By Ron Maly
An e-mail from Mark Robinson [pictured at the right]:
"Hi, Ron;
"Looks like Marshalltown basketball isn’t going to be very good for quite a while. You posted the Valley beat-down of the Bobcat varsity, but did you see the score of the freshman game played at the old Lenihan gym in Marshalltown? It wasn’t in the online edition of the Times-Republican.
"That score was 70-29 in favor of Valley. The MHS Roundhouse, which is scheduled for a welcome renovation soon, will be lucky to see any 5.000-seat sellouts any time soon.
"Al Schallau wrote to you about Hawkeye football coaches. It seems he is concerned that none of the coaches has been offered a head coaching job in this century. I understand his concern as we Hawkeye fans got used to Hayden Fry's assistants moving on to greater things with regularity. As much as we all would like to think we know what goes on behind the scenes, we may never know how many head coaching offers have been turned down by Iowa coaches under Ferentz.
"Keep writing."
Mark Robinson
Iowa City
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[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: I think Al Schallau was referring to former Hayden Fry assistants such as Bill Snyder, Dan McCarney and Barry Alvarez--all of whom went on to prominent head coaching jobs. Indeed, Alvarez is now Wisconsin's athletic director after a very successful term as the Badgers' football coach. McCarney turned a terrible Iowa State program into a winner when he was the head coach there. McCarney now is the head coach at North Texas. Snyder made a success out of what once was thought to be the worst football program in America at Kansas State. Snyder is back for a second term with the Wildcats now. Mark Robinson is correct when he writes that no one is aware of how many coaching offers Kirk Ferentz's assistants have received, other than the assistants themselves. We do know that Ferentz's assistants are paid well, which is a compliment to Ferentz [who also is very well-paid] and to the Hawkeye football program he has built in recent years. As I pointed out in an earlier column, coordinators are usually the assistant coaches from successful programs who are given considerable attention by athletic directors who are looking for new head coaches. Norm Parker, the Iowa defensive coordinator who comes with very strong coaching credentials, obviously isn't going to be considered for a head coaching job anywhere. He's 68 years of age and not in good health. Ken O'Keefe, the offensive coordinator, has never been a favorite of Hawkeye fans. But only O'Keefe knows how many job offers, if any, he has received since he's been at Iowa].
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TWO FINE PEOPLE
An e-mail from Jay Davidson of Des Moines:
"Ron,
"Nice words about two worthy coaches and two fine people, Lisa Bluder and Amy Stephens. I could not agree more about those two.
"Best,"
[RON MALY'S COMMENTS: Jay was referring to my column about Bluder and Stephens following Iowa's 75-71 victory over Drake's women Monday night at the Knapp Center. Both Bluder, a former Drake coach, and Stephens exhibited a lot of class following a basketball that was very well-played by both teams].
Jay
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ONCE A WRITER, ALWAYS A WRITER
I wrote to Steve Malchow the other day to tell him how much I was enjoying his writing in the "2:00 Timeout" feature on Iowa State's sports website, www.cyclones.com
I've known Steve for many years, going back to when he was a student at Iowa. He later was a hard-working assistant in the sports information office at Iowa, and later was in the SID office at Wisconsin.
He's now the senior associate athletic director for communications at Iowa State. I see his name frequently in newspapers. He appears to be the man reporters contact whenever athletic director Jamie Pollard isn't in the office, or doesn't want to respond to questions pertaining to matters within the Cyclones' athletic department.
Malchow, a native of Sioux City, obviously has a strong writing background. "Once a writer, always a writer," I told him in my e-mail to him, regarding the "2:00 Timeout" segments he writes.
"As my wife (a former SID) says, 'You’ve got a lot of useless knowledge and now you have an outlet for it,'” Malchow told me.
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DUCKY LEWIS REVISITED
I've attended a couple of basketball games at the Knapp Center this week following the Drake-Iowa men's game last Saturday. While there, I've talked to a number of fans about this, that and whatever.
It was after the Iowa-Drake game that I complimented Fran McCaffery, the Hawkeyes' first-year coach, for how he handled himself in the postgame interview. He lauded Drake's Mark Phelps for how well he coached, and the Bulldogs' players for how well they played after falling behind, 14-0.
However, two Drake fans whose season tickets are in the front row, close to the visitors' bench at the Knapp Center, say McCaffery was anything but mild-mannered throughout the game.
They told me McCaffery showed considerable anger and used plenty of four-letter words while being critical of his players during timeouts. A Hawkeye fan from Iowa City also told me in an e-mail that she has noticed McCaffery uses a shocking amount of profanity around his players--profanity that can evidently be heard by fans near the Iowa bench.
Well, I couldn't hear what McCaffery was saying to his players during the game against Drake because I was sitting at press row on the opposite side of the Drake and Iowa benches. I did notice that McCaffery was angry with his players at times, but he had reason to be after they blew a 14-point lead.
And I also know plenty of coaches use profanity, both inside and outside arenas and stadiums. I certainly have heard plenty of 'em. Don't forget, I covered plenty of Bobby Knight's basketball games and Woody Hayes' football games.
One other thing. If McCaffery uses a lot of four-letter words, he's not the first coach in Iowa City to do so. He'll have to use plenty of profanity to catch up with what Ducky Lewis, who was an assistant on Frank Lauterbur's football staff, employed on the practice field and in games.
Ducky might have been the Division I champion in four-letter words. At least in football.
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