The www.FireSteveAlford.com Website Is Up and Running, And More Iowa Games Like The One Against Northwestern Will Keep It Up And Running
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RON MALY

Vol 4, No. 3,
Jan. 12, 2004

To those of you who have been wondering: The www.FireSteveAlford.com website is up and running.

And evidently, most people who have visited the site want to keep it up and running.

Nearly 42 percent of the 1,593 voters who visited the site by early this evening want to keep it going "just like the www.FireRonZook.com website."

Zook is the University of Florida football coach whose team lost to Iowa, 37-17, in the Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day.

Although Zook’s Gators were outplayed by the Hawkeyes and he was outcoached by Kirk Ferentz, he was recently given a two-year contract extension.

For the first time since the 1988-89 seasons, Florida finished with successive 8-5 records under Zook.

Alford is in his fifth season as Iowa’s basketball coach. The thing that rankles Hawkeye fans the most is that he has never had a team finish with more victories than losses in the Big Ten and he’s never had a team wind up in the first division of the conference standings.

This season’s team has records of 8-4 overall and 1-1 in the Big Ten after playing horribly in a 77-68 loss Saturday to Northwestern at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City.

Typical of fan reaction was this e-mail I received from a woman:

"Hawkeye basketball used to be fun to watch. We used to go to bars and watch and high-five when they did something good. It is no longer fun to watch. It is hard to defend the Hawks to my Cyclone friends and fans.

"Coaches take credit for the wins. Do they also take the blame for the losses? Our football team did so well and helped for recruiting future players. How is the basketball contributing to that?

"Who would want to come and play basketball? I am sad that this is happening to the Hawkeye basketball program. You know at a regular job if you are not performing your job well, you no longer have a job. I read in the paper that there was a website, www.FireSteveAlford.com. Was that a joke? Thanks for your time."

No, it wasn’t a joke. The website is there. The site says, "The firestorm that was created when the domain was registered was beyond any expectations….So the question being asked is, ‘What’s going to happen to this website?’

"Is it going to be a site that is dedicated to keeping Steve Alford at Iowa?

"Or is going to be something new?

"The answer is unknown right now as the site owner decides what the appropriate content for the site is and what the exact purpose of the site is going to be. A decision will be made before the end of January."

More than 38 percent of the voters want a "non-biased debate site, showing both sides. Nearly 16 percent want the site disabled and 3.8 percent of the voters want to redirect it to www.IowaBasketball.com

E-Mailers Write About Rose, 9-11, Morganna

The e-mailers have been busy, and most of the mail directed my way came after my recent column about Pete Rose.

Here goes:

From Dale Wood of Laurel, Ia.:

"I agree that just by saying that he had lied and bet on baseball games isn’t good enough! I think only til those ballplayers of the Black Sox get into the Hall of Fame, then and only then should they think about admitting Pete Rose."

From A Woman in the Suburbs:

"As good as he was, anyone who would take 14 years to finally tell the truth, and even insist he was telling the truth, and then did, when he was about to run out of time to be nominated for the Hall of Fame, does not deserve any honors. He has a character problem."

From An Iowa Woman:

"Pete should be in the Hall of Fame for what he did ON THE FIELD. Not for what he did off the field."

From A Central Iowa Man:

"Did you see that Rose had his playing number stitched on his shirt collar? That tells you all you need to know about Rose."

From Jack Tiong, my Singapore Correspondent:

"Morganna is about 50 this year. She should have trained and appointed a successor."

From Gary Snell of Urbandale, a longtime friend of mine:

The Iowa vs. Iowa State game this fall is on 9-11 (not a good date). Do we know if it will be on TV? Who will carry it and what time will it start? Would I be making a good guess to say that ESPN2 will carry it with an 11 a.m. start time?"

[COMMENT: I agree that 9-11 is not an ideal date for the Big Game. I think four F-16s from the 132nd Fighter Wing of the Iowa Air Guard should do a flyover on that date, just like they did for the 2003 Iowa-Iowa State game at Ames. It’s a little early for the networks to decide their TV schedules. But ESPN2 at 11 a.m. is a very good guess].

Newspapers

More problems with reporters from the New York Times. You recall Jayson Blair, the guy who wrote more fiction than fact when he worked at the Times. Now there’s Mike Freeman, who was a Times sportswriter, then thought he was becoming a sports columnist at the Indianapolis Star. Just one problem. In his application, he said he earned a college degree. Not so. "While in the process of interviewing for the (Star) position, I filled out an application form and stated I was a graduate of the University of Delaware," Freeman was quoted as saying in Editor & Publisher. "These were lies. I was at the university for four years, but in fact did not graduate." So Freeman quit his columnist job before he started it. The editor who hired him? Someone named Dennis Ryerson, who used to work in Des Moines. However, Freeman didn’t need to lie about having a degree. Editor & Publisher said the Star doesn’t have a college degree requirement. How could it? Ryerson is a college dropout himself. Freeman is married to USA Today football writer Kelly Whiteside….Now Editor & Publisher says Freeman could return to the New York Times….Work Bytes in the local paper is getting more high schoolish all the time….Those people who keep asking me what Diane Graham is doing these days can stop. Somebody tells me she explained it in Sunday’s paper.

[Ron Maly’s e-mail address is malyr@juno.com ]