maly, too: I Need To Do Better

Friday, May 17, 2013

I Need To Do Better

By RON MALY

I promised myself a few years ago that I would look up some people from my past who needed being looked-up.

Far too often I thought of men and women I knew in my childhood, or earlier in my adulthood, who remained in my past, not my present.

Wilson

A few, obviously, I wanted to remain in my past.

However, I wanted to be updated on a number of people.

Like Bill Fitch, who grew up a block or so from me on 18th Avenue Southwest in the Young's Hill area of Cedar Rapids.

Fitch is older than me, and he was always interested in sports.

He was a good athlete at old Wilson High School in Cedar Rapids, and he went on to become an outstanding basketball coach in collegiate jobs that included the University of Minnesota, and NBA jobs that included the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics.

Fitch, an only child, was always thinking up new games that would test his competitiveness and the competitiveness of others.

Like me.

No wonder the guy wound up drawing up plays for the Celtics.

I mean, the guy was always trying to out-smart people, on or off the playing field and court.

Even the guy who drove the Thune's Pie Truck.

It was a panel truck that loaded and unloaded from the back.

It made deliveries to the small corner grocery store that sat next to the home owned by Fitch's parents.

Fitch found out when the Thune's delivery guy would be inside the store, and timed it so he could swipe a pie or two from the back of the truck.

A lot of us liked to be around Fitch after he stole the pies.

I always liked the berry pies. Especially raspberry.

But Fitch wasn't the only good athlete who grew up on Young's Hill.

Chuck Fulton and his younger brother Jack also knew how to play the game--or, rather, games.

Chuck and Jack were multi-sport athletes at Wilson. Much better than me.

They were older than me, and I liked hanging around them because they did the stuff I liked to do.

Their dad was a good guy, and he had a good car.

He'd take Chuck, Jack and their mother to countless games involving teams from Wilson, and they often took me along.

We rarely had a car at my house.

Chuck and Jack--especially Jack--would take me to various Wilson basketball games around Cedar Rapids.

I guess I was their project.

The first game I remember was when the Ramblers were playing at Roosevelt, the high school on the northwest side of town.

Wilson [now a middle school] is on the southwest side.

I was awe-struck the minute I got inside the Roosevelt gym the night Wilson played there.

I immediately liked the excitement of a high school basketball game, and made it a point to go to as many as I could--or as many as the Fulton brothers would take me to.

To illustrate how naive I was when I went to that first Wilson-Roosevelt game when I was 10 or so years of age, I noticed that some baskets counted two points and some counted one point.

I had to ask the Fultons why.

"Because there are both field goals and free throws in basketball games," Jack Fulton explained to me. "Field goals count two points, free throws count one point."

The reason I bring all of this up is that Jack Fulton died earlier this week in Virginia. He was 81. The funeral is tomorrow.

His brother Chuck died a few years ago in Cedar Rapids.

Unfortunately, I didn't look either guy up before he died.

Shame on me.

I didn't even know that they have a younger brother who lives in Cedar Rapids and a younger sister who lives in Des Moines.

I did call Bill Fitch a couple of years ago, though.

I found out he lives close to Houston, TX, and we had a nice conversation about the old days.

I need to start doing more of that type of thing.

I'm doing better. Still, I need improvement.

I heard the other day that another of my high school classmates died.

I never talked to her since the last day I saw her at Wilson 60 years ago.

Like I said, a shame.

Some of you can expect a call from me soon.

Time is running out.

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.