maly, too

Friday, November 27, 2015

Congratulations, Hawkeyes. You were clearly the better team in the day-after-Thanksgiving football game you played at Nebraska. I'm glad your coach is Kirk Ferentz and not Mike Riley. I'm glad your quarterback is C. J. Beathard and not Tommy Armstrong. I'm glad Jordan Canzeri is your running back instead of What's His Name? from the Cornhuskers.. And I'm glad you'll be taking a historic 12-0 record into the Big Ten championship game at Indianapolis. That's what today's 28-20 victory accomplished. Some people might say it wasn't a classsic, but who cares what other people think? When you're on the brink of getting into the College Football Playoff, you can say stuff like that.

This Is How It's Supposed To Be. Almost

By RON MALY

This is what it's all about.

Almost.

This is what the TV people had in mind when they decided to match up the football teams from Iowa and Nebraska on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Sort of.

Today's game in Lincoln is big.

Somewhat.

The only thing keeping today's 2:30 p.m. game at Memorial Stadium from being a huge national event is Nebraska.

The Cornhuskers didn't fulfill their side of the bargain.

They're supposed to have an 11-0 or 10-1 record and be playing for something decent, too.

Instead, Nebraska has a disappointing 5-6 record, considerably unlike the records many other Husker teams had heading into this type of late-November game.

Where have you gone, Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne?

And when's the last time Barry Switzer of Oklahoma was heard from?

By the way, I don't use the term Black Friday for anything.

I don't like it.

I think it's dumb.

So you won't read it again in these columns.

This is the 26th straight time Nebraska has

played in a football game on the day after Thanksgiving.

The Huskers are 19-6 in those games against Oklahoma, Colorado and Iowa.

Nebraska can sew up an invitation to a bowl game by winning today, but that's a far cry from what Husker teams of old were shooting for at this time of year.

National championships were on the minds of Nebraska coaches, players and fans in those days.

However, the words national championship can certainly be properly on the minds of Iowa coaches, players and fans.

A victory today would give the Hawkeyes a historic 12-0 regular season record and solidify their place among the four teams in the national playoff picture.

So the ABC-TV sports scheduling people are finally happy about Iowa-Nebraska.

No blah matchup this time.

The ratings will be huge.

I hope the game is as good as the expectation.

Whatever, I'm expecting the Hawkeyes to win.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Rob Ash Treated Unfairly

Here's another email from the former Drake athlete who expressed strong dissatisfaction in one of my columns yesterday about lousy coverage of Bulldog athletics by the Des Moines Register:

Rob Ash

"Did you see the news this morning that Rob Ash was fired at Montana State? He had been there 9 years with a record of 70 wins and 38 losses.

"Only 5-6 this year and he only beat Montana twice and lost 7. I still think they will find it difficult to find a better coach than Rob.

"Thanks for putting the email in your blog. [Register sportswriter] Andrew Logue did call me last night, and basically said they don't cover everything the way they should. He is covering tonight's game with Creighton."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS--I agree with you on Rob Ash, who had been a very successful football coach at Drake before going to Montana State. He became the winningest coach in Montana State history. Clearly, he was treated unfairly. Sometimes, though, it's not a case of how many games you won, but which teams you beat. Ash obviously didn't didn't defeat Montana often enough to please his bosses. Ash's teams won three Big Sky Conference titles, but a 54-35 loss last week to Montana sealed his doom].

Forget That Stuff Ol' Ben Wrote

By RON MALY

Discard what you've heard in the past.

Totally forget it.

The stuff Benjamin Franklin wrote about death and taxes, I mean.

Benjamin Franklin

"In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes," Franklin wrote in 1789.

Not so fast, Ben old boy.

The real deal is that the only certainties are death, taxes and a high school state championship football trophy sitting in a West Des Moines school.

Dowling made sure of that third certainty last night by absolutely crushing Kennedy of Cedar Rapids, 41-10, at the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls.

It was the Maroons' third straight class 4-A championship.

And it was the third team from Cedar Rapids that had to pay the price.

Two years ago, Dowling thrashed Xavier of Cedar Rapids, 44-13, for the 4-A title.

Lass year, Dowling ripped Washington of Cedar Rapids, 49-14, for the championship.

Last night's drubbing of Kennedy gave Dowling 134 points, Cedar Rapids teams 37 in the last three 4-A title games.

Clearly, the best football in the state is played in the Central Iowa Metro League.

Specifically in West Des Moines, where the sprawling Valley and Dowling campuses are just a few miles apart.

Gary Swenson has won five 4-A state championships at Valley, Tom Wilson has now won three in a row and four since 2010 at Dowling.

No wonder the Valley-Dowling game is always the most anticipated one in the state every season.

So congratulations to Dowling and its coaches again.

I'm glad one of the key plays in the Maroons' victory last night involved some trickery.

It was a fake field goal that resulted in a touchdown.

Wilson always has a huge bag of tricks in big games, and I've kidded about them in the past.

Fake field goals, fake punts, you name it.

A few years ago, his team was able to practice its fake punt play when Dowling was ahead of Valley by 30 or so points in a game at Valley Stadium.

Looking ahead to the 2016 season, I'm predicting more bigtime success at Valley and Dowling.

I can't wait.

Monday, November 23, 2015

'Poor Excuse for a Newspaper'

An e-mail from a Drake graduate, who is a former athlete at the university and is a longtime fan of the Bulldogs:

"Did you read the game story of the Drake

women's victory over North Dakota in today's Des Moines Register?

"There wasn't one.

"You might have seen the box score on the next-to- last page of the sports section.

"Really great coverage of a local women's team that is 3-0, with wins over ISU, Wisconsin and North Dakota.

"Fun team to watch with all 10 players getting minutes.

"Bench scoring against ISU--32 points, Wisconsin--36 points off the bench.

"I called the editor and Andrew Logue, but no response.

''They had stories covered on high school football by some out-of-town sportswriter and coverage of Iowa-UNI was a writer from the Waterloo Courier or some newspaper up there.

"Poor excuse for a newspaper. Come and watch the Bulldog women sometime. I believe you will enjoy them."

[RON MALY'S COMMENTS--The present coverage of Drake athletics is the worst in the long [more than 100 years] history of the newspaper. It's a total embarrassment. And don't expect the situation to get any better. If anything, it'll get worse].

Sunday, November 22, 2015

There's More To Beathard Than C. J.

By RONALD WESLEY MALY

A friend of mine asked today if C. J. Beathard is the Iowa quarterback's real name.

Casey Jarrett Beathard

It took me a a few minutes to find out.

And, yes, there's more to Beathard's name than C. J.

His full name is Casey Jarrett Beathard.

C. J. can do whatever he wants with his name, and I'm sure he'll answer to whatever you call him.

Well, most things.

But if it were me, I'd want to be called Casey Jarrett Beathard.

Similar, in a way, to Ronald Wesley Maly.

By the way, Casey Jarrett Beathard's dad is country music songwriter Casey Michael Beathard.

Casey Michael Beathard

So the kid, who happens to be the best quarterback in the Big Ten Conference and one of the best in collegiate football, can't exactly be called Junior.

He's probably happy about that.

And another by the way....C. J.'s mother is named Susan.
Photo of C. J. Beathard courtesy of Iowa Sports Information. Photo of Casey Michael Beathard courtesy of Wikipedia.

Sad news today for you folks in Des Moines, Ames, Iowa City, Norman, Stillwater, Lubbock, Manhattan, Strawberry Point, Osceola and other football-savvy places in the midlands who were hoping Paul Rhoads would somehow keep his job as Iowa State's coach. Rhoads has been fired. Something tells me his 32-54 record [3-8 so far this season] had something to do with it. Rhoads will coach the Cyclones in their season finale Saturday at West Virginia. After that, all of Rhoads' critics will need to find someone else to kick around.

Photo of Paul Rhoads courttesy of USA Today

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.