C2

In Iowa, 70,000 people turned their backs on a football game, and for a second I thought something terrible had happened. My buddy Kyle got me a ticket. Kinnick Stadium. I'd been studying football for two weeks and had just figured out what a "down" was. I was ready. End of the first quarter. Whistle. The whole stadium stood up and turned around. Away from the field. Everybody. The old guy next to me with a seat cushion older than me. The college kids with gold paint on their chests. Kyle. Where I'm from, you don't turn your back on the stage. Not on a teacher, not on a shrine, not on a guest. My first thought was that Iowa was forfeiting. My second thought was that the governor had shown up behind us. I turned around too. Mostly so I wouldn't be the only guy facing the wrong way. They were waving at a building. There's a children's hospital right across the street. The top floor is big windows. And in the windows, little kids. Hospital gowns. A boy with an IV pole. A girl holding a sign over her head with both arms. I couldn't read it from there. Seventy thousand people waving at them. Then the players on the field turned around and waved. Then the other team's players. Then the refs. A minute, maybe. Then everybody sat back down and played football like nothing happened. I asked Kyle if it was a special day. "Every home game. Since 2017." "Who decided?" He thought about it. "Some mom posted it on Facebook, I think." No law. No committee. One mom on Facebook, and 70,000 people have done it every home game since. I don't remember much about the second quarter. I went back two weeks later. I turned around too early, before the whistle, and the man behind me put his hand on my shoulder. "Not yet, buddy." Then the whistle. A little boy on the 12th floor waved right at me. Kyle says you can't tell from that far. I could tell.

In Iowa City they built the children's hospital next to the football stadium, and they put a window on the twelfth floor that looks down into the field. That window was designed that way on purpose. So the sick kids could watch. For a while, that was the whole story. A window. Then in 2017 somebody put an idea on a fan page. What if, at the end of the first quarter, everybody turned around and waved at them. Seventy thousand people do it now. Every home game. The players do it. The coaches do it. The other team does it. Think about what that is. A stadium full of people who spent all week talking about how much they hate each other, and for one minute they all turn their backs on the game and wave at a window. Later they wanted a new song for it, so they put it to a vote. The fans voted to hand the choice to the kids in the hospital instead. I have stopped trying to explain your country to people at home. I just tell them about the window.