The Iowa football team has implemented many special traditions over the years, ranging from listening to an audio recording of Nile Kinnick’s Heisman Trophy speech before every home football game to the famous Kinnick Wave at the end of the first football quarter.
Another special tradition, affectionately known as ‘The Burrito Lift,” has reached new heights of success after first being made famous by a partnership between the Hawkeyes and local restaurant Pancheros.
The Burrito Lift incorporates fan participation while playing Belgian musician Danzel’s song “Pump It Up!” and originated in 2007. As the song plays over the loudspeakers, fans raise and lower their hands in unison as if they were lifting something. Some fans lift their friends in the air.
Alexis Puebla, the director of digital marketing for Pancheros, recalls how the famous tradition started as a joint idea between the restaurant and Iowa’s athletic department in 2007.
“Lifting a burrito on the giant screen was the idea,” Puebla said in an interview with The Daily Iowan. “The Pancheros team was trying to put their heads together, thinking about a song that made sense to pair with it. ‘Pump It Up!’ by Danzel really caught their ears and the repeating refrain that they have in the chorus just felt like it made sense.”
Rodney Anderson, the president and founder of Pancheros, agreed with Puebla.
“We really had to find that song,” Anderson, who founded Pancheros in 1992, said. “What’s very interesting is that [the] refrain was just perfect for what we wanted to do. It was a very unknown song at that time, so we decided to go with it.”
In a college town where original ideas can quickly reach new heights of approval from fans, the collaboration between Pancheros and the university has since stretched past the city limits, becoming a tradition that countless people associate with their own meanings.
Former Iowa defensive lineman and WWE wrestler Ettore “Big E” Ewen interprets the famous lift as an event that neatly pairs a popular team with a popular restaurant.
“I’ve been such a massive Pancheros fan since I got to Iowa in 2004 — my freshman year,” Ewen said. “For me, it’s really cool to see this integration of Pancheros and Iowa football. It feels like a very natural fit. It really captures the spirit of both Iowa fandom and what it means to be a fan of the Pancheros brand.”
Puebla enjoys that this event has garnered more reach and prominence than only within Iowa’s stands.
“It’s been cool to see the lift expand beyond Kinnick and Carver to become more of an in-game feature that is kind of Pancheros, but also Iowa as well,” Puebla said. “It’s been around for so long that I think fans resonate with it being a Pancheros-related thing, a restaurant that started in Iowa City over 30 years ago. But I think it’s also something that they relate back to just the Hawkeyes in general.”
Anderson also said the tradition has increased popularity for the song, the restaurant, and the Hawkeyes.
“I remember sitting here in the office, looking over somebody’s shoulder, playing songs,” Anderson said. “We had no idea what this song was, and we just thought it worked for us. It caught fire and did very well. Now I hear it on TV all the time in all these other sports stadiums for other teams. It’s kind of neat to say that we launched that song that’s the hype song in sports stadiums.”
Ewen said the tradition is something that brings people together, recognizing something they all enjoy.
“It’s a celebration of all things,” Ewen said. “It’s an opportunity for the crowd to all be involved as one. I love how communal it is — a communal celebration of our love for Pancheros burritos.”