maly, too: Chris Brazelton Of California Riverside Joins Drake Basketball Coaching Staff; Nate Meyer Prom\oted from Graduate Manager To Coordinator Of Operations

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Chris Brazelton Of California Riverside Joins Drake Basketball Coaching Staff; Nate Meyer Prom\oted from Graduate Manager To Coordinator Of Operations

Drake basketball head coach Mark Phelps announced the addition of Chris Brazelton to the coaching staff Thursday, and the promotion of Nate Meyer from graduate manager to coordinator of basketball operations.Meyer has spent the past two years in the graduate manager position. Brazelton comes to Drake after spending the past five seasons as an assistant coach at the University of California Riverside. Brazelton joined the UC Riverside staff under head coach Jim Wooldridge in 2007 after one year as a graduate assistant at the University of New Orleans under Buzz Williams. “The thing that stands out to me about Chris is that he is a terrific person, first and foremost,” said Phelps. “He is an extremely hard worker with great focus. He is a man of high character and he cares very much about serving student-athletes, with an emphasis on excellence. While Chris is known as an outstanding recruiter, he also excels on the court as a teacher and motivator. I am extremely excited that Chris is joining our staff as an assistant coach.” A native of Highland, Calif., Brazelton is a graduate of nearby Redlands East Valley High School. He earned his undergraduate degree in speech communication from Fresno State in May of 2006, working as head manager under coach Steve Cleveland. “I am honored to become a member of the Drake Bulldog Family,” Brazelton said. “Coach Phelps has a phenomenal vision for the level of excellence he expects. Drake men's basketball is already good; he wants it to represent greatness in every way. There is something unique and special here, and I am excited to be a part of it." Brazelton began his collegiate career at UC Santa Cruz, averaging 6.5 points and 2.8 rebounds per game. He then transferred to Fresno State, where he made the team as a walk-on and redshirted in 2003-04. In 2004-05 he was named a Fresno State Scholar-Athlete. An all-Citrus Belt performer in both basketball and track in high school, Brazelton also was a member of the National Honor Society and the California Scholastic Federation. He was rated as one of the top shooting guards in California by socalhoops.com. Brazelton played for the Inland Empire Basketball Program AAU team under the guidance of coaches Keith Howard and Julius Patterson, and appeared in the 2001 IEBP All-Star game in Riverside County. Brazelton earned his master’s degree in strategic communications in September of 2009 from National University, graduating with honors (3.53). Meyer, a graduate of Urbandale High School, joined the Drake basketball program as graduate manager July 1, 2010. In that role he has served as the program's video coordinator and has overseen the student-manager staff, along with a variety of other administrative duties as assigned by the coaching staff. “Nate has worked extremely hard as a graduate manager for us the past two years, and has certainly earned the opportunity to be a full-time permanent member of our staff,” Phelps said. “His experience the past six years at Nebraska and Drake, his tireless work ethic and his familiarity with our culture as a basketball program make him a perfect fit for the coordinator of basketball operations position.” Prior to coming to Drake, Meyer served as a student manager under coach Doc Sadler at Nebraska from 2007-2010. During his time at Nebraska he was part of two postseason teams, qualifying for the NIT in 2008 and 2009. Along with his in-season experience, he has also spent his college summers working more than 20 camps throughout the midwest. During his prep career, Meyer helped lead Urbandale to back-to-back CIML Central Conference basketball championships in 2005 and 2006, including a 20-3 mark as a senior. Meyer earned a degree in business management from Nebraska in May 2010. This summer he is completing his master’s degree in public administration at Drake. [This story was written for Ron Maly by Paul Kirk, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].

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.