrette just in case. The instructions were very clear. The Herd was to wear gold today. Even though I was many miles away from the Fargodome, I had to support my Bison. I am a good alumna.
  This game was very important, not because a 30 plus game winning streak would be broken. It was important because the Dakota Marker was at stake.
  For those of you who don't know, the Dakota Marker is the prize that the winner of the South Dakota State University- North Dakota State University game receives. It is a replica of the monuments that once marked the border between North and South Dakota. It started when NDSU and SDSU both lost their instate rivals due to a move in division for both schools. The Marker has S.D. on one side, N.D. on the other side  and 190M which is the distance between Fargo and Brookings. The Marker has resided in Fargo since 2010 and the Herd wants it to stay there.
  I started thinking about all the other trophies awarded in long standing rivalries. One of the best known ones in this part of the country is the "Little Brown Jug". It is awarded to the winner of the University of Michigan- University of Minnesota game. It became the travelling trophy between the two teams in 1909. Michigan was the first to take the jug home that year and has managed to keep it most of the time. Oddly enough, the Jug is not brown. It is half blue (blue is Michigan's colour) and has the results of each game painted on it. Minnesota won the jug this year. It had been living in Michigan since 2005.
  One odd rivalry is the Governor's Victory Bell awarded to the winner of the Minnesota-Penn State game. This is odd to me because Pennsylvania is nowhere near Minnesota. Why would there be any kind of rivalry with a state so far away? The answer is that the GVB was started to commemorate Penn State's entry into the Big Ten Conference. Minnesota currently holds the Bell. Now that other teams have joined the Big Ten the Governor's Victory Bell game will be played about every other year.
   As I was surfing Wikipedia looking for information about these rivalries, I found one that looked interesting. It is called the Illibuck. I had to look it up. The Illibuck was a live turtle first awarded in 1925 to the winner of the Illinois-Ohio State game. A turtle was chosen as a symbol of the long life of the rivalry since turtles have long life spans. Unfortunately the turtle died in1927 and was replaced by a wooden replica which has the game scores carved on its back. Ohio is the leader of the series and is the current holder of the Illibuck. With the expansion of the Big Ten there will be no annual match up. The Illini will have to wait a few years before they get another chance at the Illibuck.
   One of the older ones is Paul Bunyan's Axe. It is awarded to the winner of the Wisconsin-Minnesota game. It originally started as wooden board with the word "bacon" on both ends to signify that the winner had "brought home the bacon". It was known as the "Slab of Bacon". It was lost in 1943 and replaced by "Paul Bunyan's Axe". The Slab was found in a storage closet in 1994 in Wisconsin.
  The scores of the game are recorded on the axe handle. The team who wins the Axe carries it around the field and then pretends to use it to chop down the opposing team's goal post. If the team who wins wasn't already holding the Axe, the winning team runs to the losing team's sideline to "steal" the Axe. Currently Wisconsin holds the Axe. The two teams will play on 29 November to see who will get the Axe for the next year.
   My favourite trophy is The Floyd of Rosedale. The original Floyd was a live pig wagered as a bet between the governors of Minnesota and Iowa. The bet was that the loser of the game had to give a local pig to the winning governor. in 1935 Governor Clyde Herring of Iowa brought Floyd, named after the governor of Minnesota and raised on Rosedale Farms near Fort Dodge Iowa, into the the office of Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson. The governors were both accused of violating federal gambling laws by a social crusader. The charges were dropped.
  The original Floyd died a few years later and was replaced by a bronze replica comssioned by Governor Olson. Currently Floyd lives in Iowa and the two teams will meet ths coming weekend to see if Floyd will remain with the Hawkeyes or go to Minnesota.
   I didn't get to see the Dakota Marker game. I was at work. C promised to phone in the scores to me at the end of the half, but he got busy. When I got off work, C was there to pick me up and showed me the score NDSU 37 SDSU 17. The Marker stays in Fargo. Sorry Jackrabbits.....


I used Wikipedia as a reference for the information from this column. Any error is mine.