maly, too: Bob Dyer & Dan Johnson

Friday, November 21, 2014

Bob Dyer & Dan Johnson

By RON MALY

I'm trying to come to grips with the deaths in recent days of Bob Dyer and Dan Johnson, two former sportswriters at the Des Moines Register.

Bob died last Saturday, Dan died Tuesday.

My condolences to their families

My prayers and thoughts are with them.

I worked many years with both men. They were very talented writers, and they will be missed throughout the sports scene in this state.

Bob Dyer was a stalwart in the newspaper's collegiate football and basketball coverage, and recruiting was one of his specialties.

Dan Johnson covered women's athletics like no one before him or after him covered it.

He also did outstanding work on the horse racing beat, both locally and nationally.

Both Bob and Dan went onto other jobs after leaving the paper.

Bob Dyer left the paper at a fairly young age to enter the profession of selling stocks and bonds, and later did an excellent job as a local sports-talk radio host.

It was not Dan Johnson's idea to leave the Register.

The paper has had numerous staff cutbacks--ordered by the Gannett Co.--in recent years, and Dan was the victim of one in 2011.

Among others losing their jobs in that cutback were Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Schorer Meisner; standout photographer John Gaps III, and sports columnist Sean Keeler.

In my opinion, telling Johnson he was losing his job was a cold-blooded move by people at Gannett and at the Register.

Dan had informed his bosses and others in the newsroom that he was fighting a serious disease.

Someone told me it was a blood disease that could not be cured.

Even though his bosses were aware of his situation, Dan was laid off.

No one saved his job.

Not the sports editor. Not the editor of the paper. Not the publisher of the paper.

Horrible.

Like I wrote earlier, cold-blooded.

Bryce Miller, a former Register sports editor and now the general sports columnist, wrote about Johnson in today's paper.

He wrote that the sports department was "working with heavy hearts this week" because of Johnson's death.

But Miller did not mention that it wasn't Johnson's idea to leave the Register.

I believe Miller was the sports editor when Johnson and Keeler were laid off.

I think I'm correct in writing that, when Johnson was told he would have no job at the Register, Andy Hamilton moved from the Iowa City Press Citizen to the Register.

However, Hamilton didn't come to Des Moines to take over Johnson's women's basketball and horse racing responsibilities.

He came here to help cover collegiate wrestling and high school sports.

No one has ever taken over Johnson's responsibilities.

The paper's coverage of women's collegiate basketball now does not come close to the way Johnson handled it.

An example came this week when there was no advance story on the Drake-Iowa State women's game at Ames.

That would never have happened had Johnson still been at the Register.

He wrote advance stories for Drake, Iowa State, Iowa and Northern Iowa.

He often would cover two games in one day--one at 1 p.m., another at 7 p.m. at arenas in different cities.

Dan Johnson would drive to hell and gone to cover games and races.

One other thing.

There have been more changes at the Register lately.

More layoffs, more resignations.

Among the changes is that there is no longer a need for a general sports columnist.

So Bryce Miller is quitting the paper.

But he was still in the paper this morning.

A friend of mine--another retiree from the Register's sports department--emailed me with this comment:

"I thought Bryce Miller quit."

My response to the retiree: "People have told me Miller's last day at the paper is supposed to be Nov. 21. That's today."

We'll see.

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.