FB: American Rivers Conference

[TheOne89.1]

In response to Floyd...I know religion affiliation had no impact on where I went to school.  I was raised Catholic and went to Wartburg.  There were a handful of guys on the team when I was there that were fairly religious and attended chapel services on a regular basis.  Not sure if they were Lutheran or just wanted to go to any kind of church service.  But overall, there wasn't a strong sense of religion surrounding the team.  I do remember getting down on one knee, holding hands with the teammate next to me and saying the Lord's prayer as a team my freshman year before games...however, from sophomore year on.  We all just knelt, held hands, and had a moment of silence and the guys said whatever prayers or whatever they wanted to do.  Maybe some other guys at other schools had similar or totally different experiences?

As for newspaper coverage...papers like the Courier need to cover more local news to actually make people want to subscribe.  Anyone can get National sports news from USA Today, ESPN, or anywhere on the internet.  If smaller regional papers focus on state sports and local college and high school sports, people can only go to them for coverage.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

As for newspaper coverage...papers like the Courier need to cover more local news to actually make people want to subscribe.  Anyone can get National sports news from USA Today, ESPN, or anywhere on the internet.  If smaller regional papers focus on state sports and local college and high school sports, people can only go to them for coverage.

My perspective is that the Courier, Register, Gazette, etc. use to all have more people covering state events and stories than they do now.  The Register especially has shown a tremendous decrease in the amount of coverage the paper gives to the rest of the state outside of the Des Moines metro area.  The Register used to cover the Iowa Conference better back in the days of the Big Peach than they do now.  Some of these papers talk about fighting for subscription numbers and the local market, but they all have smaller newsrooms.

Less people read newspapers than they used to, but news organizations started to cut back even before the days of the computer.  As local ownership of papers started to sell to large companies in the past 20 years (I have no issue with ownership of the DMR selling to make lots of money), large companies scaled back news organizations like DMR so that the profits would even be bigger (I guess when you pay a lot to buy something you expect more than just average profits).  This scaling back process to make bigger profits really hurt the future of the newspaper business even before online stuff became mainstream.

Papers like the Star Tribune in Minnesota are now so scaled back that many readers now can no longer notice a huge quality difference in some areas between the paper and traditionally less credible online organizations.  I love the computer, but I really miss some of the quality columnists and reporters that the DMR, and Gazette used to have.

[ramfan27]

We did something similar TheOne before games.  We all knelt and held hands and said the Lord's Prayer, if you didn't want to join you didn't have too and just took a moment of silence.  Our coach was a religous man and for those of us that wanted we also had a "chapel service" for about 20 minutes on Saturday mornings.  He usually had an athletic related story that tied in faith.  Those were voluntary too and probably drew about 1/4-1/3 of the team usually.

[Purple Heys]

11 - The number of players on each side of the ball

11 - Conference titles in football for Luther...ranking them 3rd in the IIAC

11 - Pounds of meat Hey's Jr and his friend ate per day while visiting the Purple Heys household. 

What did Hey's Jr weigh before enrolling at Cornell vs. how much does he weigh now???

He left California at 195 lbs. in August '06.  He was listed at 200 lbs. on the '06 roster.  Listed at 235 lbs. on the '07 roster.

He is now around 245 lbs.  I think he may have grown a bit taller too.  He has been able to maintain his speed (He was a hurdler in HS).  He is much, much stronger...and is physically kind of imposing...His old coaches out here are very impressed with his development.

While he was out for Spring Break, he and his roommate maintained their workout regimen at the training center my daughter goes to.  (She's a D-1 recruit for Track)

Then they went and got sunburned on beach every day... 8)

[doolittledog]

Former BV coach Joe Hadachek was named the Dysart "man of the year" 

Here is the link... http://www.theprogressreview.com/news.htm

He now owns two gyms, one in Dysart and one in La Porte City along with selling Advocare and coaches the Union High football team.  They went 6-3 during his first season last year. 

[sportsknight]

I hear Wartburg may have a new signal-caller next year. Anyone have any info?

Haven't heard anything and I usually catch wind of something like that. I assume you are implying that Yordi is gone?
Not saying you're wrong, just saying I haven't heard anything.

I don't think dropped is correct.  SK wasn't it tried and the magistrate found that it was a stupid thing to do but no crime had been commited?  That is my understanding.
Also wasn't his court case dropped ?

Yes it went to trial, but he was found not guilty by the judge, who basically came down as many of us did, that Yordi's actions were offensive and dumb, but not criminal.

[Wartburg Fan]

11 - Tyler Sherden's shoe size

Am I the only one that thinks its a little creepy that 5 Words knows this fact?

The 11s from my time at Wartburg:
Jake Olsen - All conference quarterback that was #2 in a line of now 3, soon to be 4 Wartburg QBs that were 3 year starters (Wheeler, Olsen, Hoskins, Yordi).
Kyle Duchman - One of the most consistent WRs Wartburg's had in recent years.  Plus a 4 year starter.  All around good guy too.  AFCA Good Works team member and NCAA Post-grad scholar.

SK I hate to disagree with you but Duchman wasn't a 4yr starter. I should say he started 2 or 3 games then was replaced as a starter his freshman yr.

[sportsknight]

But he did start games his freshman year, which is saying something.  Plus, with as many 3-wide sets as that team used, he was essentially a starter for those games where he wasn't technically in the starting lineup.

[Klopenhiemer]

But he did start games his freshman year, which is saying something.  Plus, with as many 3-wide sets as that team used, he was essentially a starter for those games where he wasn't technically in the starting lineup.

You just can't be proven wrong can you SK

[sportsknight]

I know religion affiliation had no impact on where I went to school.  I was raised Catholic and went to Wartburg.  There were a handful of guys on the team when I was there that were fairly religious and attended chapel services on a regular basis.  Not sure if they were Lutheran or just wanted to go to any kind of church service. 

I think this is pretty representative of the Wartburg population as a whole, and I'd imagine its much the same at many IIAC schools.  I think that religion is becoming a far less important factor in the college selection process than it was even 10, but especially 20-30 years ago.  I don't think that there are any fewer religious students at IIAC schools, its just been my experience that the people that attend chapel services and are involved with other faith-based organizations would do that kind of thing regardless of what school they attend.  

I know Wartburg has very much opened up their recruiting efforts beyond just Lutheran students in recent years.  A couple years back I heard a stat that the school was 40% Catholic at that point.  Its not like they are turning away Lutheran kids, but I don't think there's as much as an effort to get just Lutherans as what there may have been a decade or two ago.  There are so many other factors that kids use to make their college decisions these days that religion has definitely fallen down the totem pole quite a bit.

I'd say that the two IIAC schools with the highest percentage of students from within their demonination are Loras and Central.  If you're Dutch Reformed or Christian Reformed, you only have 3 choices if you want to attend a college that reflects your faith - Central, Northwestern in Orange City, and Hope.  I'd say that Central has probably also seen a drop in the number of Reform kids that attend the school, but I'd venture a guess that 50-75% of their student population comes from one of the Reform faiths.  Loras is probably the exception to the rule, as I think they still actively recruit Catholic student moreso than any other group of students.  Loras draws plenty of kids from the Chicago Catholic League, and also pulls in plenty of students from the various Catholic schools around Iowa (Wahlert, Assumption, Beckman  , Ft. Dodge St. Ed, etc.).  Loras, like Central, can also claim that they are one of the pre-eminent colleges of their faith in Iowa, if not the entire Midwest.

All that said, there is still a certain level of "tradition" at schools like Wartburg.  As an Irish Catholic kid, I was keenly aware of the fact that I was in the minority during my time at Wartburg.  Even with the increase in the number of Catholics in the student population, most of them still had last names that you'd be more likely to hear in Munich or Vienna than Dublin or Galway.  I also heard it back in my hometown of Cascade, just 25 miles away from Dubuque.  I am, to this point, the only member of my dad's side of the family to attend college anywhere other than Loras, Iowa, or UNI.  Not only did many of my family members not know where Wartburg was located, but because it isn't Loras or Iowa or UNI, they didn't much care either.  If I think really hard about it, I can think of two other Irish-Catholics that I went to Wartburg with.  It wasn't tough to find another Catholic, a bit tougher to find other Irish kids, but darn near impossible to find anyone else that fit both bills.

[sportsknight]

But he did start games his freshman year, which is saying something.  Plus, with as many 3-wide sets as that team used, he was essentially a starter for those games where he wasn't technically in the starting lineup.

You just can't be proven wrong can you SK

You know, there was a time that I thought I was wrong.  But it turns out I was just mistaken. 

[5 Words or Less]

10 - fewest TD's allowed by a Wartburg Defense in a season (2007)...school record

12 - Players on Wartburg's defense

[5 Words or Less]

12 - Yards on a PAT kick

12 - Assistant coaches at Central

[Purple Heys]

12 - Heys Jr.'s number...kinda funky for a TE, but it's his and he likes it.  He wore my old college number last year (83) but he wants his own...He's too big to argue with now anyway.

[doolittledog]

12 - Heys Jr.'s number...kinda funky for a TE, but it's his and he likes it.  He wore my old college number last year (83) but he wants his own...He's too big to argue with now anyway.

So when Cornell made a video to show off their new jerseys...guess what number was on the jersey they showed???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbgQPUQ9xkM&feature=related