It was 1985 and life couldn't have been better for fans of the University of Iowa football team. Hayden Fry, the Hawkeyes popular, entertaining and talented head coach had delivered on his promise: To build a championship football team and the young men who toiled on Saturday afternoons in black and gold and helmets sporting the "Tigerhawk" were just that: The nation's best.

Iowa's heart-pounding 12-10 victory over Michigan the second Saturday of October 1985 proved just that.

The game pit Fry's No. 1 ranked Hawkeyes against Bo Schembechler's Wolverines, the nation's No. 2 ranked squad. The game was a Big Ten Conference classic with each team claiming leads. The deciding moment - which today stands as a defining moment for Fry and the football program he built - came on the game's last play - a 29-yard field goal by Iowa's senior placekicker, Rob Houghtlin.

Iowa's farmers - a cornerstone of Iowa and its way of life and a significant economic engine for the state and the Heartland - were struggling. Gripped in a financial crisis not experienced since the Great Depression, many farmers working land that had been passed on to them by multiple generations before them were being forced to close down their business.

The kick sailed through the uprights at the back of historic Kinnick Stadium's north endzone sending the sellout crowd some inside Kinnick and across the state of Iowa into a frenzy. Now the landscape had changed. There was a third football team in the Big Ten to be reckoned with.

However, as bright as that moment was for fans of the Hawkeyes, friends of the University of Iowa, and a vast number of Iowans, it wasn't as bright for some of the state's residents. These were desperate times; legacies, homes, families and communities were literally dying.

Iowa's farmers - a cornerstone of Iowa, its way of life and a significant economic engine for the state and the Heartland - were struggling. Gripped in a financial crisis that rivaled the Great Depression, numerous farmers working land that had been passed on to them by multiple generations before them were being forced to sell.

According to Emmanuel Melicher, a senior economist for the U.S. Federal Reserve, more than one-third of America's commercial farmers were in grave financial trouble. Farmers across the country - and in Iowa -were feeling the impact emotionally as well as financially.

Before the Farm Crisis hit, Iowa was home to 121,000 family farms. Nearly 20,000 went under, ending generations of farm legacy for many family farms. Nationally, the Farm Crisis claimed nearly 235,000 family farms.

Far more than just a football coach, Fry quietly went to work on another game plan to help.

After talking with the University of Iowa's director of athletics, friends and confidants, Fry developed a simple but powerful message to support Iowa farmers; a message that would be delivered on a national stage by his winning team.

Iowa defeated Northwestern 49-10 the week after making its statement against Michigan in Kinnick. The win pushed the Hawkeyes' record to a perfect 7-0 overall. More importantly, the team had completed the first half of its league season with four wins. The Hawkeyes popularity was at an all-time high.

When Fry's squad traveled to Ohio State, the players charged the field with a small addition to the game-day helmet: A simple yellow circle, 2 ½ inches wide, with the letters "A-N-F" positioned immediately above the Tigerhawk on the right side of the headgear.

The message was simple: ANF - America Needs Farmers.

And suddenly, this coach, this team, with the eyes of local, regional, and national media let the nation know; yes, America; America Needs Farmers.

Iowa lost its game with the Buckeyes, 22-12, inside a rain-soaked Ohio Stadium. However, Fry and the Hawkeyes won the hearts of the fans in the grandstands and the hundreds of thousands watching on television and listening on radio, and the millions that read about ANF in the days and weeks to come of that brilliant Hawkeye season.

The Hawkeyes ended the regular season 10-1 overall and 7-1 in Big Ten play, a mark that gave Iowa its second league championship in five years and an invitation to the Rose Bowl where a New Year's Day audience, who wasn't yet aware of Fry's effort to support America's farmers were introduced to the ANF initiative.