Oct. 26, 2010
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Random thoughts on the last Tuesday of October…
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Just finished my copy of “Jim Zabel: 65 Years of Fun & Games” by Zabel and Rich Wolfe. Great stuff! Great stuff! Great stuff! Pick up a copy. You’ll love it! You’ll love it! You’ll love it!
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for the political campaign television commercials to go away. I think I’m probably pretty representative of most voters at this moment in the campaign: These things are like “white noise”…you see ’em, but you don’t hear ’em. They’re meaningless or perhaps a lot like Schroeder in the old Peanuts cartoons: Wah! Woo!…Wah! Wah! Woo!
Hear ’em? Well, if you were at Kinnick Saturday, you probably didn’t. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think Kinnick Stadium was ever louder than what it was at times during the fourth quarter. I hope the 70,000 faithful are ready to do the same on “Blackout Saturday” because the Hawkeyes’ game with the Spartans has the look and feel of another heavyweight battle.
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Here’s a nice catch from the Big Ten Network: America’s favorite play-by-play announcer, Gus Johnson, returns to the Big Ten Network for a third season, and will call 23 Big Ten men’s basketball games this winter, more than twice as many as the previous two years. “When Gus Johnson calls a game, there’s a feeling of anticipation and a sense that anything can happen. He brings a level of genuine excitement to the game that no one else does,” said Mark Silverman, BTN’s president.
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I was flipping through some Michigan State stuff Sunday night and there it was, in the two deeps at the center position for the Spartans: “72 Klatt.” Nate Klatt is a 6-4, 292-pound red-shirt freshman from Clinton, Ohio. No relationship that I’m aware of although his parents – Dan and Mary – do share the first name of one of my brothers and one of my sisters. Best of luck to you, Nate, every game except, of course, this Saturday at Kinnick.
The Hyde family will have a legitimate family feud on their hands Saturday: Micah, a sophomore defensive back, will be on the sidelines for the good guys while Marcus, a senior who also roams the defensive secondary, will be on the bad guys’ sideline. My guess is that mom – who should be pretty darn proud of her two sons — will be sitting with other parents of UI players after, presumably, sitting with Spartan family members a year ago.
I’m a pretty good listener and smart enough to listen closely when someone who does know what their talking about starts talking…or, in this case, writing. “Push, push, push and run, run, run,” Des Moines Register sportswriter Rick Brown typed into this blog over the weekend after being a spectator at Saturday’s practice for Fran’s squad. “The real surprise of this practice, to me, was the play of freshman Zach McCabe from Sioux City. McCabe shot the ball well from the wings and got things done inside even though he is undersized. Another freshman, Devyn Marble, gives Iowa a long and athletic player sorely missed in recent seasons. A third newcomer, Melsahn Basabe, is an active inside body with a nose for the ball. All three will likely play a lot this season.”
Here’s a little more from Rick: “New point guard Bryce Cartwright showed a knack for getting the ball into the lane. It’s interesting that in full-court drills, Cartwright and incumbent point guard Cully Payne go head-to-head. Iowa is clearly better at point guard than it was a season ago.” Good stuff written by a guy who knows the good (basketball) stuff when he sees it. To read the full story, click HERE..
Are you “MAD” yet? If not, you can order your UI men’s basketball season and mini-season tickets online by clicking HERE.
Darren Miller wrote a nice piece last August about Michigan State’s Kirk Cousins, a one-time Hawkeye at heart until the family geography changed. You can read it HERE. “Absolutely, I was a Hawkeye fan. I grew up around Hawkeye football,” said Cousins, the Spartans’ talented signal-caller who visits Iowa City as the reigning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week. You see, Cousins mom, MaryAnn, is from Fort Dodge and was a member of the pom squad at the UI while studying for her nursing degree. And grandpa, Ralph Woodard, played tight end and defensive end for the Hawkeyes in the late ’40s. However, while Kirk is excited about the opportunity to play at Kinnick and brings in a pretty solid resume for 2010 to date, I dare suggest that most of the 70,000 to bein attendance would offer he’ll be the second-best quarterback calling the shots in the home of the Hawkeyes.
Here’s a nice catch from the Big Ten Network: America’s favorite play-by-play announcer, Gus Johnson, returns to the Big Ten Network for a third season, and will call 23 Big Ten men’s basketball games this winter, more than twice as many as the previous two years. “When Gus Johnson calls a game, there’s a feeling of anticipation and a sense that anything can happen. He brings a level of genuine excitement to the game that no one else does,” said Mark Silverman, BTN’s president.
Go Hawks!
Random Thoughts is written by Rick Klatt, the UI Athletics Department’s associate athletics director for external affairs, and first appears in the digital world as an exclusive feature of Hawk Talk Daily, the daily e-newsletter of the UI Athletics Department.