maly, too: Ex-ISU Assistant Wins Battle From Mother Nature

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Ex-ISU Assistant Wins Battle From Mother Nature

Bad weather left Tom Herman stranded on a highway for hours, kept him up all night, forced him to abandon a rental car and ultimately rely on the kindness of a stranger to make it to the airport.

Tom Herman

But Mother Nature still couldn't claim a victory over the Ohio State offensive coordinator [and a former Iowa State assistant coach] despite literally freezing over his recruiting trail Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

The snowy, icy conditions that wreaked havoc on the Atlanta area did force Herman into a 19-hour travel odyssey that he dutifully detailed on his Twitter account. But ultimately one of the most productive recruiters on the coaching staff made his way to the airport, caught a flight that was scheduled to leave only one hour later than his original plans called for and needed to reschedule only one meeting, perhaps giving the Buckeyes a big offseason victory over a formidable opponent.

"No, no, there's no way I was losing," Herman said by phone after arriving in the Dallas area, showering and heading out to look for some caffeine. "I won.

"I don't know if I was fighting Mother Nature, and I certainly don't want to blame the city of Atlanta, but they aren't as equipped to deal with that weather as a city in the Midwest or the North. Anything that would have happened like this in Columbus or Iowa or wherever, it probably wouldn't have been an issue."

Instead it turned into a major problem for one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, with Herman experiencing the gridlock on the roads firsthand as the perilous driving conditions made getting around Atlanta almost impossible.

Herman passed the time in the unmoving traffic by snapping photos, providing running updates and reading messages of support from fans on his Twitter account. He stayed up through the night until calling for help in the morning, receiving some advice from ESPN's Scott Van Pelt to ditch his rental car and then deciding to walk to the airport. It wasn't any easier to get around on foot, but after falling "five or six times," Herman was able to hitch a ride with Delta employee Terry Spiller.

Even that part of the journey wasn't a smooth one, as Herman and Spiller stopped to assist a woman who had fallen near the side of the road, calling an ambulance and waiting for help to arrive.

Eventually Herman hopped on a plane and caught a couple of hours of sleep on the way to Texas, a happy ending, at least for him. But after living the nightmare and seeing the damage the storm was inflicting, his thoughts were still on the people who aren't out of the woods yet even while he went back to work on the road elsewhere.

"I think there were previous [recruiting] trips when I was snowed in, maybe once or twice, but that was in the hotel," Herman said. "The snow would come through the night and you knew schools were going to be closed, but you were in town and couldn't do anything about it, so you just hung out in the hotel.

"Nothing close to having to spend the night in my car on the freeway in Atlanta. It was scary out there, and there are kids and families out there trying to figure out what's going on and what to do, and I'm still thinking about them. I didn't do anything heroic or anything."

He did win an individual battle with the weather, though. And the recruiting trail is once again all clear ahead for Herman.--

--Austin Ward, ESPN.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.