maly, too: The 104th Drake Relays dazzled fans with countless fantastic performances across all divisions, and on Monday the Relays Most Outstanding Performers were announced. The award is voted on by members of the media that cover the meet. Mississippi’s Isiah Young was named the Maury White Award winner as the men’s collegiate and invitational most outstanding performer while Jenny Simpson’s record-setting performance earned her the honor in the women’s division. Josh Evans of Linn-Mar High School was the near unanimous selection for the Robert Kramme award as the boys’ outstanding performer. The Gerry Cooley Award for the girl’s most outstanding performance went to Agnes Sayeh of Des Moines Roosevelt. Young repeated as the Drake Relays champion in the university 100-meter dash with a time of 10.07 in a slight wind. Had it not been for the tailwind that was just 0.1 meters per second over the allowable windspeed, the 2012 Olympian’s performance would been a Drake Relays record and broken the 30-year-old mark of 10.11 set by Alabama’s Calvin Smith in 1983. He also anchored Mississippi’s 4x100 and 4x400-meter relays. Iowa native Jenny Simpson earned the women’s most outstanding performer honor after posting a Drake Relays and Drake Stadium record time of 4:03.35 in the London Games Rematch of the 1,500 meters. The former world champion crushed an elite field by nearly 40 meters after taking the lead from the rabbit 2:30 into the race. Her time was the fastest in the world this season and shattered Suzy Favor Hamilton’s previous Drake Relays record of 4:05.13 by nearly two seconds in tough, windy conditions. The honor is the second of Simpson’s career as she was previously named the Relays most outstanding performer in 2011. Josh Evans earned the Robert Kramme award as the boys’ outstanding performance following a 1,600-meter performance that brought sold-out Drake Stadium to its feet for one of its biggest ovations of the weekend for the Linn-Mar High School standout. Evans set a torrid pace in the race to finish in 4:10.86, the fastest time in Iowa boys’ high school history. His performance also broke the Relays record of 4:11.57 set by Pekin’s Steve Griener in 1979 which was the oldest Relays record in a currently staged boys’ running event at the Relays. Competing less than two miles from her high school, Agnes Sayeh of Des Moines Roosevelt, thrilled the hometown crowd by winning the 100 meters in 12.56 into a stiff headwind and anchoring Roosevelt’s 4x100, 4x200 and sprint medley relay teams to Drake Relays titles. Her 4x100-meter relay team ran the second fastest time in Iowa history while the sprint medley team won the race for the second straight year. The 104th Drake Relays saw 11 Relays records broken and two others tied in addition to the 11 world leading marks established inside Drake Stadium. Saturday’s session featured a sellout crowd of 14,504 for the 48th consecutive year. The Thursday and Friday morning and afternoon sessions also recorded the highest attendance figures since Drake Stadium’s 2006 renovation. [This story was written for Ron Maly by Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

The 104th Drake Relays dazzled fans with countless fantastic performances across all divisions, and on Monday the Relays Most Outstanding Performers were announced. The award is voted on by members of the media that cover the meet. Mississippi’s Isiah Young was named the Maury White Award winner as the men’s collegiate and invitational most outstanding performer while Jenny Simpson’s record-setting performance earned her the honor in the women’s division. Josh Evans of Linn-Mar High School was the near unanimous selection for the Robert Kramme award as the boys’ outstanding performer. The Gerry Cooley Award for the girl’s most outstanding performance went to Agnes Sayeh of Des Moines Roosevelt. Young repeated as the Drake Relays champion in the university 100-meter dash with a time of 10.07 in a slight wind. Had it not been for the tailwind that was just 0.1 meters per second over the allowable windspeed, the 2012 Olympian’s performance would been a Drake Relays record and broken the 30-year-old mark of 10.11 set by Alabama’s Calvin Smith in 1983. He also anchored Mississippi’s 4x100 and 4x400-meter relays. Iowa native Jenny Simpson earned the women’s most outstanding performer honor after posting a Drake Relays and Drake Stadium record time of 4:03.35 in the London Games Rematch of the 1,500 meters. The former world champion crushed an elite field by nearly 40 meters after taking the lead from the rabbit 2:30 into the race. Her time was the fastest in the world this season and shattered Suzy Favor Hamilton’s previous Drake Relays record of 4:05.13 by nearly two seconds in tough, windy conditions. The honor is the second of Simpson’s career as she was previously named the Relays most outstanding performer in 2011. Josh Evans earned the Robert Kramme award as the boys’ outstanding performance following a 1,600-meter performance that brought sold-out Drake Stadium to its feet for one of its biggest ovations of the weekend for the Linn-Mar High School standout. Evans set a torrid pace in the race to finish in 4:10.86, the fastest time in Iowa boys’ high school history. His performance also broke the Relays record of 4:11.57 set by Pekin’s Steve Griener in 1979 which was the oldest Relays record in a currently staged boys’ running event at the Relays. Competing less than two miles from her high school, Agnes Sayeh of Des Moines Roosevelt, thrilled the hometown crowd by winning the 100 meters in 12.56 into a stiff headwind and anchoring Roosevelt’s 4x100, 4x200 and sprint medley relay teams to Drake Relays titles. Her 4x100-meter relay team ran the second fastest time in Iowa history while the sprint medley team won the race for the second straight year. The 104th Drake Relays saw 11 Relays records broken and two others tied in addition to the 11 world leading marks established inside Drake Stadium. Saturday’s session featured a sellout crowd of 14,504 for the 48th consecutive year. The Thursday and Friday morning and afternoon sessions also recorded the highest attendance figures since Drake Stadium’s 2006 renovation. [This story was written for Ron Maly by Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].

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.