maly, too: The Hawkeyes, Again

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The Hawkeyes, Again

By RON MALY

We had a decision to make.

Several weeks ago, we were invited to the University of Iowa Presidential Reception that was held last night at the State Historical Building.

Then, a few days ago, we were informed that one of our granddaughters would be appearing with her standout high school jazz choir group in a competition the same night at a school in Story County.

Nearly 100 percent of the time, when we're faced with scheduling conflicts like that, we attend the events in which our grandchildren participate.

Family, of course, always comes first.

Well, almost always.

This time, we stayed with the commitment we'd made to the event at the State Historical Building.

That was fine with our granddaughter and her parents because the jazz choir performance was one we had seen and heard earlier in this school year.

The presidential reception featured Sally

Sally Mason

Mason, Iowa's president, speaking to a large roomful of University of Iowa alumni and friends in connection with a $1.7 billion fundraising project that is making huge strides.

It was good to see and visit with lots of friends--some of them longtime friends, some of them new friends--at the gathering.

The first person who greeted me was Dave Triplett, the former Hawkeye football player and assistant coach who is now a university fundraiser.

Triplett played his high school football at Dowling of West Des Moines, then was in the Hawkeye program from 1968-1971 as a wide receiver.

He led the Hawkeyes with 28 catches for 428 yards as a senior, and won the Forest Evashevski Scholarship Achievement Award. He was an academic all-American as a senior.

Dave Triplett

"I saw that you were going to be here, so I wanted to make sure we talked," said Triplett, recalling my newspaper years when I covered his Hawkeye teams that were coached by Ray Nagel and Frank Lauterbur.

Also introducing herself to me was Catherine Zaharis, business director, Finance Career Academy in the Henry B. Tippie School of Management at the University of Iowa.

Catherine got my attention right away by telling me she went to school with one of my sons and that she's a regular reader of the columns I write on my Internet websites.

That got me thinking for a second or two.

"Well, then, I guess I'd better clean up my language in some of that stuff I write, knowing you're reading it," I responded with a laugh.

Catherine Zaharis

"Just keep writing the same way you've always been writing," Catherine said with a smile. "Don't change a thing."

That's good enough for me, and great visiting with you, Cathy.

A half-dozen other university officials asked for my Internet website addresses because they, too, want to see what I'm writing these days.

The best way people can please a writer, of course, is to ask where they can get his book [I've written three Tales from the Iowa Sidelines books, including the original version and two updates, on Iowa football], and how they can get to his Internet columns on their computers.

Before Sally Mason spoke, a video was shown that told the University of Iowa story and explained the goals of the present $1.7 billion fundraising project.

Among those shown in the video was Willard "Sandy" Boyd, who was Iowa's president twice--from 1969-1981 and then on an interim basis in parts of 2002 and 2003.

Sandy Boyd

Boyd, who celebrated his 87th birthday March 29, still teaches law at Iowa, and there's a building [the Boyd Law Building] named after him on the campus.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Although Iowa's football program encountered some difficult seasons when Boyd was president, he did something that impressed me.

I always seemed to be in the middle of what was going on in the Hawkeye athletic department in those years.

Indeed, I was writing plenty about a football program that endured 19 consecutive years of non-winning records.

To my surprise, Boyd one day stopped by the newspaper building in downtown Des Moines where I worked to visit with me about the state of the Hawkeyes' football program.

I had a wonderful conversation with him, and he made sure he told me there would be better days ahead on the field for Iowa.

Obviously, that happened when Hayden Fry was hired during Sandy's years as president.

Boyd's visit with me in the newsroom marked the first time I'd had the privilege of a one-on-one meeting with a university president.

It's not every day that the president of a Big Ten Conference university stops by for an upbeat visit with the guy who's covering his school's football team.

I mentioned that meeting which took place many years ago last night to some of the Iowa officials I visited with, and one man said he's going to line up a future conversation between Sandy and me.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it.

And also needless to say, I had a wonderful time at last night's reception.

We'll be catching up with our granddaughter, the singer, when she and other members of the high school jazz choir and show choir perform in the future.

[Photos and illustrations courtesy of the University of Iowa].

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.