maly, too: A Quandary

Monday, March 20, 2017

A Quandary

By RON MALY

I'm in a quandary.

I can't decide if I want Gregg Marshall or

Steve Alford to be Indiana's next basketball coach.

Oh, I know neither guy exactly needs another job.

Marshall is already being paid $3.3 million a year to coach at Wichita State.

Alford's salary at UCLA is $2.6 million a year.

But the names of both Marshall and Alford are significant among those being tossed around to be the successor to Tom Crean, who was fired at Indiana a day after his team lost a game in a postseason tournament no coach wants his team to be in--the NIT.

The reason I'd kind of like Marshall to land the Indiana job is because I think he and his wife Lynn [especially Lynn] need a change of scenery.

I think Lynn has outgrown Wichita, KS.. Or maybe Wichita has seen enough of Lynn.

Let me tell you about Lynn, who is pictured, courtesy of Google.

She had to be escorted out of her seat in the arena after her husband's Wichita State team lost to Kentucky 65-62 yesterday in a second-round NCAA tournament game at Indianapolis.

Two reporters sitting in front of Lynn thought she'd had a couple of adult beverages too many, and that may have been the reason she was throwing the "F" word around so many times during and after the game.

Security people talked with her several times during the game, but that didn't stop her from shouting at Kentucky coach John Calipari to "shut the "F" up, and saying some other things you don't expect to hear a coach's wife saying in public.

Final statistics on the game did not include Lynn Marshall's blood-alcohol level, but I think she is exactly what Indiana University and the city of Bloomington deserve.

If her husband were to get the Hoosiers job, she'd light up the campus and the city the way they haven't been lit up since Bobby Knight was ccaching Indiana.

Indiana basketball needs a kick in the butt, and Lynn Marshall is just the person who can handle it.

Now to Alford, who once had a coaching stint at Iowa [1999-2007], and didn't leave the job exactly on the best of terms. One of his players there was Pierre Pierce. Enough said.

I don't have enough time and space to write about that mess.

After Iowa grew tired of Alford, he took the coaching job at New Mexico. He's been at UCLA since 2013.

Hand it to the guy. He has one of the best teams in America this season at UCLA, and it's one that could win the national championship.

At least one of his freshmen, Lonzo Ball, will be playing in the NBA as early as next season.

Alford played on one of Knight's teams at Indiana that won an NCAA championship, and Hoosier fans certainly are fond of him.

Dan Dakich, the former Indiana player who now is a TV and radio guy and has an opinion on everything, thinks Alford should be Indiana's coach.

If Dakich thinks so, I guess it should happen.

Because Alford still has a team in the NCAA tournament, he thinks it's necessary to be coy when asked about the Indiana job.

“When I quickly trusted God and my faith, my journey has taken me to a place I had no idea that was going to be my journey and I’ve fallen in love with every spot,’’ he told reporters. “I’ve met great people, great institutions. …

“I love Los Angeles. You’re talking about arguably the greatest brand anywhere on the planet, and we got things going at a very high level now and we’re very excited about it. We’re excited about being in this tournament and seeing what we can do in this tournament.’’

“I can’t control what gets talked about....We’re very focused on what we’ve got to do.’’

I think Alford would fit right in at Indiana. People say you can't go home again, but he is something special and he could go home again. Just ask him.

I think it would be great having Stevie-boy bring his Indiana team into Iowa City for a game in the next year or so.

I'll bet the ticket people at Carver-Hawkeye Arena wouldn't have problems getting a full house

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.