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

Friday, December 25, 2015

I Hope It's Not a Polaroid One-Picture Rose Bowl

By RON MALY

I know Iowa's football team will be playing in the Rose Bowl next week, and I'll get to that in a minute.

First, I want to write a few things about the years in Hawkeye football history when there were no Rose Bowls, no bowls of any kind and no championships.

Just a lot of losing seasons and coach firings.

I'm referring to the dark days of 1962 through 1980 when the university never had a winning season in football.

That's right, 19 consecutive years of non-winning football.

They were years that gobbled up Jerry Burns,
Bob Commings
Ray Nagel, Frank Lauterbur and Bob Commings.


Decent guys and decent coaches, most of them. 

Some better than others.

I covered a lot of Hawkeye football in those years.

I suffered too. 

Not as much as Burns, Nagel, Lauterbur and Commings.

But it wasn't much fun showing up in press boxes all over the country [Iowa played games at such places as Southern California and UCLA in those years], wondering if the Hawkeyes would lose by 30 or 40 points, or would even score.

Commings came from a high school coaching job to Iowa, and went back to a high school job after he was fired at Iowa.

After one miserable season, the joke [at least I think it was a joke] was going around that, when Commings wanted to show a recruit the highlight film of the season, he reached into the bottom drawer in his desk and pulled out one Polaroid picture.

There was also a season when T-shirts were being worn on the Iowa campus that showed a picture of a Hawkeye player sitting on a toilet.

The Toilet Bowl was where some fans thought Iowa belonged in those days.

I'm sure glad things have changed now.

I'm glad coach Kirk Ferentz has his Hawkeyes in the Rose Bowl against Stanford, and I have every reason to believe Iowa will play well, and might even win.

Oh, I know Hayden Fry took three Iowa teams
Polaroid Camera
to the Rose Bowl,  and the highlight film of those three games could easily have been one Polaroid picture.


I mean,  if you're looking for happy thoughts about a Hawkeye  Rose Bowl game you've got to find guys like Kenny Ploen and Randy Duncan, who played on Forest Evashevski's brilliant teams in 1956 and 1958.

Fry's 1981 Hawkeyes didn't fire a shot and lost to Washington, 28-0; his 1985 squad lost to UCLA, 45-28, and his 1990 team lost to Washington, 46-34.

But this is Christmas, and my thoughts are of candy canes and sugar plums, not a one-picture Polaroid highlight reel.

I hope the 2015 Hawkeyes have a good week of practice. 

My guess is they'll need it.