maly, too: I'm Tired Of Waiting

Sunday, December 11, 2016

I'm Tired Of Waiting

By RON MALY

So the Drake men's basketball job has swallowed another coach.

Ray Giacoletti is the latest to show that he's not up to the challenge.

He quit--or was told to quit--after just eight non-conference games and a 1-7 record in his fourth season.

I'm glad Giacoletti finally realized he wasn't getting the job done.

I knew it quite a while ago.

Indeed, I was told that Giacoletti likely wouldn't succeed at Drake before he ever coached a game at the Knapp Center.

We were on a cruise four years ago, to either Alaska or Hawaii, I don't remember which.

Seated at the same dinner table with us one night on the ship were a man and a woman who said they were from Salt Lake City, Utah.

As part of the conversation, I told the guy that Drake, a university I had seen play lots of basketball games since 1959, had a new coach who had earlier been employed at the University of Utah.

"I hope it's not Ray Giacoletti," the guy said.

"It is Ray Giacoletti," I answered.

"Well, good luck," the guy said, "Giacoletti ruined the basketball program at Utah. I don't expect him to do well at Drake."

Giacoletti's records at Utah were 29-6, 14-15 and 11-19.

Actually, Drake would take those records in a heartbeat.

But it wasn't good enough for the folks at Utah.

In that ugly 11-19 season, Utah fans called for his resignation. He obliged, announcing before the final game that he'd quit .

Giacoletti didn't win more games than he lost in his first three seasons at Drake, and he sure wasn't going to win more than he lost in this 2016-2017 season.

I don't know when I've seen worse Drake basketball teams than those coached by Giacoletti.

I'd have to go back to the Rudy Washington or Kurt Kanaskie eras to locate any.

What an embarrassment it is to see these players continue to play poorly and continue to lose at a proud university where Maury John coached the 1968-1969 Drake team to a third-place finish in the NCAA Final Four.

What an embarrassment it is to see this piss-poor coaching at the same university where [who else?] Maury John took three consecutive teams to the NCAA tournament.

How fortunate I was to have been able to witness the brilliant success Maury John and his players had in those seasons.

Actually, I've written this story so many times that I'm tired of it myself.

I've written that--in addition to Maury John--Bob Ortegel, Gary Garner, Tom Davis and his son Keno Davis brought some coaching success to Drake since I've been around here.

I've also written that I told Keno Davis during his only season as the Bulldogs' coach that he'd better enjoy it because stuff like that happens at Drake only every 40 years.

Keno took Drake to the NCAA tournament that season, was named national Coach of the Year, and accepted the Providence job when it was offered.

I didn't blame him.

The Drake coaching job is very difficult.

However, I don't necessarily subscribe to the thought that the Drake job is the toughest in the Missouri Valley Conference.

No coaching job is easy.

Others have won at Drake, and someone will win there again.

I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

I'm tired of waiting.

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.