"We’re not very good," he said of Penn State’s basketball team.

An announced gathering of 13,674 fans in Carver-Hawkeye Arena at Iowa City – many of whom came disguised as empty seats – would have easily agreed.

Kanaskie, in his first season as a Penn State assistant coach, was back in the 15,500-seat building last weekend for another game. He left feeling the same way he felt after bringing his Drake teams to Carver-Hawkeye.

Iowa raced to a 39-15 lead en route to a 77-58 victory. The Nittany Lions were so bad that one guy wondered if maybe Joe Paterno was coaching them.

Kanaskie and Drake had a parting of the ways last spring after his seven seasons as head coach produced a dismal 62-136 record. With the Bulldogs, he was 0-7 against Iowa and 0-10 against Steve Alford, who coached at Southwest Missouri State of the Missouri Valley Conference before going to Iowa.

"The fact that we’ve won three games in the Big Ten is amazing," Kanaskie said. "Ed DeChellis (Penn State’s head coach) has done a great job. We’re not very talented and not very deep. We have only two guards in the program, and both of them are freshmen."

Down the road, perhaps a kid named Kanaskie could be a Nittany Lions guard. Kurt’s son, Kevin, is a 6-1 ½ junior guard for State College High School, which has a 16-1 record.

I asked Kurt if Kevin was a college prospect and he said, "Probably. He’s been invited to the Nike camp in Indianapolis."

Kevin was a standout at Dowling of West Des Moines before the family moved. Kevin’s sister, former Valley of West Des Moines basketball player Kristin Kanaskie, is now attending Northern Iowa but isn’t playing basketball.

"She loves it at UNI," Kurt said. "She’s studying education and wants to be a teacher."

Kanaskie said there "hasn’t been a big adjustment to becoming an assistant coach, other than the money. The money is different."

He said he’s been able to keep up with Drake’s season through phone calls and e-mail communication with Chris Davis and Justin Ohl, who were on his Bulldogs staff and were retained by first-year coach Tom Davis.

"They’re having a solid year, not a great year," Kanaskie said.

Rumors had been circulating that Keeler’s absence from the paper was permanent.

"Keeler’s column was not in the paper yesterday, and I heard a rumor that he has been fired," a retired editor and reporter from the Register wrote me in an e-mail. Other people had heard the same rumor.

Keeler’s columns have not been in the paper for nearly two weeks. He was supposed to cover the Super Bowl, but didn’t, and also didn’t cover the big Iowa State-Kansas basketball game last week.

Steve Deace, the p.m. sports-talk announcer at KXNO in Des Moines, is a friend of Keeler. He was someone I talked with to see if he knew what had happened to the columnist.

"I finally heard from Sean yesterday afternoon," Deace told me in an e-mail today. "He has not been fired and expects to return to writing in the paper next week. I’m not sure what happened."

A suspension maybe?

The reason people both inside and outside the Register’s newsroom wonder that is because there has been discussion about some of the columns Keeler wrote from the Outback Bowl.

"Amen on New Orleans. I’ve covered three Super Bowls, one each in Minneapolis, Atlanta and New Orleans. New Orleans is the only one that didn’t have snow or ice and did have beignets and po’ boy sandwiches. You can guess which site I liked best."

[COMMENT: It’s nice to run into another sports columnist who knows a good beignet when he sees one. I wish I had a beignet or a poppyseed kolache right now to go with the coffee I’m drinking].

"I’m about halfway through your book ‘Tales from the Iowa Sidelines’‘ and I’m really enjoying the trip through Hawkeye history.

"I enjoyed your thoughts about covering the Super Bowl. I’ve always wanted to take a train ride like that.

"I realized a life-long dream last spring when a buddy of mine and I got to Gettysburg, Pa. We are both military history buffs and Civil War junkies.

"We saw roughly 10 battlefields in eight days of travel. My point is it’s great to travel overland and see this great, beautiful country and all its history versus flying everywhere."

[COMMENT: Gary, it’s great that you gave all of us a look at you that we seldom see. Obviously, you’re not a one-dimensional guy who spends all of your time hanging around press boxes and locker rooms].

"Am I your only reader who wants to read a report from you on your experience covering old Parsons College playing in the Pecan Bowl? Bring it on!"

[COMMENT: Parsons, which was located in Fairfield and now is only in the rear-view mirror, went to the Pecan Bowl in Abilene, Texas, when it was fantasizing that it was going big-time in collegiate football. I’ll never forget the start of that Pecan Bowl trip. I got a call at midnight from, I think, an agent with old Braniff Airlines. I was supposed to leave at 7 a.m. that morning, but the agent said, "Your flight has been cancelled." But I eventually got there. More on the Pecan Bowl later, Chuck].

"Greetings from South Padre Island, where Pam and I have spent a warm month of January! Since we have to come home in a week, could you warm things up for us. I don’t think we can survive at 0 degrees or whatever.

"I have agreed with everything you have written so far."

[COMMENT: Any guy who says he agrees with everything I’ve written gets special treatment. Reid Allen was an outstanding ticket manager and also a magician. He could turn a crowd of 6,000 into 12,000 at Vets Auditorium with an eraser and a wink. Take my advice, Reid, and stay at South Padre Island another couple of weeks. The weather is terrible up here].

"Soon we will have another College Football Signing Day—also known as ‘Holiday for Liars.’ Every college football coach in the country will make the following announcement:

"We are elated with our 2004 recruiting class. We got all the blue-chip players we wanted. We couldn’t be happier with the exceptional quality young men who have chosen to be part of our football program.

"At the press conferences of the Big Ten coaches, I would ask each coach, ‘Tell me the names of all your new recruits who turned down scholarship offers from Michigan and Ohio State.’

"To all the Big 12 coaches, I would ask, ‘Tell me the names of your new recruits who turned down scholarship offers from Oklahoma and Kansas State.’

"But Signing Day is an annual event that is blown far out of proportion. Signing Day is in February, and there has never been a college football game won in the month of February.

"At Iowa, players like Dallas Clark, Bruce Nelson, Bob Sanders and Robert Gallery did not create any headlines when they signed on as Iowa Hawkeyes. But all four earned all-America honors.

"When Dick Vermeil was an ABC football broadcaster, he was working a game with Bo Schembechler. Bo was talking about a great Michigan lineman, and said, ‘He was the last player we signed during his recruiting year. Those last guys to sign always turn out to be our best players.’

"Without hesitation, Vermeil said, ‘They sure do.’

"A lot of football fans get real excited about College Football Signing Day.

"But I am more interested in this: ‘Who were the last players to sign?’

"Those are the kids who had to wait for scholarships to be offered to them because the coaches wanted some other players more. It doesn’t surprise me that those kids turn out to be the best players."

[COMMENT: Signing day is tomorrow. Let the tall tales begin].

"If I don’t have to read another e-mail from the Al’s, that would be wonderful.

"It’s great that Al in California decided not to watch the Hawks so I don’t have read his dribble of constant negativity. And, as for Al in Iowa, the Pierre Pierce case has been settled in a court of law! What he did was terribly wrong and he’s served his sentence. Let’s get on with life!"

[COMMENT: The Eastern Iowa reader is referring to Al Schallau and another Iowan named Al, both of whom have written that Pierce should be in prison for 10 years].