I get the idea of the BTN: you can show all Big Ten all the time, and that includes such magnetic draws as NW field hockey, PSU volleyball, OSU soccer, and Iowa softball. And those are just the women's sports! Oh--and they're in HD, too, which is great if you have a big screen and male hormones and women's volleyball is on. Personally, I'm too old and too married and too "low-T"-ish to take full advantage of that, but if I were 21 and single.....

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I'll just start this out with a disclaimer: while I have a little 'inside' knowledge into the workings of college football, I was not a football player so some of my knowledge is limited. While I know a bit about the PSU scandal, it's from the same sources as everyone else, so some of my knowledge is limited there, too. Still, one doesn't have to be a brain surgeon to render an intelligent opinion on brain surgery.

Especially if the brain surgeon is sodomizing little boys in the OR changing room, and no one seems to care.

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In part 36 of my series "Hey You Kids Get Offa' My Lawn!", I will be discussing the increasing commercialization of college football, compared to what us old-timers call "The Good Ole Days," when giants walked the earth, and a college football trophy could (literally) be used to behead an opponent. (1)

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I went to my first Iowa football game in 1969, I think I recall. At the time, I barely spoke in coherent sentences and had about a 50/50 chance of shitting in my pants if left unattended for more than an hour (1). Leaving a toddler unattended for more than half and hour nowadays gets you a date with a social worker. Back then, all you had to do was change a shitty pair of polyester kid-pants. Ah, the good ole days!

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Thoughts on the Rhabdo crisis, or "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

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(Bumped again, naturally. -- Ross)

PART 1 I PART 2 I PART 3 I PART 4 I PART 5 I PART 6 I PART 7

"And with that, I'd like to introduce the next football coach at the University of Iowa, Bob Stoops Kirk Ferentz."

So said Iowa AD Bob Bowlsby back in the late fall of 1998, and if the internet hadn't been so green, it might've been set on fire with opinions: Who the fuck is Kirk Ferentz? was the most common meme. (1) Where the fuck is our Lord and Savior ex-Hawkeye legend Bobby Stoops? was another. Did Bowlsby really want his old UNI-buddy Terry Allen? a third. Rumors were discharged everywhere, in the most graphic representation I've ever experienced of that famous aphorism about assholes and opinions: everyone had one, and they all seemed to stink. (2)

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(Bumped for excellence, as usual. -- Ross)

PART 1 I PART 2 I PART 3 I PART 4 I PART 5 I PART 6

John Hayden Fry  was Texas. A descendant of an original Texan family--including one relative who fought with Sam Houston--Fry epitimozed the Yellow Rose independent spirit as celebrated in films such as GIANT, THE ALAMO, and, in its own way, DAZED AND CONFUSED. (1) He was brash. He was bold. He did everything big and he did it with style (he wore shades in the day!). He did things his own way, and he didn't give a flying intercourse what you thought of it. Because, in the end, he knew that you would love it

As long as he won, that is. Everyone loves a winner. Everyone loves a cowboy. And everyone loves John Hayden Fry.

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(Bumped, of course. -- Ross)

PART 1 I PART 2 I PART 3 I PART 4 I PART 5

Ray Nagel, the man and team that could've been. Imagine you're AD Forest Evashevski and it's 1965 and you're looking for a new coach after Jerry Burns is strung up by angry villagers let go. This is not the Iowa of 1998, where the alumni wanted Bobby Stoops, AD Bob Bowlsby wanted Terry Allen (or so it is said), and others on the Search Committee wanted others, and let the internet insanity debate begin after that. (1) Not by a mile.

Because I have a feeling that this hire was solely Evy's call and no one--not a damn alum, not a goddamn search committee, not a fucking Regent--was going to tell him who will be Iowa's next coach. So Evy calls someone himself: hey it's Evy here, how 'bout the Iowa job, lot of talent coming back next year, any interest? No dice, they don't want the job. He calls another one, same spiel--sorry, Evy, just can't do it. A third man is called--nope. A fourth--naw, thanks anyway, good luck in '66.

Man, Evy can't frigging give this job away! Is it the university? The facilities? The growing streak of losing seasons? Evy sits and ponders and wonders why. And it never hits him, the reason.

It's HIM.

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(Ed. Note: You are reading these, right?  Because you should be. -- Ross)

PART 1 I PART 2 I PART 3 I PART 4

There's one thing that I think anyone who knew Forest Evashevski would say about him, without hesitation or fear of contradiction: Evy was the original "clogged toilet"--he didn't take shit from anyone. It's how he played, it's how he coached, and it's how he Athletic Directed. To some he was a hero, to others the devil. He brought a program back from the brink, got it moving again, but then ran it to the edge of another, even worser brink. Actually, it was more like it went off the damn cliff and burst into flames and set an orphanage on fire. How else can you describe an 0-11 season? (1) How else can you explain the in-fighting, player strikes, firings, and all-around rancor? The nineteen straight losing seasons, for crying out loud? All those coaches in quick succession?

For Iowa, Evy was a character right out of Dickens, he was "the best of times and the worst of times." Unfortunately, unlike a Dickens tale, there would be no happy ending. Just the cliff and the stench of burning orphan flesh.

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(If you haven't been reading these, you've really been missing out. -- Ross)

PART 1 I PART 2 I PART 3

When last we saw the Iowa squad, they were getting face-shat upon by nearly every team they faced: in 1938, their only win was at the U of Chicago, which sounds good until one discovers that the U of Chicago's commitment to football excellence was probably a little "iffy" at the time, given that two years later their stadium would be entirely bereft of college students playing football, to be used solely for atomic fission testing during development of the A-bomb.

Yeah, that's quite some distance from legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg's glory years, or even Dubuquer (yay Iowa!) Jay Berwanger's Heisman-winning campaign earlier in the Thirties (1). And now that I brought it up, how DOES a program go from developing a Heisman Award Winner to solely Egghead Atomic Testing in under a decade? Maybe being nicknamed The Maroons had something to do with it. What a bunch of Maroons! You know, I bet they heard that all the time. I bet it really got under their skin, too. Ironic, that they were literally as smart as a bunch of atomic scientists, yet they couldn't save their football program. Nevertheless, their physicists were, indeed, "the Bomb."

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The Great War has ended, and Our Boys are coming home. The Spanish Influenza epidemic, which killed more persons around the globe than the actual war, has petered out. To the relief of the nation, people are allowed to watch collegiate football games from bridges again without threat of bayoneting. Normalcy becomes the norm.

The Roaring Twenties roar in, and American life turns into One Big Bootlegging and Charleston Party. Prohibition becomes a one word punch-line, as gin is brewed in bath-tubs, people get brewed in speakeasy's, and Chicago gangsters get brewed in alleys and deserted warehouses. But as the Great War became a memory, one event should tower above all others for us Hawkeye faithful:

In 1919, the fight song ON IOWA! is written by SUI graduate Robert Law.

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Since you asked for it, here is your punishment reward: Part Two of my Dubious and Incompetent History of Iowa Football. Here's my summary of Part One: Iowa sucked.

From its early couple of years almost until the turn of the century, they lost to such powers as Doane (DOANE!), Grinnell, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons. However, they did manage to squeak past the Des Moines YMCA, with the help of a pool-borne Cryptosporidium infection that crippled the Medicine Ball Boys.

After those first few years of uncertainty, though, things came together in the Midwest in general in regard to the sport, which was, at the time, the domain of the Upper East Side of the USA (look at All-American lists from the early days: years and years of Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Harvard. It's as if those people in NYC don't hardly know the Midwest even EXISTS ! By the way, that last statement remains true as of right now.)

Then, in 1896, something wonderful happened!

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As one of the senior members of the BHGP community--and by senior I mean old, not important, intelligent, insightful, or anything but just plain old--I often find myself referring to "The Good Old Days" before iPods, cell-phones, and the combustion engine. (1) The days before KF, the days of Knothole Seats, the days of kids selling pop in the stands, and hippies smoking grass in the hilly corners. In that spirit of senile decrepitude that afflicts many of my era, I thought I'd embark on a history of Iowa Football from the beginning (1889), to the present (now), using my own memories and a few books I have plus some shit I'll prolly just wing and make up.

Today, it's the beginning: 1889-1900.

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HAWKS TAKE OSU TO WIRE, LOSE TO WISKY AND NITTANY LIONS

Triple Loss a First in College Football History

From the AP:

The pain was evident on frosh Hawk starter James Vandenberg's face. It was not simply the pain of not making the Rose Bowl as the underdog. Nor the pain of losing his first start, despite playing unexpectedly poised football. Nor the pain of having come so close, so close, to beating a team no one thought they could beat.

No. For the Opie-faced Hawk signal-caller, it was the pain of the first triple-loss in NCAA history. Yes, Iowa was a 17 point underdog, playing in perhaps the most hostile environment possible. Yes, Iowa hung in there, with a real chance to win, taking the highly-regarded Buckeyes into overtime. Yes, Iowa nearly won despite crippling injuries that would've placed lesser teams on the losing end of a thirty-point beat-down.

But it became clear, by the time the Buckeyes had won on a 39 yard kick in OT, that this loss by this Iowa team could not be fully realized by just a single "L" in the loss column. This team, this lucky team, this recipient of manna all season long from the football Gods (did I mention they lucked out by blocking TWO field goal attempts to beat Northern Iowa? And also by blocking a punt for a TD in the PSU game? And also by returning a kickoff for a TD against the Buckeyes? And also by coming back from 14 points down late in that game to luckily get to OT?), was so overrated, their fans so obnoxious, their coach so smugly "nice" (and we in the college FB media HATE "nice"!), their unis so garish and Steeler-y, and their ex-coach so moustache-y and high porch picnic-y, that one loss could not do it all.

Let the record reflect that Iowa now falls to 7-4, with an asterisk next to the Iowa-Wisconsin and -Penn State scores leading one to the welcome words "Lucky Win, Counts as Loss". Let the doubters take their "Well, didn't Iowa beat both those teams AT HOME fair and square?" garbage to the dump. We all know what happened. Some call it luck. Others, fortune, or kismet, or fate.

But it surely wasn't talent, they weren't deserved victories. How could they be, with the Hawks anchored by (gasp!) a bunch of slow Midwestern two and--if they're lucky--three star prospects? Surely their victories at Happy Valley and Camp Randall were influenced by darker forces (dare I name him: Satan?), and in the name of all things holy, cannot be rewarded as wins.

But it isn't likely to stop there. Out West, where real football talent is sprung, there is a movement to negate the Hawks win against Arizona as well. Understandable, given the Wildcats close loss to a near-unbeatable Cal team, a team that would surely woodshed the lowly Hawkeyes by forty. Iowa may have won the Kinnick Stadium point battle, but justice will win the victory-total war, the Wildcats hope.

According to NCAA sources, an investigation, too, is in the works. Surely rules were broken somewhere along the line, for no rational explanation otherwise exists for Iowa's uncanny knack of defeating clearly superior teams this season. Come from behind? Come on! Money, drugs, booze, babes, iPods, slankets, Swanson chicken-pot-pies--these must have been some of the enticements that were offered to opponents to let Iowa "back in the game" in their many unearned victories.

Fortunately, the pollsters have injected some well-needed sanity into this situation and, knowing how slow the NCAA is in their investigation, docked Iowa the requisite number of poll slots. Depending on the poll, Penn State and Wisconsin are ahead of Iowa, and all is right with the world. That is, until the next "come from behind" lucky Hawkeye victory.

IOWA LOSES TO INDIANA, REMAINS UNDEFEATED

9-0 HAWKEYES SUFFER DEVASTATING WIN AT HANDS OF HOOSIERS

 
Untimely mistakes finally brought the Hawkeyes down to earth as they fell short to Indiana, outscoring the visitors by only eighteen points. Adding to the Hawks' collective misery was the poor career-yardage day of erratic quarterback Ricky Stanzi, whose five interceptions led to Indiana points in bunches. All told, the Hoosiers wrested 24 of them from the previously-adequate Hawk defense, most by any visiting team this year whose colors are crimson and cream.

Iowa could only muster 42 of their own, some of which were delivered lightning-bolt style from Zeus into the steady though lucky arms of safety Tyler Sash, who rumbled with the God-delivered pigskin 88 yards for one of the most thrilling if not deus-ex-machina-like touchdowns in recent Kinnick or anyplace-else memory. Such is the luck of the Hawks when the sun shines upon them. Would this be the breakout victory the pollsters have been waiting for?

Alas, the valiant boys in black and yellow would disappoint again, as they had in their close losses to UNI, Arkansas State and Michigan State.

Despite the questionable abilities and calls of the officials, whose salaries one almost expects to find on the Iowa State Payroll list published annually by the Iowa City Press Citizen, for so great was their pro-Iowa bias, the Hawks did not outplay the Hoosiers convincingly enough to silence their doubters. Time and again, they were caught short. A slick 92 yard pass from Stanzi to receiver Marvin McNutt was simply a matter of "Too little too late," while a garbage-time TD run by Dakota Dunes frosh sensation Brandon Wegher seemed more in the vein of "Well, what have you done for me lately?" Derrell Johnson-Koulianos got into the act with a fifty-plus yard pass reception for a touchdown, yet one could only ask one's self as DJK danced program-like into the end zone, "Is that all this team is going to show us today?" In a word, the Hawk players could not overcome an innate "Midwesterness" that was all-too-obvious to the educated observer, a certain inherent lack of talent and speed afoot, and deliver the goods.

Despite falling to 9-0, some feel the Hawks remain deserving of a Top 25 ranking, possibly a spot in the Top 15 if a convincingly not-lucky victory at The Shoe is in the cards in two weeks. Bowl talk is also starting to flow. Few teams travel like the Hawks, and fluorescently-jacketed scouts from Detroit to Orlando are salivating to get this team's fans into their seats. If Dame Fortune continues to favor the Hawks, a BCS bowl remains a remote possiblity, though admittedly few nationwide are clamoring for the inevitable fifty-point beatdown an undeserving Iowa would certainly suffer at the hands of a speedier and more talented SEC, PAC 10, or Big XII squad.

Prediction for next week: Iowa loses a close one to the Cats as the Hawks manage only 31 points to the Wildcats 14. Detroit, here we come!

You've heard the old expression, "Man, I'd give my right arm to be....", whatever the fuck it is you desperately want to be, if you deem it right arm-worthy.

Yeah, like you've ever really done anything like that! I once gave up a beer, for the cause of being one-beer-short of totally shit-faced in front of my parents and neighbors at a Christmas party--but that's about as far as my sacrifices have gone.

With that in mind, let me introduce you to Norm Parker's toes:

"Norm, he's a great guy. Most of us are strongly attached to him--others, less so now. But God we love this guy. He's been on this earth for over 65 years, and there's not been a single day that he's quit on something. Got diabetes? Norm gives it 24/7 of Hell. Lost the piggie Went to Market?

Well, FUCK the market. How much is Penn State going to Wildcat this Saturday? Will they go five-wide on third and long? Toes come and go. Losses stay on the books. Boys must be turned into men. There's work to do. And this Saturday, we're going up to Sparty--I need not mention, perhaps, that Norm has been there before. As a coach. Think he's going to give any quarter to those bastards? Think again. He's got toes AND linebackers to spare.

But Sparty isn't where Norm made his name. There was a time in the late 90's--I think there were almost ten of us back then (excepting Wee Wee Wee All The Way Home, maybe--he was the first to go)--that he coached up the D for Vandy. You remember Vandy--or maybe you don't, their team dominates the SEC the way Chuck Wepner's face dominated Muhammed Ali's fist

Anyway, Vandy was up against Florida, and I mean Danny Wuerfel's point-a-minute-passing Steve Spurrier's shit-eating-grin NC-champ-type Florida. Norm's D kept Vandy in the game, long after others would've wilted. The world was pissing "quit" and shitting "give it the fuck up already," but Norm's boys kept them in a game they had no business being in.

They lost, 28-21, but gained the respect of millions of toes nationwide, including many prominent big toes I could name (hate to namedrop, but maybe you've heard of Sergeant Hulka!). Shortly after, Norm came to the Hawks.

I can't tell you how much he means to this team. We're kind of in the boonies, where the pulse is slow and lazy, but we've all heard the laughter through the orthotics at those I-Club lunches. Norm, in case you didn't know, is hilarious, a natural born storyteller, a great speaker. For instance, when asked about losing some of us (Had None and Had Roast Beef), he said this:

It's been easier because of standing up. Last year, I couldn't stand up. Last year was hard there at the beginning. This is a lot better.

Or, when asked if his health problems (and occasional critics who wish he'd blitz more) would hasten his retirement:

It's fun. If I (ever) think, 'Oh God, I've got to go to work today,' I'd hang it up. Being involved with young kids, I think it definitely (does) something for you. I'd rather do that than go play bingo or something.

You know, on Parents Day, that's when we, the remaining piggies, really feel bad for some of the kids. So many of them, when introduced, are "So and So and his Mother .....".

No Dad. Don't know whether Dad left, or if there ever was one. Can't imagine growing up without all ten of us together, huddled in those Penny Loafers, fighting for space. I imagine not having a Dad is the same. A part of you is missing.

But when you look at the guys on defense who're standing in that line with only their mothers, maybe then it hits you: maybe they ain't got a Dad--but, then again, maybe they kinda' DO.

Being involved with young kids, I think it definitely (does) something for you.

See, those guys on D, they've got NORM. They're the family--that's why the D sticks together, works together so well. Don't matter if you're black or white or a little D-back or a big D-lineman or from Iowa or New Jersey--you're in Norm's family, and Norm's family doesn't give up, doesn't back down. I don't care who you've got at home, on this field you've got an Old Man and his last name is Parker.

Speaking of Norm's family, Norm knows pain, too, aside from us toes. He lost a son, Down syndrome problem, I think (heard that from a finger scratching an itch down south a while back). I can't imagine that. Losing a toe is tough, but the pain goes away--and hell, it's pretty numb down here anyways most of the time. But a son, a son you've watched over for so long--that's mighty tough. A lesser man might have packed it in, pissed at God and the World.

Not Norm. He's giving life and fate his own version of "Six Seconds of Hell." He'll quit when he's damn well ready, and from the cheers we hear on Saturdays--they're louder than you might think, even with our nerves shot from the sugar--we know he ain't done yet. We KNOW he ain't done yet!

Sometimes we wonder if maybe there'd be more of us if he'd sit down for a while, stop coaching, concentrate on his health. Coaching is beyond a full-time job: it's a life few can lead, and fewer lead with success. Then we hear those kids laughing, the hits in practice, the smacking of pads, the roar of the crowd. And we know. Yes, we KNOW

Norm lives for Iowa football and those kids. He lives to watch his boys succeed, not just as players, but as men. We're selfish, we toes are--we think a shoe is the galaxy and a man the universe. But Norm, he knows better: you're only as important and good as the effect you have on those outside of you and your universe.

In our opinion, it's an honor to be lost for such a man. Coach until we're all gone, Norm; there's more important things than toes, and there's seven of us left, anyway. Besides, we got rid of those wussy-ass piggie names! From left to right, let me intoroduce you to Misters Angerer, Edds, Sash, Clayborn, Binns, Spievay, and Hunter. We're Norm's new toes, and we're taking names: Six seconds of metatarsal hell motherfuckers! The next surgeon to try and take one of us is getting a toe enema with 'athlete's rectum' for good measure.

Besides, every day the seven of us wake up and thank the good Lord that at least we're not Bret Bielema's Hawkeye tattoo. Man, that would be fucked up!

[Outstanding.--OPS]

I'm sure you hearda me, I get more shit from Iowa fans about me than a Kinnick Stadium crapper. Look, do you think I WANTED to be put on this dude's leg? I know he played football for the Hawks, but that ended over fifteen years ago. NOW look what I'm stuck with! Have you seen what Bret looks like these days? Like a gopher. Like a 275 pound chipmunk-cheeked bright red big-ass gopher.

Life didn't start out so bad. In the early nineties, when I was born--man, it fuckin' rocked. It was all metal bands and big-haired chicks--some nights back at the apartment I was just SWIMMIN' in big hair, GNR and the Crue blastin' on the stereo. Got tired looking at the ceiling some nights, bouncin' up and down like a yo-yo, but after a Hawk win--I don't have to tell YOU that gravity pulled the Hawkeye Vodka in my direction! Loved the Hokey Pokey, too; I was center stage then, bein' "shaken all about"! Oh, I had chicks kissing me, putting their tits in my face, licking me all up and down. Those were some times, man. I was the TATTOO. Bret Bielema's HAWK TATTOO. I was king.

Look at me now. Connective tissue only lasts so long, dude. I'm stretched like a 45 year old vagina after a litter of nine pounders. And Bret ain't exactly a workout addict; fuck, have his calves gotten fat. I never seen a guy with such fat fucking calves; sometimes I think they're about to bust wide open like that guy's belly in Alien. If they did, I bet that Stretch Armstrong red goop would ooze out, he's so mushy inside.

To be honest, I don't know how long I got for this world. I've been covered with about everything: socks, band-aids, adhesive tape, ticket stubs, liquor store receipts, pregnancy test labels, leaves, poop, condom wrappers, a bird's-nest; you name it, I had it on top of me at one time. Summer's the worst--goddamn shorts weather. I know I'm gonna take it right on the nose, then. Could be duct tape, could be a smooshed eclair from the trash. Who knows?

Just last week I ran across a receipt for a belt sander; scared the livin' pigment right outta me. Once--I think Bret was looking at Shon Green game film at the time--he looked down at me and just started screaming: "Shit! Shit! Shit!" Fucker took a Sharpie to my faded black and gold ass. He drew BLOOD, man! Real BLOOD. The guy's a maniac. He hates me like that disease that's worse than cancer.

It's gotten so bad around here, sometimes I wish he'd just see a dermatologist and end it, I really do. How much can a little tattoo take? So the next time you're ragging about Bret and his Hawk tattoo, think of me, and say a little prayer. Some people make their own destinies, but I'm just along for the ride. And my ride is definitely the wrong kind of phat.