As always, Wikipedia has the answer:
The "Cyclones" name dates back to 1895. That year, Iowa suffered an unusually high number of devastating cyclones (as tornadoes were called at the time). In September, the Iowa State football team traveled to Northwestern University and defeated its highly-regarded team by a score of 36-0. The next day, the Chicago Tribune's headline read "Struck by a Cyclone: It Comes from Iowa and Devastates Evanston Town." The article reported that "Northwestern might as well have tried to play football with an Iowa cyclone as with the Iowa team it met yesterday." The nickname stuck and the Iowa State team had made a name for itself.
The school colors are cardinal red and gold. The mascot is Cy, a cardinal, introduced in 1954. Since a cyclone was determined to be difficult to depict in costume, the cardinal was chosen in reference to the school colors. A contest was held to select a name for the mascot, with the name Cy being chosen as the winner. In early Summer 2007, Cy was voted by fans on the CBS Sports website as the "Most Dominant College Mascot on Earth"
Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.
Posted by: Halloween | 07/22/2011 at 07:42 PM
The NORTHEN CARDINAL is a year round resident in their areas they,ll often stay through the winterv when many birds migrate and they come to backyard feeders and the IOWA STATE colors are red just like the male bird is
Posted by: Flu-Bird | 04/13/2009 at 10:24 PM
Well what *I* want to know is, how come so many teams are represented by cardinals when that is the State Bird over here in Virginia. Find your own birds!
Posted by: D. Gurri | 01/08/2009 at 08:39 PM