maly, too: Desperation

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Desperation

By RON MALY

It was at about 1:30 this afternoon that my doorbell rang.

It was My Neighbor Al, the Health Nut.

"Hey, Ron, I thought I'd catch up with you before TV gets rolling with the Super Bowl pregame stuff," Al said. "Got a cup of Italian Dark Roast?"

Courtesy of Google

"I can make you one in a minute," I said. "But I'll stick to water. No coffee for me. After church, we stopped for a big breakfast at the Cozy Cafe on 35th Street.

"I had enough coffee there to choke Harlan Miller, if he was still alive. So I won't be needing any Italian Dark Roast until tomorrow.

[Editor's note: Harlan Miller [April 3, 1897-Aug. 7, 1968] authored the Over the Coffee column in the paper for 40 years or so].

"What's on your mind?"

"Well, I was at Hy-Vee this morning to read the paper. I was wondering if you've read about all the changes that are going to be taking place down at that place," Al said.

"I haven't read anything except the church bulletin yet," I told Al. "How did you have time to read the paper at Hy-Vee? I thought you'd be in church."

"Diane and I went last night," Al explained. "We took the pastor and his wife out for supper after the service."

"Bless both you and Diane, Al," I said. "But back to the changes at the paper. What are they, and who wrote the story about them?"

"Well, I think the story was written by the publisher. I've forgotten her name, but I'm guessing it's Mary Stier."

"Mary Stier?" I said. "Al, you're in the wrong decade. Maybe the wrong century. They change publishers at the paper every six months or so, and Mary Stier left a long time ago, right after getting the 20-year watch she didn't deserve."

"Well, you know more about that kind of stuff than I know," Al said. "But I scanned the story about the changes written by whoever the publisher is now, and I'm already wondering if they know what they're doing down there on Locust, or wherever the paper is now.

"One thing I noticed was that comic book expert Daniel P. Finney is going to, in the publisher's words, be producing 'a new feature.' That's one reason right there to not expect anything from the changes in the paper, and for people who still buy it to cancel their subscriptions."

Al was on-target about that.

Finney, of course, is the clown who has a history of writing imaginary stories under fictitious bylines. I think the man lives in a cartoon-like world. I have warned people to not believe anything he writes. Google him [if you can stand the thought of that] sometime and read his bio.

Typical of the stuff written by Finney was the story he did for Saturday's paper about the new made-for-TV movie about Gabby Douglas. Instead of getting an advance copy of the film so he could review it himself, Finney took the lazy way out and relied on reviews written by other people.

Gabby Douglas evidently knows Finney's history. She wouldn't return his phone calls for the story, and he also didn't have any quotes from Gabby's trainer.

All in all, it was a horrible story, as most of Finney's stuff is.

I saw part of the movie last night on DirecTV, and thought it was pretty good. Hell, nobody expected an Academy Award-winner from low-budget deal like that.

But enough about the biggest airhead in the newsroom.

"The paper is going to start using some pages from USA Today in the news and sports sections in about a week," Al told me. "You and I talked about that a while back, and you told me that move will likely cost more reporters and editors their jobs in Des Moines."

"True," I said. "It looks to me like the paper has reached the point of desperation."

"Well, I'm certainly expecting no improvement in the so-called new paper," Al said. "I won't be buying any tablet so I can read the paper at 11 o'clock at night because I've got more important things to do at 11 p.m.

"And, as for tablets, I bought my last one when I was in elementary school. No more for me.

"I'll still be reading the paper, what there is of it, free in the deli at Hy-Vee."

"Let me know if you see anything good," I told Al. "As far as I'm concerned, the paper is getting worse instead of better. The day John Carlson retired from the opinion pages, things really went to hell."

"Got another cup?" Al asked.

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.