maly, too: When Tark the Shark Brought His Team To Hilton

Monday, February 16, 2015

When Tark the Shark Brought His Team To Hilton

The recent death of Jerry Tarkanian, known to basketball people as Tark the Shark, brought back memories to former Iowan Mike Swan, who now is a professor of mass communications and student sports media at Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kan. Here's Swan's email to me:

Ron,

As usual, I enjoy your writings very much. As you say, it's certainly a different voice from the one you used during your newspaper days. But it is great to read material from someone who is plugged-in to old school and "new school" journalism.

Tark the Shark

I intend to enjoy Valentine's Day, and I hope you do the same. My wife is working this morning and we have basketball broadcasts tonight, but I'll find a way.

With the recent passings of big-time coaches, I just felt like sending along some thoughts on Jerry Tarkanian this morning.

I remember his UNLV team coming into Hilton in 1975. He was just starting his dominant winning ways as coach at that school, and that ISU squad was going to be mired in a disastrous 3-24 campaign under Ken Trickey.

"Tark" was a relatively young man, but didn't look that much different from the coach that oversaw Larry Johnson and an NCAA title team later. Even then, we knew he wasn't as pure as the driven snow, but it was fascinating to watch him coach. He knew how to entertain, and his team did play very strong defense.

The Runnin' Rebels were already rock stars coming in there. They had a freshman guard, Reggie Theus, who would go on to a memorable NBA career. And players like Glen Gondrezick, Eddie Owens and Robert Smith.

Iowa State was in disarray, but had a star in Hercle Ivy and also a lot of young guys who weren't quite ready yet. In addition, there were players with marginal athletic ability, including a couple of hardworking walk-ons. It was quite a patchwork team.

But what transpired in that game was electifying.

Trickey's staff came up with some good strategy, having forward Art Johnson bring the ball up the floor to relieve the pressure defense. Iowa State played inspired basketball, and finally dropped an 88-82 thriller.

In those days, students could sit in the parquet on the north side (great seats) and, as high school seniors, we found our way down there.

Everything was a surprise in that game, which makes athletics great, in my opinion.

I found out recently that Art Johnson has passed away. I guess he was quite a high school star in Indianapolis, but it wasn't easy for him under Trickey, who did not do a good coaching job in Ames.

Ron, I also lived in South Texas for half a dozen years, south of San Antonio, where Tarkanian had a short stint with the Spurs. He was like a fish out of water there, with coaching suited a lot more for the college game.

Keep writing, Ron!

Sincerely,

Mike Swan

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Mike, thanks for refreshing my memory about Tark the Shark's appearance 40 years ago at Hilton Coliseum. I covered plenty of games Jerry Tarkanian coached, and it's interesting how he went from being thought of as a bum to a basketball coach who actually got some respect after he whipped the NCAA in a lawsuit late in his career. I guess I regarded him as a thug for many years, and I thought he recruited thugs to play for him. Just the sounds of the names Nevada-Las Vegas, UNLV, Tark the Shark and the Runnin' Rebels caused me to think of rule-breaking. You also brought back plenty of memories with the mention of Ken Trickey. Frankly, I couldn't believe it when Lou

Ken Trickey

McCullough, then the athletic director at Iowa State, hired Trickey to coach the basketball team. One reason I think Trickey appealed to McCullough was because things were a lot different in the 1970s when it came to attendance at Hilton Coliseum. The crowds weren't big, and McCullough thought Trickey's run-and-gun offensive style would bring people into the building. He had been a big winner at Oral Roberts University. But it turned out Trickey was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could never get his program off the ground, and fans lost interest quickly. I was on hand in Ames when Trickey was announced as the Cyclones' coach, and he invited me to sit on his bench during a game. So I took him up on it. I wound up writing a story about my time on his bench in for the Picture magazine publication that was carried in the Des Moines Sunday Register in those days. Another thing I did in that era was host an hour-long interview show on the Iowa Public Television Network, and Trickey was one of my favorite guests. Indeed, I invited him to appear on the show the week he was fired at Iowa State, and he graciously agreed to appear. I wish he could've done better as the Cyclones' coach. He was a good guy. Thanks for writing, Mike].

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.