maly, too: Iowa's football team will hold an open practice at Valley Stadium in West Des Moines on Sunday, April 14. Iowa will conclude spring drills with a final open practice in Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, April 27. The open practice in West Des Moines will begin at 1:30 p.m. at Valley Stadium. West and Southeast gates will open at noon. All seating will be general admission. There is no admission charge for the practice, but a ticket will be required for entry. Tickets will be available at the customer service counter of select Hy-Vee locations in central and western Iowa beginning at 3 p.m., on Saturday, April 6. A limited number of tickets will also be available at the UI Athletic ticket office in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. There will not be parking available at Valley Stadium, with the exception of limited handicap parking available in the west parking lot. The Valley Church parking lot, adjacent to Valley Stadium, will not be available until 1 p.m. Additional parking will be available on a first-come-first served basis at: Valley Southwoods Freshman High School, Jordan Creek Elementary, WDM City Hall, WDM Library and WDM Church, surrounding the stadium. Due to limited parking, fans are encouraged to car pool when possible. Access to most parking is available off of Fuller Drive and/or 39th street. Concession stands within the stadium will be open. No outside food or drink will be allowed in Valley Stadium. “We are pleased to be able to bring our squad to West Des Moines and central Iowa,” said Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz. “This is an opportunity for us to reach out to our Central and Western Iowa Hawkeye fans that support us so loyally during the fall in Kinnick Stadium. The staff of the West Des Moines Community School District has been great to work with in putting all the details together. We appreciate the cooperation we have received in the planning and organization and look forward to the event.” No tailgating, including open frame grills, is allowed on West Des Moines Community School District, city or Valley Church property, including before or after the practice. Alcohol is not ever allowed on city or district property and all district property, including Valley Stadium, is tobacco-free. There will not be a post-event autograph session. Iowa began spring drills on Wednesday, March 27. Iowa opens its 2013 season at home against Northern Illinois on August 31. The Iowa baseball team will also be in action in Des Moines on April 14, as the Hawkeyes take on Kansas State at Principal Park. First pitch is scheduled for approximately 3:30 p.m., following the completion of the Iowa Cubs game which starts at 1:05 p.m. [This story was written for Ron Maly by Aaron Blau of Iowa's sports information staff] PARTICIPATING HY-VEE STORE LOCATIONS (Tickets will be available at the Customer Service Counter no later than 3 p.m., Saturday, April 6) Altoona Ankeny Ankeny Drugstore Council Bluffs Des Moines Des Moines Drugstore Indianola Johnston Pleasant Hill Sioux City Urbandale West Des Moines West Des Moines Drugstore Windsor Heights .

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Iowa's football team will hold an open practice at Valley Stadium in West Des Moines on Sunday, April 14. Iowa will conclude spring drills with a final open practice in Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, April 27. The open practice in West Des Moines will begin at 1:30 p.m. at Valley Stadium. West and Southeast gates will open at noon. All seating will be general admission. There is no admission charge for the practice, but a ticket will be required for entry. Tickets will be available at the customer service counter of select Hy-Vee locations in central and western Iowa beginning at 3 p.m., on Saturday, April 6. A limited number of tickets will also be available at the UI Athletic ticket office in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. There will not be parking available at Valley Stadium, with the exception of limited handicap parking available in the west parking lot. The Valley Church parking lot, adjacent to Valley Stadium, will not be available until 1 p.m. Additional parking will be available on a first-come-first served basis at: Valley Southwoods Freshman High School, Jordan Creek Elementary, WDM City Hall, WDM Library and WDM Church, surrounding the stadium. Due to limited parking, fans are encouraged to car pool when possible. Access to most parking is available off of Fuller Drive and/or 39th street. Concession stands within the stadium will be open. No outside food or drink will be allowed in Valley Stadium. “We are pleased to be able to bring our squad to West Des Moines and central Iowa,” said Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz. “This is an opportunity for us to reach out to our Central and Western Iowa Hawkeye fans that support us so loyally during the fall in Kinnick Stadium. The staff of the West Des Moines Community School District has been great to work with in putting all the details together. We appreciate the cooperation we have received in the planning and organization and look forward to the event.” No tailgating, including open frame grills, is allowed on West Des Moines Community School District, city or Valley Church property, including before or after the practice. Alcohol is not ever allowed on city or district property and all district property, including Valley Stadium, is tobacco-free. There will not be a post-event autograph session. Iowa began spring drills on Wednesday, March 27. Iowa opens its 2013 season at home against Northern Illinois on August 31. The Iowa baseball team will also be in action in Des Moines on April 14, as the Hawkeyes take on Kansas State at Principal Park. First pitch is scheduled for approximately 3:30 p.m., following the completion of the Iowa Cubs game which starts at 1:05 p.m. [This story was written for Ron Maly by Aaron Blau of Iowa's sports information staff] PARTICIPATING HY-VEE STORE LOCATIONS (Tickets will be available at the Customer Service Counter no later than 3 p.m., Saturday, April 6) Altoona Ankeny Ankeny Drugstore Council Bluffs Des Moines Des Moines Drugstore Indianola Johnston Pleasant Hill Sioux City Urbandale West Des Moines West Des Moines Drugstore Windsor Heights .

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.