Floyd of Rosedale, a giant stylized pig, stands guard at the Rosedale Rapids Aquatic Center in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The story behind the sculpture involves a real pig, two college football teams, a confrontation over racist behavior, and a trophy. Iowa Governor Clyde Herring and Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson each bet on the 1936 Iowa-Minnesota game. Floyd of Rosedale was Iowa’s award-winning prize pig. Now Floyd is the symbol of supremacy between Iowa and Minnesota football.
Fort Dodge is 2 3/4 hours northwest of the University of Iowa in Iowa City and 3 and 1/4 hours southwest of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. United Airlines flies to Fort Dodge (FOD) from Chicago O’Hare Airport (ORD).
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The beginning: Ozzie Simmons joins the Iowa football team
The Floyd of Rosedale story begins in 1933 when Oze E. “Ozzie” Simmons and his brother Don walked unannounced into Iowa Hawkeyes football coach Ossie Solem’s office. The brothers had heard that Iowa allowed Black players to join their football team. Jim Crow laws in Fort Worth, Texas, had prevented them from playing with White players. The next day, Ozzie scored two punt return touchdowns at practice. He had made the team.
Ozzie Simmons’s interview begins about 1:50.
Simmons suffers and stars in 1934
Simmons starred in the 1935 season, receiving the Ebony Eel nickname after two games. Even though Iowa endured a losing season, he won first-team All-Big Ten and second-team All-American honors.
Simmons’ color, unfortunately, made him a target for extra harassment. Iowans were uneasy about Minnesota’s rough tactics against Black players already. Eleven years before, Jack Trice, Iowa State College’s first Black player, had died from injuries inflicted in the Cyclones’ 1923 game with the Minnesota Golden Gophers. History repeated itself in 1934. Minnesota knocked out Simmons three times during their game. The Iowa fans believed that Minnesota players had targeted Simmons for injury. Iowa lost 48-12, while Minnesota headed for a national title.
In 1988, Simmons recalled, “They were after me because I was good. …Me being Black added a little oomph to it!” The Minnesota Gophers “were blatant with their piling on and kneeing me. It was obvious but the refs didn’t call it. Some of our fans wanted to come out on the field.”
Ed Benedict watched the game. “It was shameful the way Minnesota beat up on Ozzie,” he recalled. “It was brutal, and I felt sorry for him.”
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A future president praises the running back
Future president Ronald Reagan was then a sports broadcaster for WHO radio in Des Moines. Reagan recalled Simmons’s running style. “Ozzie would come up to a man, and instead of a stiff-arm or sidestep or something, Ozzie — holding the football in one hand — would stick the football out,” Reagan said. “And the defensive man just instinctively would grab at the ball. Ozzie would pull it away from him and go around him.”
Related: Read our article before you visit the Bridges of Madison County.
The governors place a prize pig bet
Emotions ran high before the 1935 Minnesota-Iowa game. Iowa fans sent threatening letters to Minnesota head coach Bernie Bierman. Special police protection guarded the Gophers when the team arrived in Iowa. Before the 1935 contest, Governor Herring warned Minnesota to avoid the previous year’s assaults. “If the officials stand for any rough tactics like Minnesota used last year, I’m sure the crowd won’t,” Herring said.
Olson decided to calm the situation on game day morning. Via telegram, he assured Herring that the Minnesota team would avoid cheap shots. He also proposed the big pig bet. He added an extra twist: The loser must deliver the pig personally.
“Dear Clyde,” he wrote, “Minnesota folks are excited over your statement about the Iowa crowd lynching the Minnesota football team. If you seriously think Iowa has any chance to win, I will bet you a Minnesota prize hog against an Iowa prize hog that Minnesota wins today.”
Herring accepted the lighthearted wager and ceased his threats. Instead, he joked that Minnesota hogs were no prize because they were “scrawny.” Iowa hogs were better hogs, he said. Word of the bet spread in Iowa City and pacified the Iowa crowd. The Gophers won 13-6 on November 9, 1935. The win helped the Gophers to a second straight national championship.
Becoming Floyd of Rosedale
Now, Herring needed a prize pig to pay his debt. Rosedale Farms’ general manager, Allen Loomis, offered a 220-pound pig named Hawkeye Honor to satisfy the bet. Herring said he would rename the pig Floyd or Floydina, depending on its sex.
Roxie’s reliable report: Floyd of Rosedale’s older brother Blue Boy was already famous. He had starred beside humorist Will Rogers in the movie State Fair (ad).
A week later, on November 13, 1935, Governor Herring delivered the live Floyd of Rosedale trophy to the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul and presented it to his fellow governor. Governor Olson suggested that Floyd of Rosedale remain a trophy for the annual game’s winners. However, he predicted the original hog would “die of old age” before Iowa retrieved him. Olson eventually commissioned a one-third-size bronze statue of the prize porker. St. Paul sculptor Carlo Brioschi created the Floyd of Rosedale Trophy, a 98-pound bronze pig. It measures 15.5 inches high and 21 inches long.
Related: Explore 21 things to do in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
Floyd of Rosedale goes to Minnesota
Herring brought a veterinarian’s certificate with Floyd of Rosedale. It said the porker had passed all the interstate transport health requirements. The live pig became the grand prize for the Opportunity for the Youth of Minnesota essay contest winner, 14-year-old Robert Jones. Jones eventually sold Floyd to the University of Minnesota. A year later, J.B. Gjerdrum bought Floyd. Gjerdrum assumed that the university had provided all of Floyd’s vaccinations. That was untrue, and the Gjerdrums found him dead of cholera next to a straw pile.
Floyd’s death meant Olson’s prophecy about the pig was partially true. Iowa didn’t get him back, but the pig hadn’t died from old age. Floyd of Rosedale rests near a clump of spruce trees about six miles north of the Iowa-Minnesota border. No monument marks his grave.
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Floyd of Rosedale’s cast of characters after the game
While Floyd didn’t die of old age, he did outlive Olson. Olson died of stomach cancer on August 22, 1936, during his third term as governor. He was 44.
Simmons’s color bars him from the NFL
The NFL prohibited Black players in 1933. Simmons played in 1937 and 1939 for the Paterson (New Jersey) Panthers of the minor league American Association (PDF). He was a second-team all-league player in 1937 and a first-team all-league in 1939. (The NFL reintegrated in 1946.) After football, he became a Chicago physical education teacher. In 1989, Iowa fans selected Simmons to the all-time University of Iowa football team during its 100th-anniversary celebration. He’s also a University of Iowa Varsity Club Hall of Fame charter member. He died on September 26, 2001, at the age of 87.
Floyd of Rosedale returns to Iowa as a bronze trophy
Iowa finally installed the coveted Floyd of Rosedale in Iowa’s trophy case in 1939. The Hawkeyes defeated the Gophers 13-9 on November 18, 1939, led by halfback Nile Kinnick. Then-Senator Clyde Herring attended the victory celebration. Kinnick became Iowa’s sole Heisman Trophy winner at the end of the season. An oil leak in his fighter plane’s engine forced him to crash land in Venezuela’s Gulf of Paria in June 1943. His body was never found. Iowa football now plays in Nile Kinnick Stadium.
Floyd of Rosedale comes home to Fort Dodge
Fort Dodge raised about $125,000 to install a Floyd of Rosedale trophy sculpture without tax dollars. Sculptor Dale Merrill created a 14-foot-tall, 15-foot-long Floyd of Rosedale. Before its permanent placement, the sculpture first rode in the Solon Beef Days festival, south of the sculptor’s studio in Mount Vernon, Iowa. The parade float’s banner proclaimed, “Missed the memo — Where’s the beef?” The float won the parade’s first-place prize.
The organizers initially planned to install the sculpture in the center of the 10th Avenue North and 32nd Street roundabout. However, safety concerns mandated its placement in the Rosedale Rapids Aquatic Center‘s property, away from traffic. A crane lifted it into place on July 20, 2021. Fort Dodge City Councilman Dave Flattery, the project leader, joked that the crane came “so pigs can fly.”
Flattery received the 2022 Catalyst Award from the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance. At the presentation ceremony, Growth Alliance member Matt Johnson noted that Flattery, an Iowa State graduate, spearheaded the project although he is “not a Hawkeye fan.” Flattery responded, “That was a project that needed to be done, and no Hawkeye would do it.”
The project leaders also included Councilman Terry Moehnke, Fort Dodge Fine Arts Association Executive Director Shelly Bottorff; Iowa Central Community College (ICCC) Art Program Coordinator Jennifer Dutcher; Kallin-Johnson Monument Co. Inc. President Scott Johnson; City of Fort Dodge Strategic Planner Carissa Harvey; and ICCC Vice President Jim Kersten.
When you see Floyd of Rosedale in Fort Dodge, consider how a prize pig defended a Black player, calmed a conflict, and became a source of state and civic prize.
Related: Visit another Fort Dodge near Dodge City, Kansas.
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