maly, too: April 2016

Friday, April 29, 2016

The Iowa-Iowa State football game Sept. 10 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City will be played at night. So will the Hawkeyes' Nov. 12 Big Ten Conference game against Michigan. Marc Morehouse of the Cedar Rapids Gazette wrote that stuff, and he also wrote that Iowa will play a night game Nov. 5 at Penn State. Morehouse wrote that the Iowa-Iowa State game will be televised on the Big Ten Network. The games against Michigan and Penn State will be on either ABC or ESPN. Good reporting, Marc.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Another Reason Hunting Is Not One Of My Sports

KCRG reports the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says an Oelwein man was fatally injured while turkey hunting. Officials say the incident happened in Fayette County around 3 p.m. Saturday, just north of Maynard. The DNR says another person in the hunting group of 63-year-old Michael Adams fired a 12-gauge shotgun, and shot Adams in the face and chest area. Authorities pronounced Adams dead at the scene. The DNR is investigating the incident

Thursday, April 21, 2016

To prove that the no-hitter he pitched against the Dodgers last Aug. 30 wasn't a fluke, the Cubs' Jake Arrieta threw another no-hitter tonight--this time against Cincinnati, which may or may not be an actual major league team. The Cubs won, 16-0.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

I've been trying to write something positive, pleasant and productive about Bill Fennelly and the lawsuit filed against him by one of his former basketball players. So far I haven't been able to come up with the words.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Among the collegiate basketball programs that have shown early interest in recruiting Dominik Olejniczak, the 7-foot former Drake player from Poland, are Mississippi, Florida State, California, Marquette and Purdue. I'm told that Olejniczak has already crossed Purdue off his list, but has shown interest in Mississippi--one reason being that there's already a player from Poland, Tomasz Gielo, on the Ole Miss roster.

I have no interest in eating a meal prepared in a food truck in Des Moines or anywhere else.

Food Truck. Courtesy Of Google.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Coffee Time With Al

By RON MALY

My Neighbor Al was here for a cup of Italian Dark Roast at mid-morning.

He's not much of a baseball fan.

But, while looking through the paper at Hy-Vee earlier in the day, Al said he noticed a page 1 picture.

The photo showed an usher at Sec Taylor Stadium holding an umbrella.

"If that was the best picture the paper could get on opening day at the ballpark, I wonder what the second-best picture was?" Al asked.

It was a question I couldn't answer.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

A guy says the sad situation in which Drake's basketball program finds itself reminds him of people abandoning a sinking ship.

Murray Wier, The Whirling Dervish

By RON MALY

I've written about Murray Wier in the past.

He was a standout player for coach Pops

Murray Wier

Harrison's Hawkeye basketball team when I saw my first game at Iowa Fieldhouse in the 1940s.

I had ridden in a Crandic [that stood for Cedar Rapids and Iowa City] rail car from--you're right-- Cedar Rapids to Iowa City with two other people to see the game.

Murray Wier, who stood no taller than 5 feet 10 inches, was known as a "whirling dervish" on basketball courts.

The dictionary describes a whirling dervish as "a person whose behavior resembles a rapid, spinning object."

I never wrote much about whirling dervishes, but I think Bert McGrane or Grantland Rice did.

Whatever, Murray Wier played an excellent basketball game that first night I saw him when I was 12 years of age, and Pops Harrison's Hawkeyes beat coach Piggy Lambert's Purdue team [which probably had no whirling dervish on its roster].

I've had fond memories of Murray Wier's playing ability ever since. He deserved to be the consensus all-American he became at Iowa.

Sorry to inform you that Murray Wier died today at the age of 89 at his home in Georgetown, TX.

I have my doubts that there will ever be a whirling dervish to match him.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Just the way I wanted it to finish. Villanova wins the national championship on a clutch bucket at the buzzer. The collegiate basketball season couldn't have ended any better.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Well, my Villanova juggernaut is halfway there, thanks to a 95-51 blowout victory over an Oklahoma team that not only couldn't find either basket, but somehow was a total no-show in the arena at Houston. I've never seen anything like it, and neither had the Final Four. If North Carolina, which clobbered Syracuse, 83-66, in tonight's other semifinal round game, wants to forfeit Monday's game, it's fine with me.

Villanova Is My Team

By RON MALY

I know it can't happen, but I wish it would.

I'd like to see three of the four teams lose that are in tonight's semifinal round of the NCAA Final Four basketball event.

I'd like Villanova crowned as the champion.

Sooner rather than later.

If I could get the other three teams to lose, Villanova could hoist its national championship trophy tonight instead of waiting until Monday night.

Villanova is a university of 10,482 students [6,394 of them undergraduates] from suburban Philadelphia.

It's a Catholic school, and a priest sits on the bench during games.

The man of the cloth even participates in the postgame handshakes with opposing players and coaches.

The Catholic part of this and the priest on the bench aren't why I want Villanova to win.

I want Villanova to win because Oklahoma, the team it's playing in the first semifinal round game, has always been a big winner in major college events, and Syracuse and North Carolina [which play in the second game] are among The Official Cheaters In Division I Basketball.

Things are so bad at Syracuse that longtime coach Jim Boeheim was suspended for the first nine games of this season because of consistent rule-breaking.

I think Boeheim should have been fired.

Now I just want him out of the tournament.

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.