maly, too: Drake Basketball Recruit Babineaux Thought He'd Be a Collegiate Football Player

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Drake Basketball Recruit Babineaux Thought He'd Be a Collegiate Football Player

Kori Babineaux was a multi-sport star at Folsom [Calif.] High, starring on the varsity basketball team for his first three years and the varsity football team as a junior and senior.

As a junior, Babineaux averaged 19 points a game for Folsom High’s basketball team and clearly saw himself playing basketball in college. Less than a year later after helping the football team win a Division II state football championship as a senior, a season in which he caught 52 passes for 905 yards and 14 touchdowns, Babineaux decided that football would be the sport he would play in college as the scholarship offers came in.

Babineaux, 18, believed he’d be playing football so much so that he didn’t play basketball his senior year, instead focusing on lifting weights, doing football workouts and otherwise enjoying the rest of his senior year.

Funny thing is, though, Babineaux never accepted a football scholarship and it’s good that he didn’t. Before the basketball season even ended, Babineaux realized that he had missed playing the sport which was his first love.

With his previous basketball scholarships offers already taken, Babineaux was encouraged to check out a prep school and he ended up at Lake Forest Academy in Chicago. The hope would be that Babineaux would excel and basically get a second chance to accept a basketball scholarship.

Babineaux, a 6-foot 4-inch, 205-pound combo guard, took advantage of his opportunity at Lake Forest, averaging 27 points per game to go along with six assists, five rebounds and three steals and received scholarship offers from Drake, St. Mary’s Cincinnati, Loyola and Oregon State. Last month Babineaux accepted a full ride to Drake.

“I liked a lot of things about Drake,” Babineaux said. “The location was a surprise for me. When I think of Iowa I just think dry, open fields, but Drake is two minutes down the road from Des Moines (pop. 203,000), which is like a mini-Chicago. The location is awesome. I met a lot of people that I liked and Drake is one of the best business schools in the country and that’s huge for me because I’ll be majoring in marketing. After talking with one of the head professors there, Drake is perfect for me.”

Babineaux’s dad, Joseph, is obviously happy for his son.

“In hindsight, at the end of the day, I’m happy because he got to choose where he wanted to go,” Joseph said. “Staying at a prep school for a year, it’s also like a trial run at college, so he got an opportunity to get acclimated to that lifestyle. One thing he liked about Drake is that they told him he’s going to get an opportunity to be ‘the guy’ there and I know Kori likes to be a leader and carry a team.”

The year at Lake Forest proved to be good for Babineaux, as he excelled on the court.

“I had a few pretty good games, scoring 48 points in one game,” Babineaux said. “There’s not a huge difference between basketball in Chicago compared to California, but I think it’s a little bit better in California. The basketball part wasn’t too hard of an adjustment, but the weather was brutal. I’d never really seen snow like I did in Chicago. I really enjoyed Lake Forest. It broadened my horizons.”

Out of Folsom High, Babineaux was closed to accepting a football scholarship to San Diego State, but when their coach, Brady Hoke, left for Michigan after the 2010 season, Babineaux began to waver.

“I thought about my other options like Iowa State, Colorado State and Eastern Washington, but then I realized that I missed basketball a little too much,” Babineaux said. “Basketball has always been my first love."

[Folsom Telegraph.com].

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.