maly, too: Harold Yeglin Still Going Strong As He Approaches 90

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Harold Yeglin Still Going Strong As He Approaches 90

By RON MALY

It was a muggy July night in 1959.

There was still a train that carried passengers from Albert Lea, MN, to downtown Des

Train station in Albert Lea, MN

Moines in those days, and I took it one

Saturday to interview for a job on the sports copy desk at the paper.

At the time, I was sports editor of the Albert Lea Tribune.

Leighton Housh, then the executive sports editor of the paper here, wanted to interview me for a copy editor/bowling columnist job that soon would be open.

Part of the interview process was to work a night on the desk to see what editing sports stories for a metropolitan paper was all about.

After finishing my interview with Housh, who pretty much ran the day-to-day operations of a department headed by legendary sports editor Sec Taylor, I started my 8-hour shift on the copy desk.

Seasoned veterans like Howard Kluender [also known sometimes as Elmo, other times as Big Stoop], Buck Turnbull, Harold Yeglin, Bill Holden and Ed Alsene were among those working that night.

Eyeshade worn by some copy editors

Sports news editor Bob Price was on vacation, so Elmo was filling in for him.

The job that soon would be open was the one belonging to Alsene, who wrote bowling columns in addition to his sports copy desk responsibilities.

A day or so after returning to Albert Lea, Housh called me to say I was hired. He also mailed me a paycheck for the 8 hours I spent on the copy desk that Saturday night.

Class guy, Leighton Housh.

I not only was awarded Alsene's copy editing job, but also his bowling columnist responsibilities, even though I knew virtually nothing about bowling and threw lots of gutter balls whenever I tried my luck at the game.

With that background, I covered the 62-day national American Bowling Congress tournament at Veterans Memorial Auditorium for the paper a couple of years later, and won several awards for my writing--including a TV and a set of outdoor furniture.

Some of the people who oversaw what I did on the sports copy desk that Saturday night scattered.

Some are no longer living.

Buck Turnbull still lives in Des Moines, and I talk to him and email him frequently.

Harold Yeglin lives in Virginia, and we correspond, too.

Indeed, I heard from him a few days ago. Here's his email:

"Hi, Ron Maly!

"Fresh news about Bruce Jenner brings memories of those good old days and big headlines in the Big Peach. when he won the decathlon. I'm wondering how Miss Jenner will go over at Graceland College where, undoubtedly, he's been an all-time athletic hero.

"Hope you and family are well. OK here. I'll be 90 in December....25 years since retiring from The Register and leaving for Roanoke. Health: Generally OK. I read USA Today and Wall Street Journal daily at a nearby library -- after visually editing the so-so Roanoke Times. Then there are daily Cubs game via Internet (things are looking up!) Basketball season was terrific -- Cyclones, Hawks, UNI and Virginia on the tube.

"I visit daughter Sara & family in Atlanta (one-hour flight) 3-4 times a year. She & husband Mark have been at CNN for 25-plus years. My grandkids are girls 10 and 12. Son Kent is engineer at four San Francisco FM stations.

"Ron, all the best to you and family.

"-- Harold."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS--It was great hearing from Yeglin, and I'm happy he's still going strong as he approaches his 90th birthday. The fact that he's had a long life indicates he survived the rough-and-tumble newspaper business very well. I'm glad for him [and for Chicago Cubs fans everywhere] that the longtime losers are in the early stages of what could develop into a successful season. Harold is a longtime Cubs follower. In my email to Yeglin, I told him I saw Buck Turnbull's wife, Jay, at a Valley High School basketball game late in the winter, but Buck had the flu and stayed home. I want Yeglin to know that I had lunch with Bill Holden [another member of the paper's sports copy desk in 1959] a number of years ago in Paris. Holden then had a top job with the International Herald Tribune in Paris, and I told him in advance that we were going to be in the beautiful city for a summer visit while traveling through Europe. Bill and I arranged to have lunch. He had become fluent in the French language, and impressed me by ordering our food in French when the waiter arrived. Like I said, people on that copy desk nearly 56 years ago have scattered. A few have died. I think I recall Mike Gartner being a summer sports department parttimer in 1959. Despite many assorted problems, rumor has it he is still alive. Gartner might have had early stages of little man's disease in 1959 [I guess it more properly could have then been called little boy's disease], and he now shows signs of having the end-stage version of little man's disease. But I've got more important things to do on a very pleasant Thursday afternoon than write about Gartner and Bruce Jenner [whom Yeglin referred to as Miss Jenner in his email to me]. I hope Jenner, who obtained a degree in physical education from Graceland College [now called Graceland University] in Lamoni, IA, in 1973, somehow finds peace one of these days. He was a gold medalist in the decathlon at the 1976 Summer Olympics. We all thought he then was a man, but he now says he is a woman. Oh, well. I'll touch base with you later.]
[Photos courtesy of Google.]

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.