maly, too: From the Ridiculous To the Lousy

Sunday, February 16, 2014

From the Ridiculous To the Lousy

By RON MALY

The last thing I needed to see was yet another newspaper story on Lolo Jones, the most over-hyped, written-about athlete who never has won an Olympic gold medal. I didn't, of course, read the latest ridiculous story about Jones that was headlined LOLO SEES TV IN HER FUTURE. Well, maybe she's smarter than I think. At least she doesn't see newspapers in her future. Once I saw the headline and bylines, I knew I wouldn't be reading anymore. I don't read anything written [or co-written] by Daniel P. Finney or Roland H. Thompson, his stablemate. The way I have it figured, the stories they write are fake, and so are they.

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Actually, I'm on the mailing list of an Olympic official who's been writing an informative, mostly-humorous diary about the goings-on at the winter games. The diary, which is emailed to me every day, contains much better stuff than anything in newspaper stories. At least stories published in the paper here.

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I was never much of a fan of USA Today. With that paper now included in what I receive from my Des Moines carrier, I've become less of a fan of USA Today.

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Still on the subject of not getting any bang for your buck [or at least Gannett's buck], Bryce Miller was 24 hours late on an earlier Lolo Jones story in the paper. That was the one in which Lolo kept referring to herself as an underdog. The Associated Press produced that same story on Jones the day before it was in the paper here. Looks to me like all of the reporters got their interviews at one mass press conference. Reporters love press conferences, and Lolo knows how to pick her spots.

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And so the paper is trying to convince me and everyone else that there's something new about it? Forget it.

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Another thing I don't need to read about--and don't read about--in the paper is anything about downtown Des Moines. I spent 40 years of my life there, and I try to go nowhere near downtown Des Moines anymore.

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I'm trying to tell myself I was wrong about this because Andrew Logue is a good guy and a hard worker. But I read his story on Drake basketball player Aaron Hawley twice to see if he tried to contact ex-Bulldogs coach Mark Phelps about why Phelps ran Hawley off the team. I didn't see any quotes from Phelps or anything that said the paper tried to contact him for the story.

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The Aaron Hawley situation tells me a lot about the state of Drake basketball. The new coaches

found one of their best players working out in some sort of gym. That's about like recruiting in the noon league at the YMCA.

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My Neighbor Al, the Health Nut, asked me how the paper could afford to send a reporter all the way to Morgantown, W. Va., for just one story. I told Al I don't know. I also told him I wasn't aware of the story to which he was referring. I don't always read the paper, or I don't care to read it. Maybe the story from Morgantown was in the paper during the time I was writing one of my books. I've been busy lately, and reading something from Morgantown, W. Va., has never been high on my list of priorities. The paper has a lot of problems, and stuff like My Neighbor Al, the Health Nut was talking about is obviously one of them.

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I was planning to write a paragraph or two about what I think about the so-called new paper. I've changed my mind. At this stage of my life, I don't have the desire, the energy or the time to write that kind of stuff anymore. Like I used to say about the college football coaches around here, "I wish 'em luck. They'll need it." Hopefully, the people in charge at the paper will be keeping a close watch on Daniel P. Finney's hard drive, as sickening a thought as that seems. Finney's phoniness and hard drive have gotten him into big-time newspaper trouble in the past, and my guess is it'll happen again.

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I don't read enough of the paper these days to really care about what's in it. By the time the paper shows up, I already know more about most things that are in it because I've read the news from other sources on the Internet the day before. I sure as hell don't need to read anymore about Iowa or Iowa State basketball games. That's on the Internet the night before. The paper, of course, does a

horrible job of covering high school sports, especially in the Central Iowa Metropolitan League, so I go to a number of the games [I always try to make it to the Valley games] to get a handle on what's going on. If there's a story in the paper on the game I saw [and there's no assurance there will be], it consists of one or two paragraphs written by the night janitor or someone else who got the information from the box score. Very irresponsible.

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Another thing I can't figure out is why Drake's athletic teams keep getting a big-time screwing from the paper.

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I occasionally scan the obituaries to see if there are any newspaper people or ex-neighbors in them, and that's about it for me. But I wouldn't even need to do that. A person could get the obit information from funeral homes' websites on the computer.

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I've never heard of a basketball coach said his or her team had a bad shoot-around on the day of a game.

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The high school football and basketball reporting, as well as the reporting on Drake,

aren't the only things that are lousy in the paper. So is the health reporting and the so-called health section. All or most of it is done by freelancers, who wouldn't know a good health story if the Mayo Clinic called and told 'em they'd just figured out how to cure cancer. The freelancer would tell the Mayo Clinic, "I don't have time to take the information now. I'm working on story about weight loss, diets, workouts and bicycling. That's all we care about here."

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Roses & Thistles and My 2 Cents Worth are not among the things I waste my time reading. Thistles to the paper for publishing the crap.

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The reason I wrote most of this stuff is because Amalie Nash, the paper's new 37-year-old

Editor and vice president for audience engagement

editor and vice president for audience engagement [hey, I didn't make up that title--it's in the paper] had a story today that was headlined, WE'RE LISTENING. KEEP THE FEEDBACK COMING--IT'S YOUR REGISTER. Amalie is from Detroit. Rumor has it that she drew the short straw when they held a staff meeting at her old paper there. The boss said, "We need somebody to go to Des Moines. Amalie, you're our go-to gal. I realize it's not Saginaw or Grand Rapids, but at least they're not murdering quite as many people in Des Moines as they are in Detroit. That should cheer you up. Amalie, you like to investigate things. So go to Des Moines and find out why the hell everyone there is canceling their subscription to the paper. The people at Gannett want to know. While you're gone, I'll use your season pass to the Tigers' games. I know you're a big baseball fan, so go to Sec Taylor Stadium in Des Moines and see if they'll give you a press pass to the Triple-A games there. If they won't give you one, and they probably won't, buy your your own tickets, and don't you dare put the cost on your expense account. Gannett's bean-counters will be watching. While you're in Des Moines, do like every other editor there has been doing in recent years--cut the news staff in half. Fire the old farts first. That means anyone over 50. As for your newspaper future, you are listed as day-to-day. Don't take your lunch to work."

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Hey, like I said, I'm not making that up. Amalie Nash is listed as the editor and vice president for audience engagement at the paper here. I've never heard of anything like that.

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Photos and illustrations courtesy of Google and the Detroit Free Press

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.