RON MALY HAS BEEN WATCHING THE PARADE GO BY FOR A LONG TIME. THIS IS ONE OF HIS WEBSITES.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Story Time



By RON MALY

I listened to a story at Drake's final Tipoff Club basketball lunch of the season  that I had never heard before.

A couple of players on the Bulldogs' women's squad had just been asked what flavors of ice cream they'd enjoyed  on the team bus after their victory Sunday at Northern Iowa.

Pretty innocent stuff, to be sure.

Later in the program, men's coach Ray Giacoletti followed up on the ice cream segment by saying Bear Bryant, whose football coaching stops included Maryland, Kentucky, Texas A&M and Alabama, permitted cigarettes and 6-packs on the team bus after at least some games.

Giacoletti didn't specify what was in the 6-packs, but feel free to use your imagination.


Jacob Enevold Jensen, Drake's 6-11, 240-pound center from Denmark, was in the room when Giacoletti told the story about Bryant, and the coach said it would be of interest to the big freshman.




Bear Bryant







Like I said, I'd never heard the story before, and I was writing a lot about collegiate football players and coaches when Bryant was in the business. I covered one bowl game in which The Bear coached.

But just because I'd never heard the story doesn't mean it didn't happen.  

I did some research on my computer, but found nothing about Bryant permitting cigarettes and 6-packs on a team bus. I did see that Bryant was a chain smoker himself, and my guess is that contributed heavily to his premature death in 1983 at 69.

My research also uncovered this information on a site called : "100 Years Of Bear Bryant; 100 Facts You May Not Know":

"Bryant collapsed due to congestive heart failure in 1977. He checked into an alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Shelby County several months later, stayed a month and later resumed drinking." 

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It used to be that people would talk about things that were in the paper.

Now they talk about things that aren't in the paper.

I mean, you'd never know it by reading today's paper, but Ray Giacoletti and his Drake basketball team have a game tonight against Southern Illinois at the Knapp Center. 

It starts at 7:05, and I'm predicting that the Bulldogs will win.

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Also, they were wondering at the Drake basketball lunch why the paper couldn't find somebody--the night janitor if there's still one on the payroll, or somebody else--to cover the Bulldogs' game against UNI Sunday at Cedar Falls.
Night Janitor

Instead, the story that was emailed to me, the paper and others by Drake's sports information office was used in Monday's paper.

Sad stuff.

Where's Dan Johnson when they need him?

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Somebody said the paper probably couldn't find the janitor or anybody else to cover the game because people there were too busy getting to the bottom of the Facebook item picked up by Des Moines sports talk announcer Marty Tirrell on Twitter [and printed here] over the weekend about some fans' racial taunts during the Dowling-Valley boys' basketball game.

The Facebook item:


There's been nothing in the paper about the incident.

Not a word.

Anyone, even the night janitor, can write 2-paragraph high school basketball stories and go to press conferences.

But, obviously, it would take some work--starting with calling the guy who wrote the Facebook item--to untangle that racial taunt thing.

So don't look for anything on it anytime soon in CIML Hoops or anywhere else in the paper.

Where's Tom Witosky when they need him?

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Maybe I'm expecting too much from the paper.

Maybe I'm being unrealistic.

After all, the publisher wrote a story Sunday that was headlined REGISTER GIVES READERS MORE ON FEB. 9.

I guess I was expecting more too early.

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I see they're saying the Super Bowl was watched by a record 111.5 million TV viewers.

I say prove it.

I don't believe numbers like that because I don't know how they were derived.

I don't believe them any more than I believe the Iowa Poll.

I have never gotten a phone call from anyone asking me what I'm watching on TV.

I also have never talked to anyone who says he or she has gotten such a call.

I think that information about 111.5 million TV viewers is all bullshit put out by TV networks and advertisers.

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It was good to talk with Larry Morgan and Jay Davidson at the Drake lunch.

I hadn't seen either guy for a while.

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Photos of Bear Bryant and Night Janitor courtesy of Google.