FB: American Rivers Conference

[Dsquared]

It's amazing how that generation came back and went about their business as if they just did what was expected of them, took whatever awards and accolades were bestowed on them, and stored it deep inside of them.  It just makes me sick to see all these political figures who boast of their storied combat careers.  Those that need to boast didn't do anything, in my opinion.  The true heroes are those like all that have been mentioned who never spoke a word about what "they did".  Their actions are reflected in the lives we are able to sustain today. 

I sit, just like many of you, and marvel at things my grandpa went through that he never let on about.  He was also one of those wounded in the south Pacific during the war... but never spoke a word about it.  To see the treasures that he kept for his legacy to see after he passed are amazing... they just bring chills to my spine.

You bet... God bless all those brave souls.

[TheOne89.1]

It's been awhile since I have posted.  It's taken me well over a week to catch up thanks to all the St. John's postings on here.

Congrats to the Dutch on one hell of a season.  You did a top notch job representing the IIAC in the playoffs.  Let's hope we can get more than one team in there next year and up the respect of the conference around the country.

FRED JACKSON!!!  I picked him up in my fantasy league a few weeks back just to have a IIAC guy on my team, he is my #1 back this week now that Reggie Bush is hurt.  I used to draft Nate Kaeding every year as my kicker since he was an Iowa kid, now I will be drafting Fred Jackson every year even if he isn't starting.

As for what Wartburg needs to do to improve for next year, I agree with Walston...go back to the old smash-mouth football.  Nothing more fun to watch and more fun for the players than having a guy like "The Hurricane" come through a whole to level a defender (or two) and have your running back break down field for a score.  Also, a good way of putting points on the board.  I am looking forward to next year already as I have had nothing to do on Saturday's with ND being a complete waste of my time...guess I will have to settle for D3 wrestling, now here's a sport I KNOW the Knights will dominate the conference and all of division three.

[Former Ram]

Ok ... we have Harry Smith as a football student-athlete at Central.  When I was teaching at UD in the late 60's, one of my students was Anthony Iadanza ... now known at Tony Danza .. a wrestler for the Spartans.  Any other IIAC athletes gone on to fame?

Actually just had this discussion with a co-worker a couple days ago.  The famous IIAC alums that immediately come to mind (even if they weren't all athletes):
BV:  Uhh...help me out here Beavers
Central:  The aforementioned Harry Smith, NFL Hall of Famer Vern Den Herder
Coe:  Marv Levy, Fred Hickman of ESPN, Curt Menefee of Fox Sports, former NBA coach Bill Fitch (he is either an alum or coached there at some point)
Cornell:  Drawing a blank again
Dubuque:  Danza, disgraced Notre Dame coach George O'Leary
Loras:  Greg Gumbel, MLB Hall of Famer Red Faber, Notre Dame AD Kevin White, actor Don Ameche, Harlem Globetrotter Curly "Boo" Johnson
Luther:  Former Iowa congressman Jim Nussle (just one among numerous reasons not to vote for him)
Simpson:  George Washington Carver
Wartburg:  Former Texas Rangers broadcaster Mark Holtz, FBI whistle blower Coleen Rowley, Iran hostage Kathryn Koob, former MLB umpire Don Denkinger (Cardinals fans know who he is), Hooters co-founder Dennis Johnson

Off the top of my head: Larry Biittner (MLB in the 70's), Bernie Saggau, RAY REASLAND (sorry Rams, our bad).

New Hampton High School thought Ray did a good job (I think he coached Heideman and the guys around him when the Chickasaws got very good in football in the late 1980s and early 1990s).  What did Ram fans think of him when he was an assistant at Cornell?  Maybe Coach Miller needed to stay in Mount Vernon a little longer.

I thought Coach Reasland did a fine job as both an assistant and a head coach.  No, he didn't have success as a head coach, but it definitely wasn't from lack of effort.  It has been said on here many times that there is a different attitude on the team now that he is gone and that players now expect to win games.  I can tell you first hand that Ray never would have played a player who was playing just to play.  I played under coach for one year as an assistant and 3 years when he was head coach, and I will tell you that a head coach can have only so much influence over his players.  It was not all Coach Reasland's fault that the program failed to continue the success on the field that Coach Miller had in his final season.  If you look at the numbers, Coach Miller's final team was a team that was led by an outstanding senior class and some young guys who had career years, and Cornell for whatever reason hasn't been able to keep producing those types of teams for the past several years.  I personally think that Coach Reasland did some nice things for the program and laid a pretty solid foundation, he was just not able to build on it.  Now that being said, I am also impressed with what I have seen and heard from Coach Dillon.

[Wartburg Fan]

 Congrations to all the IIAC guys that made D3 All-West Regions team. Just one complaint, where is Nick Weber name on any of the teams. IMO the best CB in the IIAC. Get real.

[doolittledog]

Interesting to note.  Dubuque went 2-0 against 3 IIAC teams the last 2 seasons.  Of those you have Cornell which is in the first 2 years of coach Dillons tenure.  Then you have Simpson and Luther who both had head coaches "resign" after this last season.  I wonder if there is a "Spartan Rule" out there???  Lose twice in a row to UD and you get your butt escorted off campus!!!  

And in rememberance of Pear Harbor...My great uncle (who is a Central alum...played on the basketball team) served on a reconosanse version of the B-29 during WWII.  He was on the first plane to fly over Japan after the Doolittle raid.  It's funny that he will talk about funny things that happened over there when they weren't on missions but he never talks about the actual combat side of it...other than talking about filling their bomb bay up with empty beer bottles because they didn't think it was fair they only took pictures and never got to drop anything.  Or, when asked why he always used up all his ammo during missions he said his brother-in-law worked at the munitions factory in Des Moines and he didn't want him to lose his job.  He will tell stories with humor but never goes deeply into what he went through.  

[Knightstalker]

The vets in my VFW post are the same way, one member talks about using their PT boat to go fishing and waterskiing but never about the actual combat.  A few funny stories about ferrying generals around the islands where they would get sea sick and puke and things like that.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Floyd In Iowa City ...

Thanks for remembering Moco Mercer.  He was coaching at UD when I was a student there.

That reminded me of someone even earlier ... Sol Butler.  Football and track ... All Conference in both ... two time long jump winner at the Penn Relays and went to the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp.  Also played pro football with Jim Thorpe and the Canton Bulldogs.  Butler has a special display in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton as one of the first African Americans in professional football.

From the sounds of it, the reporters like Buck Turnbull who saw Moco Mercer plays sports thought he was a pretty special and successful athlete.  Sounds like he was a pretty good coach as well.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Interesting to note.  Dubuque went 2-0 against 3 IIAC teams the last 2 seasons.  Of those you have Cornell which is in the first 2 years of coach Dillons tenure.  Then you have Simpson and Luther who both had head coaches "resign" after this last season.  I wonder if there is a "Spartan Rule" out there???  Lose twice in a row to UD and you get your butt escorted off campus!!!  

And in rememberance of Pear Harbor...My great uncle (who is a Central alum...played on the basketball team) served on a reconosanse version of the B-29 during WWII.  He was on the first plane to fly over Japan after the Doolittle raid.  It's funny that he will talk about funny things that happened over there when they weren't on missions but he never talks about the actual combat side of it...other than talking about filling their bomb bay up with empty beer bottles because they didn't think it was fair they only took pictures and never got to drop anything.  Or, when asked why he always used up all his ammo during missions he said his brother-in-law worked at the munitions factory in Des Moines and he didn't want him to lose his job.  He will tell stories with humor but never goes deeply into what he went through.  

Luther finishing 4-4 or 5-3 this year in the league probably wasn't the main reason Coach Hefty resigned.  The 2006 season had to have been very damaging as the Norse lost some games that had a lot of people around the program wondering/questioning what was going on.  The 2006 team was not perfect, but it did not feel like the team played up to the talent that was there that season.  I know it really hurt to not have Sherden in 2006, but there was clearly too much talent there to finish in the bottom part of the standings.  That season was also the first in the Hefty era where the program took a step back.  It was also year five and the program was no longer seen as "rebuilding" and being "early in the Hefty era" by that point.

Losing to Dubuque (or Dubuque's improvement) may have played a big part in Luther's 2006 season as the Norse lost a bunch of close games and always seemed like they were a big win away from righting the ship.  Belleus making all of those plays will always be in my memory, but the losses to B.V. and Simpson are burned in pretty strong as well.

Dubuque and St. Olaf are regular Norse foes that are now much better than they used to be.  It happens all the time in sports.  The question now is what is Luther going to do to respond like they have bounced back in sports such as baseball, softball, and cross country in recent years.

[DutchFan2004]

Has anyone else clicked on the link to the all region team and then go to the 2005-2006 page.  I wonder where the 07 team is?

[Purple Heys]

Congrats to Cornell's Gus for making the D3 West All-Region 1st team...and the other IIAC kids.

We looked pretty well represented, no Weber though...which is something of a surprise.

[Wartburg Fan]

Has anyone else clicked on the link to the all region team and then go to the 2005-2006 page.  I wonder where the 07 team is?

DF2004 go to the story on their front page  and click on All Region team 07 is first on that web site.. Congrats to young Connell for 1st team QB

[Purple Heys]

Oh by the way...the weather out there in Iowa is insane!

I look at home prices every time I travel out there "just to look".  And I think to myself, the folks are nice, there's no crowds, nice quiet pace of life in general...but that's in the early Fall.  The Winter hits like a "Bayonne Bleeder" Chuck Wepner below-the-belt special.

So what if selling my modest shack in Socal would net me a palacial mansion in the cornfields...it would be in freaking snow and ice right now!

We have a place for the snow out here and we can visit it when we want to on weekends in the mountains.  Of course I have to fight traffic to get there.

8)

[Kohawk Krazy]

Congrats to Tommy Breitbach, Jordan Wilkens and Jeremy Squires from Coe for the All-West Region award.  Nice to see Breitbach honored on both the first team (Returner) and third team (CB). 

Weird how Squires gets honorable mention All-IIAC, but is Third Team all-region.  I think he should have been 1st Team Safety in the IIAC, he led the league in Ints.

[doolittledog]

Oh by the way...the weather out there in Iowa is insane!

I look at home prices every time I travel out there "just to look".  And I think to myself, the folks are nice, there's no crowds, nice quiet pace of life in general...but that's in the early Fall.  The Winter hits like a "Bayonne Bleeder" Chuck Wepner below-the-belt special.

So what if selling my modest shack in Socal would net me a palacial mansion in the cornfields...it would be in freaking snow and ice right now!

We have a place for the snow out here and we can visit it when we want to on weekends in the mountains.  Of course I have to fight traffic to get there.

8)

Hey Purple, real men can handle the cold weather 

[doolittledog]

In case anyone was curious about UD listing Jermar Jackson at 5'10" he said on the Aztec Bowl preview show that I listened to this morning that he is 5'8" and is hopefull some pro team will at least give him a shot at playing  QB but doubts they will because of his height. 

With him admitting to being 2 inches shorter than is listed in the press guide it makes you wonder how much fudging goes on with players height and weight.