maly, too: A Night To End All Nights

Sunday, November 13, 2016

A Night To End All Nights

By RON MALY

What a night.

I show up for my first Hawkeye game in a while, do the 5-mile tailgate tour with my kids and grandkids, sit comfortably for nearly 4 hours in a stadium absolutely electric with excitement, and witness the university's biggest football upset since I can't remember when.

As has happened so often in the past, all hell breaks loose when I arrive on the scene.

I mean, I didn't get the nickname The Lightning Rod by accident.

You may recall that I started writing about this late last week.

I mentioned that the kids, who evidently think I don't get out enough, all but demanded that I attend the game matching an Iowa team that virtually everyone had given up for dead against a Michigan team that was unbeaten and ranked No. 2 in the nation.

I wrote that I'd try to match the trip up with an adventure I'd had many years ago as a kid who had just turned 13.

I spent a week in the old Children's Hospital at Iowa City, wrapping up a 44-day stay in two hospitals in two cities.

While in Children's Hospital, doctors had arranged for a wonderful nurse to accompany me to the Iowa-Wisconsin football game--my first Hawkeye game ever.

The university is now ready to open a new $360 million, 14-story Children's Hospital, one of the features of which will allow young patients to watch Hawkeye football games from the top floor in the stadium.

I got a number of great looks at the new hospital last night, and I'm giving rave reviews to university officials for the idea.

Little did I know when writing last week's column that the Hawkeyes would pull off a semi-miraculous 14-13 victory over Michigan in the football game.

Like I said, I accompanied Kevin, Donna and Megan on the 5-mile pregame tailgate tour throughout the Iowa campus.

My tailgating menu consisted of one Blue Moon from Kevin and two cookies and a handful of potato chips from Jo and Rick's tent.

We saw and visited with people we knew, people we didn't know and people we might want to know while making the tour.

Everyone was cordial, just the way Hawkeye fans are every Saturday, win or lose.

I fully expected the tailgating and the inspection of the new Children's Hospital building to be the highlights of the night.

Little did I know that Kirk Ferentz would inspire his Hawkeyes, who had lost their previous three home games and had a 5-4 record, to rise up and bring down a Michigan team that had been flexing its muscles all season.

The Wolverines were favored by more than three touchdowns.

Still, the tailgaters I talked with thought Iowa could win.

I didn't.

From my sportswriting years, I knew fans were fans.

They always thought their team could win, even in Frank Lauterbur's disastrous 0-11 season in 1973.

I always dealt with reality when it came to which team was going to win and which team was going to lose.

But what Iowa's victory last night, secured

when freshman placekicker Keith Duncan--a kid without a football scholarship--booted a 33-yard field goal as time expired, did was chalk up another one for the Iowas of the football world.

I mean, the massive upset came on the same Kinnick Stadium field as when Hayden Fry's 1985 team [then ranked No. 1 nationally] defeated a No. 2-ranked Michigan team coached by Bo Schembechler.

That victory, too, was produced with a last-second field goal. That one a 29-yarder by Rob Houghtlin.

I wrote the game story on that one for the

paper, and the entire week and night 31 years ago was a highlight of my nearly 40 years at the place.

Strange but true: The Michigan quarterback in

that 1985 game was Jim Harbaugh, who now is the Wolverines' coach.

A good thing as far as I was concerned about last night's victory was that I didn't have sweat my ass off writing a game story about a historic No. 1 vs. No. 2 game while battling a difficult deadline situation.

All Kevin, Donna, Megan and I did when last night's game finished was watch as thousands of joyous Hawkeye fans stormed the field to celebrate.

Thanks to Kevin for taking the pictures.

Our celebration on the ride home, which

ended at nearly 1 a.m. today, was a dozen doughnuts from a 24-hour place in Coralville.

Man, how times change.

What a beautiful night.

Now the Hawkeyes are even bowl-eligible.

I enjoyed writing this, and thanks for reading it.

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.