Scott Dochterman | WUW 525 - Washed Up Walkons

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome into the show. Today.We decided, you know, season's creeping
up, we're middle of summer,that football hype is going to start to
build soon. We should probably graba credentialed real professional in the space to
help us talk Iowa football and expectationsfor the twenty twenty four season. We've
got Scott Doctorman on the show today. We don't just talk football though,
we also talk his career in journalismcovering Caitlin Clark a bunch of other topics

(00:22):
as well. You're gonna love it. Let's have a day, Let's go.

(00:52):
Welcome into the Wash Up walk Onspodcast. Another episode, another guest
in this summer lineup of guests kindof been hitting on all cylinders. Here
we got Spencer Lee, Coach Woods, and now another guy that I would
argue is as respected as those twoin his field. Scott Doctrman joins the
show today. We haven't dove indelved into the media side, the actual

(01:15):
professionals who cover the Hawkeyes too much. We've had i Cold on before,
right before all this stuff happened intwenty twenty. We actually had Mark Moorehouse
on shortly before he hung it up. Scott, you I think you're the
third one we've had on and asI said, I don't know if there's
a more respected at least from myperspective on Twitter and just kind of being

(01:38):
in the space now in a postplaying career, I don't know if there's
anybody more respected by the general fanbase than you when it comes to covering
the Hawkeyes. So we really appreciateyour time tonight and coming on the show.
Thanks for the kind words. Ireally appreciate it. You know,
it's been it's been fun. I'vebeen covering the team now eighteen straight years.

(01:59):
I did some in the nineties too, after I graduated from Western Illinois,
and but you know, your podcastwas must listen material back in twenty
twenty. I think it was someof the more important podcasts that have ever
came about in this space. Andobviously you guys have done a tremendous job
over the last handful of years ofkind of filling that podcast vacuum and leading

(02:23):
the way. So congratulations on allyour success here. Appreciate that. I
don't know what Kevin would say aboutthat. I will say that I think
we got pretty lucky. Just whenthere's a when there's a niche that isn't
filled and you're the only person thathelps. There's not a lot of competition
for the style and perspective that webring, so that certainly has added to

(02:47):
the success. Our third guy,who hasn't been on the show for almost
going on a year now, certainlyhelped that in a different way as being
kind of the fireball of the threeof us. But we appreciate that the
twenty twenty was twenty twenty was certainlya challenging year. I think is a

(03:08):
good word can an easy time tohave a public voice. Yeah, yeah,
we actually started this and I'm sureyou've dealt with similar things being the
voice behind a lot of the storiesthat you've written in a two decade plus
career just for the team. Ididn't know you'd been covering eighteen years.

(03:30):
That's actually awesome, that's I mean, you're basically you've almost got the whole
KF tenure, which is really reallycool. We just wanted to be a
fun voice, bring entertainment and youknow, like reminisce on some memories.
And then in twenty twenty things turnedand all of a sudden we were being
looked at gosh in twenty twenty.We were still only like twenty five years

(03:53):
old. I wouldn't call myself fullymatured or developed at all at that point,
and and all of a sudden,pople were looking at us for like,
hey, how should we feel aboutthis? How you know, what
are your thoughts? What were yourguys experiences? And it was certainly I
don't know if Kevin remembers, butbefore that first episode, back when all
that stuff happened and came out,I don't think I've ever swept more in

(04:15):
my life turning the record button onthat night. That was interesting, Kevin,
any thoughts on that? I mean, thinking back at it now,
it's like, yeah, you kindof said it right. It's like,
who are we to be the onesthat have the public opinion on this right
exactly? Like like we're just threeguys that had our own experience, right,
It's like we can't speak for whateveryone else did, but we you

(04:38):
know, at the end of theday, we just spoke our truth,
right. So it was definitely alittle nerve wracking for sure, seeing how
it would be reset received by thepublic. Looking back at it, maybe
we made a bigger deal of itin their heads than it actually was,
but I don't know. Maybe Idon't know. It was an interesting time,
interesting time, like Clearis said,like we need st this podcast to

(05:00):
get into serious stuff like that.I wasn't trying to talk politics or football,
you know, talk to the oldbuddies and from our playing days.
And then yeah, exactly, you'rekind of forced to make a public statement.
It's not exactly comfortable. It wasa It was a turbulent summer,
not just in the Iowa ecosystem,but nationally as well, with all the

(05:23):
George Floyd stuff. It was onmy list tonight covering the story, covering
Doyle twenty twenty, all of that. From your perspective, Scott, uh,
how do you? How do youeven go about that? When you
start to see that unfold, andand as a former player and just now
fan of the team, someone whoalso creates content around the team, we

(05:45):
got to witness how you and everyother media entity went about reporting it.
I like some other than others,and everybody has their own way of going
about that. But when you startto see the tweets, you know,
I think it was James who setout the first tweet, and then other
players start to share their experiences.How does that even start to because it's

(06:08):
not just you're in a weird spotbecause you're you've got a story. Now,
how does that start to come together? Well, it was clearly when
it comes to football, it wasthe most challenging or you know, sports
in general. It's the most challengingsubject I've ever covered because there are multiple
layers. You're talking about people's lives, and I think you need to take

(06:31):
it with that kind of seriousness andmeaning that from every end of the spectrum.
We're talking about people's lives. We'retalking about Chris Doyle, Kirk Ferrence
on you know, to what youguys experience, to what other people may
have experienced, to what African Americanyoung men have experienced and where they're from,
and everybody's experience is a little bitdifferent. And we got a I

(06:54):
would not say a front row seat, but we got a seat to watch
some of it unfold. So weI came with a little bit of a
perspective where I understood a few ofthe issues, but not the whole fire
hose of the issues that came outthat night. Obviously, we all knew
we had a story. I wasactually on vacation and I'm like, okay,
Geatification's over with now. And sostarted going through who said what,

(07:18):
trying to verify a little bit ofwhat you can verify, but really there's
no way to do that and thatkind of fashion. So you can pile
it. You write it the bestyou can for what it is at that
first day, and then the nextday you take another step, and then
you take another step and to tryto verify those stories, check in,

(07:40):
make sure talk to those players,talk to other people, and go step
by step by step by step,and it's again, it was very difficult
because I think there was a lotof shock, There was a lot of
fear, There was a lot ofanger, there was a lot of frustration
and bewilderment. And you throw thatagainst the backdrop of what had happened with

(08:01):
George Floyd, you know, lessthan two weeks before that, along with
it being a COVID year, justso many the confluence of so many different
things coming at the same time,you know, added that level of enhanced
challenges and difficulties. And then goingforward though, once the tweets kind of

(08:22):
subsided and you knew that the hutthey were going to hire Hush Blackwell,
that Chris Doyle had been placed onadministrative leave, and then ultimately the separation
agreement. That was the time whenI wanted to get to the kind of
the bottom of the story, andwhat some people preferred to do it is
let everybody tell their stories, whetherit was unfiltered or whatever. I chose

(08:45):
kind of a different path, andthat was I wanted players, current African
American players, their parents, andformer African American players to guide me,
and not just those who are disgruntledor not just those who share their story,
but other ones who maybe decided notto. So I reached out probably.

(09:07):
I mean it was between seventy fiveand one hundred different players, their
parents. Tell me what you think, tell me you know, on or
off record. I just want tobaseline here because it kind of handles the
angle with which you report and veryquickly. In most of the conversations I

(09:28):
had that the people that most ofthe people were, you know, we
were saddened by this. I didn'tthink it was this bad. We think
Kirk deserves a chance to make thisright. We're not sure he can,
but he deserves that chance. Butthey seem to be the majority seemed to

(09:48):
be, you know, against ChrisDoyle, and so in some ways that
kind of tenor shaped some of thecoverage that I wanted to write, because
I also needed to be fair,as I said, because your experiences are
different than their experiences. I'm fromBurlington, Iowa. My experience is even
covering the team is different than somebodywho's from Chicago or Detroit or whatever.

(10:13):
So I'm white guy, I'm fiftynow. Unfortunately, you know, we've
got all these different factors that yougot to take an account. And then
at the same time, I flashedthe mirror myself. Was there anything that
I saw that I could have doneand I could have done differently? And
I came to that conclusion that no. And the reason why is as a
journalist in twenty seventeen, probably theone moment that stuck out in my mind

(10:39):
was on senior Day there were threeAfrican American players who walked and had Akrom
and you had Miles Taylor and youhad James Butler who was a transfer,
and I thought, this just doesn'tlook very good. You know that you
know this number of players, Sothat stuck out my mind. But I
kept thinking, is there anything Icould have done well. I think the

(11:01):
backdrop of George Floyd allowed people tosay what they feel a little more freely
than maybe they would have earlier.I could not have gotten that kind of
reaction from that broad of a base. The secondly, if they would have
told me, it would have beenoff the record and I would have gotten
roasted. I mean I would havegotten pulverized. If I would have said,

(11:24):
fifteen players said this about Chris Doyle, would have got pulverized by the
fan base. Why are you bringingthis up? You know, former players,
I don't understand what you're doing here. And then inside the building.
So I came to the conclusion thatthe only way that this subject could have
been discussed publicly was the way thatwhich it was, and they were able
to do it in their own way, which I think was the right way,

(11:50):
and so therefore from there on Ihad to cover it that way.
The more the summer got, themore difficult it became, and more the
figures started getting pointed at me,why are you guys writing about this?
But overall I felt like I wasfair. Some people didn't think I go
went far enough, other people thoughtI went too far, But overall,

(12:11):
I was kind of proud of whatI wrote that summer. Yeah, suffice
to say, at least the wayyou describe it, it has to be.
Maybe you can tell me differently,in your all your years in this
profession, maybe the toughest, touchiestsubject you've ever had to write about,
No question, when you're talking aboutrace, it's it's just a it's a

(12:31):
level, you know, especially being, like I said, a white man
from Iowa, I have to bevery careful. I mean, one wrong
word in a tweet or something Isay on a podcast or a radio show
could be turned considered viral and ultimatelyget me fired for live. So you
know, we felt the same alittle bit of that. I mean,

(12:54):
Kevin's from Illinoy, but you're mutedby the way Kevin if you're trying to
say something, Kevin's from Illinoy,but he's a he's an eye with transplant
we consider now and also the onlyone currently that was currently employed by a
you know, fortune five hundred company. Yeah, might not have liked something
I would have said, Kevin theonly one with real ramification. If if

(13:16):
we, like you said, youknow, one wrong word or way to
describe something and it gets construed thewrong way. So we felt some of
that pressure as well. And then, as you mentioned, things continue to
go on and time goes on,and now you're starting to get blowback of
like you didn't do enough or youdid too much. Same thing with us.
I can't tell you how many howmany messages we got or how many

(13:37):
comments under our YouTube video of likewhy are you guys talking about it?
Why aren't you guys talking more aboutit? Like there's it almost felt like
you couldn't win. No, therethere was no winning. You're whatever you
said if you were on one side, the other side, tried to tow
it down the middle, tried tobe fair and objective like there you're gonna

(14:00):
upset some people because there's just there'sjust no f sands or butts around it,
you know. And that kind ofleads into my next question is like
when you're on a hot topic likethat, like you know, obviously we're
all passionate about football and IOWA football, you know, but when when you're
reporting on a topic such as this, like it can be very easy to

(14:24):
maybe kind of step into leading thestory where maybe you want it to lead,
versus where where you try to findthe actual truth, Like tell me
a little bit more about like youkind of went into it a little bit
like how you went through your process. But like obviously, like if you
just follow like these set of stories, you can come up with a completely

(14:48):
different set of a story then ifyou follow like a group of different players
stories, right, Yeah, it'sand that's what I try to do,
and I've co Luckily for me,I have a history where I've covered politics,
I've covered murderers, I've covered allthese different things. I was a
police reporter for a while, andso I have kind of this background that

(15:13):
allows me to kind of shed someof those images or the perceptions or whatever
you want to say, biases whenI go into a story, especially one
like this. But the weight ofthe situation, the gravity of the situation
was always with me, and itwas always like if depending on what I

(15:33):
write, it is going to shapepublic opinion in some way, shape or
form against somebody or on the otherside. So I really chose my words
as carefully as I could, butI wanted I felt like the right path
for me for this topic was totalk to the people who are most affected,

(15:54):
and that was somebody who you know, they're from Indian Apples or Saint
Louis or whatever, and they senttheir young African American son to Iowa City
and they're removed for six hours away. What are their thoughts of the situation,
How is their son impacted? Whatdo they think going forward? And

(16:15):
what are there, you know,their expectations beyond this. And that's why
I tried to use them as thebarometer and not one person, but multiple
people kind of point me in thisdirection, where do I think this story
needs to go? And so thatway I don't stray. I don't just
talk to somebody who's like a diehardsupporter or in somebody who's anti Farrence Doyle

(16:41):
whatever, and then somebody who's like, you do doing wrong? He did
nothing wrong there, you know,Okay, there may be on the fringe,
but I wanted to try to keepit on the fair way, per
se. And that's why I reallywent down this path. And every interview
I did find respected players, playersthat I knew that if they said something,

(17:02):
it meant something. Not again,somebody was there for a semester and
bolded and you know, didn't workhard. And we all know that,
you know, because I just don'treally have the time for that. I
want somebody that if I talk tohim, they're like, yeah, that
guy has a good you know,he played five years, he led for
this team. He had surgery.See. That was that was what was

(17:22):
tough for us, I think fromthe former players perspective, especially because most
of these self accounts that came outwere I mean almost entirely from our tenure
there. A lot of them werethose kind of guys like semester one year
guys who came in and at leastfrom our perspective on the inside, like

(17:45):
it was very clear that part oftheir part of the reason that they weren't
there very long is because they didn'twork hard or you know, something that
was completely there was no bias toit. It was like everybody knows that
you weren't doing what you're supposed to. Seeing those muddy the water with some
of the actual almost weaken the uhyeah, yeah, it's like if there's

(18:07):
something actually here, yeah, youguys aren't aren't helping the cause here,
You're it's it's so it was itwas weird coming, you know, kind
of dealing with that as well.You know, in the beginning when there
was like all over Twitter, right, and it's now it's like there there's
some reporters out there that are justlike, every every tweet gets a write

(18:30):
up, everything gets an unfiltered likeis that really the best way to get
into it? Right? And that'swhat I was kind of gonna ask Scott,
was like, with social media,it gets it gets dicey there,
like it gets emotional, right,And do you retweet every single player that
says something it like? Or doyou not retweet anything? Do you like?

(18:51):
How do you know? Because ifif you know, like you said,
Scott, people take your word ashow they're going to form their opinion.
You're respected, you have all thesefollowers, You're, you know,
a dedicated, established reporter for theiowhaw guys. What Scott Doctorman says is
going to help me kind of swaywhatever way I want to sway. If
he if he retweets this player who'sgot this gripe, does that mean the

(19:14):
gripe is real? Like? Isthat that's That's a really tough place for
you in the in the in theworld of Twitter and social media that wasn't
around when you started your career.You didn't have to deal with any of
that that I mean, and that'spart of my you know, one of
the bigger topics out here too,is kind of the shift just in media
in general from everything was written,you know, eventually the yeah, I'd

(19:34):
move into online and now now Scott'son a podcast with us where you know,
fifteen years ago this well maybe fifteenyears ago, podcasts were just starting
to I know you and Morehouse hada podcast, correct, Oh yeah,
and it was it was an ogpodcast. You guys started it back in
eleven two. So you guys havea podcast. We should really be thanking

(19:57):
you for pioneering the field. That'swhere this has really come. But kind
of crazy that you now have todeal with it in a way that now
I have this social media presence asa reporter and that affects public opinion.
Not only what I write will matterto the people, but what I just

(20:17):
put out on Twitter, Facebook orInstagram will also matter. It's it's kind
of a crazy thing that you haveto deal with for sure. And you
know, when it comes to thosegripes or any others that come down the
road, I mean, I thinkanybody who wears the black and gold and
the Tiger Hawk and says something.It's newsworthy. Whether it's right or wrong,

(20:38):
or it's it's one hundred percent true, fifty percent true or barely a
shade or true, it's all newsworthy. So you do have to take that
into account. And now I maynot verbatim retweet somebody. I may just
quote tweet them in some respects tosay this is what this player said about

(20:59):
this. Yeah. Yeah, becauseI don't want to just make it look
like I'm retweeting everybody. And againbecause I want to make sure there's validity.
Because as we've seen, even whenthe story came out, even when
all those tweets were up, Imean, how many were absolutely true,
how many of them were embellished,how many of them were flat out lies?

(21:23):
There's a range there. And thenyeah, and then when you had
I think it was Robert T.Green that was going through that and represented
players, And then you look atthe lawsuit and and you know, I've
looked through I have every single documentin that lawsuit. So I've looked through
the five hundred and thirty three pagedocument when the Attorney General wanted to dismiss

(21:44):
Chris Doyle from the suit, andI read through every deposition and how many
most of those depositions really refuted everythingthat they're claimed, and so you have
to take that all into account.And that's in some ways, that's what
I kind of say in the verybeginning, which is why I want to
be fair, why I want tobe straight down the middle. I don't
want to provide my opinion on anyof this. I want to keep it

(22:07):
as narrow as I can, becausein the end, what we saw was
that there were several people who wereaffected and their opinions absolutely need to be
presented. There are there was changethat needed to take place in Iowa football
program, and I think it hassuccessfully for the most part, least from
my perspective. Then there was therewere a lot of people who devalued those

(22:30):
opinions, the actual problems that tookplace by embellishing, by lying, and
then the lawsuit. You know,if the University of Iowa wouldn't have settled,
you know, they may have goneto court and they may have won.
So I think that's why I wantto try to take this all in
perspective that it's easy in my environmentwhere I work now at the Athletic which

(22:52):
we're connected with the New York Times, and so therefore I'm part of big
media now, and you look atthe ESPNS and every everybody else like that,
it's really easy to grab onto something, you know, something like that
and say racist, get rid ofthem. You don't do that. Yeah,
but I'm like, no, let'stake a look at this. If
the information collected leads you to thatconclusion, then that's fair. But if

(23:17):
it's anecdotal, if it's just acouple of people, if it's a couple
of disgruntled people who say that theyheard one word, but really it wasn't
that word, is that you're totallywiping out a career for somebody. And
I thought that was you know that. I wanted to be fair and ultimately
I felt pretty confident in what Ireported, and I feel confident today.

(23:38):
Yeah, I think I think theoutside looking in, I was curious,
like when the Hush black While andthe lawsuit all came like all the documents
were unsealed, what was I guess, what was your takeaway? I won't
say opinion, Yeah, what wasyour general takeaway from the Hush Blackwell and
the lawsuit files that were all justfrom the outside looking in? I mean,

(24:00):
I imagine ninety eight percent of iooffense and actually read it for sure.
Yeah, I kind of look atthem in different veins. And that's
kind of like this whole situation whereit makes it so complicated, is that
for every everybody like Amani Hooker whotweets, I respect his opinion because I
know what he did and seeing itand understanding and I kind of get it.

(24:22):
The Hush Blackwell report I did takevery seriously, and I think the
amount of interviews and the professionalism thatthey conducted I thought was right. But
then when you look at the lawsuitand you look at these these interviews and
read through them and everything, youjust I saw accusations where the depositions didn't

(24:44):
meet the accusations that there were.You know, I don't know if I
want to go so forest call themlies, but alway, yeah, go
ahead. But I've got a coupleof former teammates that put out some pretty
serious lies. Yeah, I mean, you know the situation with Jonathan Parker
and throwing the football and then taping, you know, his conversation with Kirk

(25:06):
Farnce and then then trying to saythat only you know would run like that,
and then it's like but nobody heard. You heard that happen. But
you continue to say it, andit becomes like a headline in every single
situation from the attorney, everything they'dcontact us with, and so it gets
perpetuated and then ultimately it sticks.And so I was not you know,

(25:32):
the more I read of it,the less I was like, Okay,
this is a money gram. Yeah, that's what it is. I mean,
what they were asking for and whatyou knew that they wanted to settle,
and I know all along I'd talkto people with it, and the
first thing that they would do inevery single conversation, the attorneys would say,
hey, be ready to settle now, and because that's all they wanted.
And of course he got half,you know, like two and a

(25:52):
half million dollars and the rest getsplit up like thirteen different ways, like
one hundred you know, it's kindof like, man, you sold,
you sold your you know, yousold who you are in some ways for
that or one hundred and thirty thousanddollars because you know, it's you know,
now you can't come back. Nope, no, not welcome back.

(26:15):
And they're not welcome back. AndI'll say this within you know, a
circle like Kevin and Iron just asa you know, the former you know,
a lum like can't come back thereeither. Like, hey, it's
not just that though, I meanif like you actually want to go on
and have a career, like theIowa football alumni network is how I got

(26:37):
my job in just the Iowa alumninetwork in general is like you can very
well network that to find a careerthat you want, and you pretty much
just shut the door on that.Yeah, like I'm going to take your
phone call. Yeah, I thinkthe to wrap this up because I don't
want to make this all a somberlike, oh twenty twenty down Downer podcast.

(26:57):
Sure. I think what I hatethe most about it is, at
least it feels like, especially whenyou're on the app, Twitter is everything,
right, Like Twitter is real life. Whatever I read here is like
no one even fact checks anything anymore, which probably drives you crazy, Scott.
You tweet something and it blows up. People just take it for what

(27:18):
it is. They don't even askquestions. And in this sort of scenario,
I think where this whole thing endedup at least my perspective is that
and this is where most people don'tlike to end up. Is it's not
just christ oil bad racist, hatedAfrican American athletes only like the white guys.

(27:41):
It's not just nope, everything wasgood, there was nothing going on.
It's somewhere in the middle where youknow it probably there wasn't as much
malicious intent here as a lot ofpeople make it out to be. But
there's also it wasn't just one hundredpercent roses. And people don't like the
middle because the middle isn't a headline, it's not a it's not something you

(28:04):
can use as a buzzword for atitle of a story, and that's what
people want nowadays. And it's reallyunfortunate because I, like you said,
people's lives, reputations are tagged tothis and it's, you know, unfortunately
just sort of the way it goes. But we'll move on from that.
I want to quickly bring it backto you mentioned eighteen years covering the team.

(28:27):
Did you always know you were goingto be a journalist? Like was
this the dream from when you weresixteen years old sitting sophomore year high school,
like I want to cover sports orwas there another path for you?
You mentioned you went to Western Illinois. Is that the leather necks Old folks.
We actually had a former teammate transferthere, Trev. Remember that keV

(28:48):
Trev went and played for US Illinoisfor a couple of years. I think,
yeah, he's doing I do believehe's an FBI agent now, so
that's pretty cool. H So wasit always the thing? I wanted to
play pro football? Man? Oh? Who did it all? That was
my first goal. I tried reallyhard. But when I couldn't win the

(29:10):
quarterback job as a sophomore, andI realized that I better get onto Plan
B pretty quick. I did stickit out all the way through and had
some, you know, some ofthe best memories of my life playing high
school football and Burlington was in theMAC instead of falling down a class.
But but anyway, I digress.I'd always kind of liked to write a

(29:33):
little bit. And then I tooka journalism class my sophomore year high school,
and I actually found out I waspretty good at it that I you
know, for that level, andkind of the first thing that came,
you know, I'm like, oh, well, this isn't so bad.
And I was doing a writing acouple of stories and to the high school
newspaper, doing some fun stuff there, and then I was I was playing

(29:53):
football. I wrestled for a while, but then I punched the wall.
I lost a wrestle off, andI broke my hands so severely f surgery
and that bothers me today. Istill can't even like close a glove for
it. And I can't play theguitar anymore because of it, you know,
because you know it's stupid enough topunch the wall. And then,
UH tried tried soccer. But Itold the story the other day. I

(30:15):
never played before my senior year.I decided, all right, I'm gonna
play soccer. I came the backupgoalie and then and then my aunt worked
at the Hawkeye newspaper in Burlington andgot me a job as a part timer
taking calls. A week after Itook that job, the starting goalie got
shot in Burlington. So I wouldhave had started the starting goalie that week.

(30:37):
But uh, because he had andso they ended up letting I know
that. I was like, yeah, he got hurt, so I had
to get No, he got shot. He got but the way you told
it is funny. Wow, that'sa story. Holy Yeah, and so
he Uh, so I would havestarted I'm like, damn, I should
stayed with it, but they letme actually go out and accept a forfeit

(31:00):
one time when the other team gotkissed off and left. I think it
was Downport West left to halftime.But but by then I did know that's
what I wanted to do. Sowhen I was eighteen years old, which
is fortunate, and I worked thereoff and on for five years. I
commuted to Western I. You know, I didn't have any money, That's
why I went there. I workedtwo jobs through college, drove back and

(31:22):
forth. My first job was inI was hoping to talk to Drake a
little bit. My first job wasat the Musketine Journal for two years in
the nineties, and you know,first time Muscatine had won, I had
a winning season and thirty four yearswas my first year there. Wow,
and being a Burlington kid, thatwasn't all that great. I was going
to say, they're kind of youknow, they play each other, right

(31:45):
or they did they were rivals.Yeah, but back then, so I
was like, damn, but no, that's fine. I was happy for
him. And then, you know, but I always wanted to cover like
the NFL, and I got anopportunity to do that. For a while,
I was sports editor of a payin Missouri just north of Kansas City,
and cool got to cover the NFLfor a while, and then opportunity

(32:06):
came up to to work for theCedar Rapids Gazette in two thousand and six,
and so joined forces with some ofthe best journalists that I've ever worked
with, and Mark Morehouse and MikeColoss and some of the other people I
worked with on that staff. Andyou know, for a good ten years
or so, we were about asolid of a three trio of reporters as
you ever find, so, youknow, yeah, about ten years,

(32:30):
I would say, so, Iwould echo that for sure. So,
but yeah, that's that's how Ikind of all came about. I Mean,
there were times I thought about somethingdifferent. I was a coach once
when I was in college. Icoached freshman football at Burlington, and it
just kind of not quite for me. But journalism seems to have been more
in my wheelhouse. And you've beenwith recovering sports the entire time of your

(32:53):
journalists career, or you said youhad brief stint in politics, or yeah,
early on, I would do likewhen I was in Burlington working part
time on the sports desk. Iwould also help out do cops be you
know once in a while ago anddo some small things there, you know.
And then I worked for a yearand Fort Dodge doing police and county

(33:15):
government and Dodge. Yeah, don'tgo kidding. I saw, you know,
I saw some stuff that kind ofyou know, trials. Saw a
guy die that was kind of roughone time. You know, he was
working like on a truck or something, and all of a sudden, like
the pickup truck just slammed him down, slammed down his head. You know,

(33:36):
he was there, so I rushedover to see what happened. And
I wish I wouldn't have, youknow. And then when I was in
in Iowa early in two thousand andsix, I was doing kind of this
enterprise which is kind of more offthe field stuff, and then also helping
out on the news desk. SoI uh, it was it was six.

(33:57):
It was the day that Iowa lostat Indiana and ball. I had
to go down to Bonaparte where akid I killed his whole family, like
five people, And so I did. I did some pretty rough stuff.
And then you know, i'd dosome presidential candidates. I did the floods
in eight and so, you know, I've kind of always had that my
hand in some harder news and youknow, at rests and and so that

(34:21):
was something I could do. Andunfortunately earlier on with Io, whether there
were a lot of them, fortunatelythey haven't been as many or last you
know, fifteen years as there werefrom like seven to nine, where it
seemed like every other day there wassomething going on. Sure, you say
harder news, but I gotta imagine, like people are really emotional about their

(34:42):
sports teams, Like it's got tobe a little bit difficult to write about
when you're doing just more the recap, the stats and what have you.
You know, like you see somelike especially in the last couple of years,
like if you have like even slightlybit of a unhappy fan base,
like kind of going back to whatwe were talking about earlier with the twenty

(35:04):
twenty stuff, like there are peoplewill want you to take a harder stance
or one way or the other.No, yeah, for sure, And
I think the stuff with oh Igot it, Scott, I got it,
asking the tough questions right exactly.There you go. And if I
don't hear that lineup again, that'llbe. But you know, and I
always say, we ask the questions, you don't like the answers and you

(35:27):
don't like the tone. I mean, they'll watch a press conference like I
always joke about, like Rocky five, and you know they're standing up here
nothing. You know, who doyou think you are? You know,
and it's like, that's not whatwe're gonna do. You know, do
you think I'm going to stand upand point at Kirk fern stn't whine the
hell is your son still the offensivecoordinator? I was just gonna I was
just gonna say the discourse over thelast couple of years with Brian I passively

(35:51):
from AFAR sort of uh, observethe interactions that you have on social with
some of your stories or some ofthe stuff that you put out, answers
that you'll tweet out to questions thatyou or somebody asked that a Tuesday media
availability, and it's like these peoplewant you to you to fire or hire
these coaches like you, Scott Doctormanare in charge of personnel decisions for the

(36:14):
Iowa staff. It's so nuts.And I think the response for Morehouse,
the all timer each shit is yes, because that's a Hall of Fame response
by him, and I can't imaginehow often you'd like to just tweet that
back at somebody. But Kevin's right, I don't envy the responses and probably

(36:34):
messages that you get on a lotof the stories that you do. Now,
for sure, they got really badprobably the last two years with Brian
because people were angry, they wereupset, and then they have their eyes
so they saw what didn't happen onthe offensive side of the ball, and
they're frustrated and they want to conveyit. Well, you know, it's
not like during the game Kirkscheck andTwitter, you know, and so we're

(36:57):
the ones that are there, Sowe're the ones that they feel like they
could, you know, vent to. I always kind of called myself the
community bartender, you know, comeup with your problems, and that's what
we what we do. But theissue was that after a while, I'm
like, I can't do anything.I can't hire this guy. I mean
I could. You know, wecan ask questions about aspects and you know,
we can ask bigger, probing questions, but it's not going to be

(37:21):
the tone. We're not going tothrow our anger, you know, channel
what you're feeling, your frustration intothese questions, and and I think times,
you know, and I know therewas one time over at Ohio State
where Doug Leasbray, who you know, had asked Kirk some you know,
pretty challenging question, pointy questions.But I always come back to this one

(37:44):
that if I was him and Iwas in his situation, I could do
the same thing. But if you'rethere every single day, and I'm not
saying you can't ask those questions,but you can't ask it with that tone.
You can't ask Pepper on the waythat he did. And that's where
you know, you do have tobe professional. And it's not that I'm
scared today he's going to take awayyour press pass, nothing like that.
I mean, you know, I'ma remember of the f WAA, I'm

(38:06):
on the All American Committee. Youknow, I'm not afraid of anybody.
But you know, you do haveto be cognizant and respectful because for every
loss, then there's a win.And then do you want me to you
know, and then people's their emotionschange, and how dare you ask that?
You know it comes the next week? Well, and it is important

(38:27):
too. I think about things likeI think the last two summers, your
pod partner in lees Toco got tosit down with Brian for two three hours
at a time and do these long, deep dive interviews that I think the
fan base has really enjoyed. Bythe way, your Guys' podcast is awesome

(38:50):
on the iOS Everywhere network, it'suh. I if there's one show I
consistently consistently tuned into, it's youand Chad than the people who actually know
stuff, not our show, yourshow, UH and Chad doesn't get that
without that professionalism and a little bitof an effort to like, hey,

(39:12):
I'm not trying to be the badguy, and those coaches aren't dumb.
Brian would tell you, Kirk wouldtell you, they know that you guys
have a job to do too,and it's not always going to be you
know, easy questions and they understandthat line. And if both parties understand
that, then you get the coolstuff like the three hour summer deep dive.
But like these if you acted likesome of these uh, some of

(39:34):
these fans on Twitter wanted you toyou guys wouldn't get anything from these guys.
And then in Iowa City, they'realready tight. You know, they're
they're not. They don't want togive you a whole lot anyway. So
yeah, that's uh, that's tough. I want, I would, I
would say, and I went alongthose lines that last two years. Last
two summers I got some really goodaccess with Brian and last year he said,

(39:58):
all they do Scott. I talkedto Scott and the year before I
had a six hour session with himwhere we went over game film and I
said, I want to see howyou put together, you know, your
game plans and what you're seeing,so I could try to convey that.
And the two summers ago what wedid was I said, I want to
get I want to see their best, and I want to give you three

(40:21):
or four games where I'm like,you know, this didn't work, and
so we went over Ohio State inseventeen, you know, you know,
USC and nineteen games that really measuredup, and then games like the one
I pointed to a lot and Ithink it was really a pivotal game was
twenty nobody was at Kinnick, butthe twenty one to twenty lost Northwestern,

(40:44):
you know, and through it fiftyfive times exactly, and I'm like,
you have a quarterback starting his firstgame against that defense, who that decent
defensive portire knows you better than youknow yourself and every tendency you have.
And you've got a quarterback struggling,Why aren't you running the ball a little
bit more often? And that's wherewe actually kind of argued over that,

(41:04):
and I think that's great, that'sfair, you know, because my opinion
was, especially later on, justrun it. Just get a couple of
yards because the last interception, you'reinside the thirty. Yeah, you're down
by a point, your defense isplaying well after kind of a tough second
quarter. Just get a couple moreyards. And then you know, he's
kind of mutters under his breath.He's like, well, we can't run
against these guys, you know,and he was explaining why that they couldn't

(41:28):
do that, and I'm like,this is music to my ears. Now
I can also convey that to thepeople. I was going to say,
West Park, when you hear whenyou get to and of course you can't
know, not everybody's going to havethat access, but when when you get
to sit down like that and youhear the explanation, you have time to
go into why why did we dothis because we did this, this and
this three quarters before? Is thateye opening? Is that sort of kind

(41:52):
of a surreal moment to hear becausewe've tried to say it and as many
as the fans want to are thatthey're smarter in the game of football knowledge
than Brian Farrence's. The guy knowsa lot of football, like probably forgot
most more than most fans know.Does that sort of And I know you're

(42:13):
not ever reporting with bias or opinion, You try to keep it fair,
like you said, but like,does that start to puzzle piece some things
together at least that before were alittle bit blurry. Absolutely, I mean
it crystallizes for me that that BrianFarnce knows his stuff. And I know
people right now are going what youknow, Okay, you know there were
issues and there are major issues schematicallyand also personnel wise, and then the

(42:37):
injuries compounded all of that. That'sreally what has happened. They made some
mistakes in recruiting, pretension. Thereare all those factors that I do want
to emphasize. But when I goin, you know, some of the
things he explained, which were youknow, kind of like, hey,
I'm an algebra student and he's teachingme calculus. Yeah, and I'm trying

(42:58):
to soak it in. That's reallytough up and and but I did try
to buy into that a little bit. And you know, the Ohio State
game was really eye opening for thisis what we saw on film before we
thought we could do this. Andso we spent the first quarter trading our
tight ends to the other side tosee how they reacted because we expected him

(43:20):
to do this, and so it'slike and then you would see a lot
of not necessarily unbalanced, but youwould see sort of unbalanced looks at times
where Okay, Hawkinson and Fan tradeover before even the pre stamp, and
then okay, they adjusted this wayexactly what we thought. And then I
remember distinctly that early moment in thesecond quarter he goes, we got him
right where we want and then bam, you know, and just see the

(43:44):
second quarter of the floodgates open,and I'm like, that's a smart f
and football coach there. Yeah,he knows his shit. We also had
Hawkinson and Fan, which it reallyhelps to have those two exactly. I've
been telling people, Look, youknow, between the two teams, there
were fifteen first or second round draftpicks, and six of them are at
Iowa. So it wasn't like itwas a void of talent there at all,

(44:07):
you know, Tristan Wirfs, Imean, Aler Jackson should have been
a draft pick, and today's worldhe would have been, you know,
with things that just been legalized.But you know, all that being said,
it's like, Okay, now itmatches. Now I see why,
and then now you look at butthen again the complicated parts of the Northwestern

(44:28):
game that you know in twenty it'slike, Okay, I see why it's
difficult. And then he's trying toexplain to me why he can't run the
ball, and I'm still like,eh, but you're going to have to
do something here. You know,you only need about three more yards and
you've got a perfect field goal,and you're going to win twenty three to
twenty one. Then you're gonna goto Indianapolis and the way you're playing,
the way you're playing at that endof the year, would not have wanted

(44:50):
to be in Ohio State. Maybethey pull it out, but that was
as good of a team at theend of the year as I've seen out
of this program. I know it'sunfortunate that that year happened. Like did
I've got so, I've got afew other questions A big topic before we
get into some IW specific stuff.You had a great podcast with Chad.

(45:10):
Recommend their podcast if it didn't comeacross earlier. This big old two point
eight billion dollar payout by the NCAAand all this stuff happening with nil and
how the payers are gonna get theplayers are going to get paid moving forward?
What are the biggest implications from thisfrom your reporting side, because it

(45:30):
sounded like you had I mean,obviously not all the details are out,
but the way you sort of talkedabout it, you hit on a few
things. I know, when Iwas listening, I heard the I heard
the sentence like walk ons might goaway, and that perked my ears up.
I was like, Oh, there'snot going to be any more of
us, you know. So whatare the big implications here with this payout
and where do things go from here? First of all, I hope you

(45:52):
guys get some money out of this, because I think you're going to and
I think it goes back to classaction through like twenty sixteen, and so
so you know, get a coupleof checks out of them, why you
can coupon to Arby's coming right upthere you go, you know, fifty
nine cents. Now, I thinkthere's the ramifications. Let's start at the

(46:13):
sports individual sports that instead. Nowthey have a difference number between scholarship limits
and roster limits. Scholarship limits likefor football or eighty five, and there's
really no limit to the number ofwalk ons you can have. But for
the most part it's between one tenand one twenty for most programs total players,

(46:34):
and then thirty ish thirty five ishwalk ons. Well, what this
is going to do is establish aroster limit, and it's not going to
be eighty five. It might beone hundred, it might be one hundred
and ten. And then it's upto you to decide how many scholarships you
get. Well, most schools,if they're smart, will fill that or

(46:54):
comes of everybody. Yeah, andso if you have one hundred and five
or one hundred, let's say they'regoing to want a scholarship every single player
there. Okay, that's that's greatfor football. Football deserves it. Football
is the money maker it makes atIOWA. Between eighty five and ninety percent
of all revenue comps directly from football. Now where the implications lie for all

(47:20):
the other sports is pretty significant becausebecause then you start to go with the
title nine part of it, whichis, if you add twenty more scholarships
to football, you've got to findprobably twenty three to twenty five more for
women's sports, or you reduce outof your men's sports pool. I was
going to want to do both fora university. They're like, all right,

(47:42):
we got to make some cuts.Yes, and yes, almost always
going to be on the cut sidemore than the exactly so, especially when
they start throwing throwing out like directpayments to players from universities, you're not
going to add back women swimming anddiving, or you know it's going to
be men's golf might get cut orsomething else like that. Well, Scott

(48:07):
and Chad were talking about baseball.That's my biggest fear that you're going to
see a reduction in baseball and wrestlingacross the board. Not at Iowa.
All in wrestling for sure, no, but but I mean, and then
wrestling is another one. Now it'snine point nine scholarships, It might IOWA
wrestling may want to say, Okay, the roster limit could be thirty.
They're probably not going to go withthirty scholarships, but they're probably going to

(48:30):
do more than nine point nine,you know. And and so then you're
got to again take it away fromsomewhere else, and you've got to look
at places where they're chunks, notjust nickel and dimes. I mean,
you know, they cut men's swimmingand men's tennis and men's gymnastics the other
a couple of years ago. Youknow, what, are you gonna cut
track and field or are you gonnayou know, I mean or field team

(48:52):
better now? Or are you goingto add twenty five scholarships? Maybe you
do it with women's basketball, maybetry to minimize it, but but then
you get again, then the paymentscome in, you know, the twenty
million dollars or whatever roughly. AndI think where it's going to be decided
in the courts at some point isdoes that need to be proportionate to male

(49:14):
the female ratio? What Title nineis and provides opportunity or does Title nine
automatically just say it provides opportunity,not payment. And if it provides payment,
then we know football and men's basketballis going to get eighty five to
ninety percent of that because that's whycollectives are in place. It's to get

(49:34):
the quarterback, it's to get theyou know, forward or whatever. But
if it's proportionate to male and femalepopulation, and out of the ten million
dollars, nine point five is goingto go to the men's basketball and football,
and so you might have a maletrack athlete get fifteen hundred dollars.
You might have a female track athleteget forty five thousand dollars. You know,

(49:57):
that's insane to think about that.Gosh, there's so this is gonna
this is going to get sticky forthe universities. Yeah, I just don't
know. And so it's it's goingto come to it down to a lawsuit.
And I think that's fair. Itprobably should in this way, because
how do you define that money that'ssplit, Because is it fair to go

(50:17):
men women equal or is it Hey, we're going to do it by marketability.
We've provided the opportunity. Now it'sup to the marketability to establish how
much money each athlete gets. Andthen this, you know, and and
my fear is that when you cutit equally between men and women, the
collectives are just going to continue tobe there. Yeah, because let's face

(50:40):
it, they're there to get thebest players for football and men's basketball.
So if you can't have any advantage, you're gonna have to supplement it somehow.
But ultimately it's good because I thinkthere's been way too much pressure put
upon fans in recent years with collectives. I mean, you're asking the tickets,

(51:00):
join the I Club, support ourstudent athletes, and then oh,
by the way, contribute, contribute, contribute and pay for them to do
this and get this player. Andyou're like, man, I'm getting tapped
out here, so I think relentless. So, like you know, and
when you're looking and you're saying,man, next year, we're going to
get thirteen million dollars more from theBig ten because of our new network deal.

(51:22):
Why can't you just take it outof that? You know? And
I think that's fair because you know, fans have been tapped out for a
long time. You know, thebig donors, sure, and you know
that's one thing. But Joe fanwho's got season tickets, who likes to
tailgate, and he's got a coupleof kids and maybe one in college,
and he's like, I can giveyou a hundred bucks that's yeah exactly,

(51:43):
But what's that doing for you?That's they ain't doing nothing right, you
know. It's it's I hate thatthe fans feel like it's on, like
it's on them, or like orwe're going to suck, or like the
Hawks are going to suck if Idon't give them two grand this year.
Like that's that's not the way itshould be. So that is crazy.
Roster limits versus scholarship limits. Imean it makes sense though, right because

(52:08):
if otherwise you can just supplement anunlimited roster with it. Yeah, no,
it does. It's just it looksa whole lot different than it did
in twenty thirteen. That's for sure. It's not the same sport. Yeah,
it's different. It's differently not thesame sport. But I'm happy that

(52:28):
there are nil up opportunities. Allof you guys could have benefited from it,
whether it's have a camp in yourhometown to you know, go out
and you know, reading books toschool kids, to you know, hey,
you got the pole cap porter,you could have you know, you
could have benefited financially from that.And they had zero dollars from that.
Always was like valid, like reasonsfor NL and it's they just they just

(52:54):
knew if they opened it up,they it would get bastardized, just the
way it did. And that's whenthey bought it for so long, and
once they couldn't stop fighting, it'slike, hey, this is this is
how it's going to be. LikeI don't think anyone was really ever against
the idea of, yes, CadenMcanamerican go back to his hometown and do
a camp for kids and stuff likethat and collect twenty bucks ahead or whatever,

(53:17):
or sign some autographs. But itwas always going to be the loophole
to what has become now. Andit's what it is is pay for play,
right for sure, And that's that'spart of it. I always looked
at it, even going way backto him, not only when you guys
were there, but guys before you. And I always thought, you know,

(53:37):
I remember Mitch King's forty seven jerseyand I'm going to Shields at the
mall and that's the first one yousee, or number seven with Marvin McNutt
or you know, And I alwaysthought, you know, it would be
kind of cool if Josie Jewell coulddo a you know, for fin and
Feather, do a commercial or somethinglike that. Oh, that's what that's
what nil is all about. Youknow. It's like, because you guys
are at the height of your marketabilitywhen you're athletes at the University of Iowa

(54:00):
even something to go on to probs, are still more you know, more
marketable as Iowans. And that's whyI always thought it was so unfair that,
you know, you're twenty two totwenty three years old and you could
go out and make really good money, which they are now, versus when
you're twenty five or twenty six andmaybe your NFL career is over and you

(54:20):
come back to the area and it'slike you're not even going to make one
hundred bucks sign in autographs. Now, Yeah, that's really unfair. I
want to segue quick to someone who'spretty marketable, Caitlin Clark. I want
you to try to put into wordswhat it was like to cover her as
an athlete at the University of Iowaor just just be in the ecosystem with

(54:44):
a player like that, and whatshe's meant to the university. And then
if you could, I'd be interestedin assuming she's one of them. Since
your time's covering the Hawks, isthere a mount rushmore of io athletes that
you could put together. Yeah,that's great. I would say that covering
her was unlike anything I've ever covered, no matter where I've been, because

(55:08):
you just saw her as a shewas a rock star everywhere she went,
whether a carver, and you'd seea thousand little girls and you'd hear these
high pitched Gamelin Gayen Gamelan voices,you know, everybody wanting an autograph or
anything, and they're like, youknow, and and to see you know

(55:30):
on the road. I think whatreally my eyes more than anything was think
we were at Northwestern this year andI didn't go, but I saw one
of the I think it was theABC affiliate in Chicago, went just to
talk to people going into the gamebecause Northwestern women's basketball get twelve hundred fans
a game maybe and to see it'snot only sold out, but it was

(55:52):
like five hundred bucks a ticket.And then you saw all these I would
say, like fourteen year old girls, fifteen year old girls who played basket
ball, and it was like,we get to see her. They were
so excited. This is my birthdaypresent, This is you know, what
we all wanted to do. Andall these people go there and and it
really got me thinking that, youknow, throughout time, we see these

(56:15):
historical figures, you know, BarackObama, and you see a young boy
who looks up and says, oneday I could be like you, I
could be president of the United States. And and but it's also it applies
here that because a lot of timesgirls who look like Caitlin Clark from the
suburbs of West des Moines or theChicago West Suburbs or whatever, and they

(56:38):
play these games, they don't necessarilyhave a hero they could look up to.
But here she is that she canprove she's everything she has. She's
a Catholic kid, she you know, she's you know, from well to
do family, but she works reallyhard and she can have swagger and she
can play the way she does andthen be as entertaining and as you know,
energetic and and I think fourteen yearold girls, it's like, Wow,

(57:01):
that's my hero. That's who Iwant to be like. And it's
really cool to be able to seethat and witness that just you know,
shooting star in some respects. AndI think we all knew it, you
know, especially after Brown or sophomoreyear. This was the trajectory, but
it still got bigger than I everthought it would as far as Mount Rushmore
goes. You know, it's funnybecause in football, there were so many

(57:25):
really good All American players, it'shard to pick, you know, who's
better than who? Is Branded Sheriffbetter than Robert Gallery or is he better
than you know, Tristan Wurf's andthen rush for just an offensive lineman.
Kevin Ward was out there. Hewas I don't know, maybe like if

(57:46):
there's like a small little sand castleright next to Mount Rush, you're right,
you could probably do just football.But I mean, but what I
was meaning was I don't know thatI could put a football player on it.
Yeah, because that even though thereare so many great athletes and almost
it just about every position that they'vehad an All American who really speaks to

(58:07):
the prowess of of Kirk Ferns andhis coaching staff to be able to develop
players like that. And you know, from a Sean Green to a you
know Brad Banks and Martu McNutt,and then all the tight ends and the
offensive lineman and you know guy andguys like Josie and Jack Campbell and the
defensive backs. It's just a remarkable. But I don't know that I could

(58:27):
put anybody in that that top four, and the top four is almost kind
of easy, and a few yearsago it wouldn't have been. And for
me, it's Caitlin. She's GeorgeWashington's face, There's no question about that.
From my mind. I would putSpencer Lee. I think he's the
best wrestler I've ever seen, mostexciting athlete. Tony Ramos was pretty cool
too when Brent metcalf. But butI think, you know, he'll prove

(58:50):
it in Paris next month. Ibelieve he promised us a couple of episodes
ago that he would, so yeah, and he will. Three and four
are a little bit different. Iwould say Megan Gustafson. I thought she
was just amazing. She was thenumber one player for me until Katelyn came,
and it's kind of unfortunate she didn'tget to live in that, you
know, moment long enough. Andthen finally I would go Luca Garza.

(59:15):
And even though Hegan Murray is abetter pro, he left after a second
year, and you do have toreward somebody who has a career and four
year career two time, you know, player of the Year nationally. I
mean, it's really remarkable what hewas able to accomplish. And you look
back in Iowa's history and they hadn'thad a consensus first team All Americans.

(59:37):
It's the fifties before he did ittwice. And he's what seventh or eighth
in old time in Big ten scoring, and so I thought he had just
an outstanding career. So it's hardfor me to put a football player above
them, even though that's the sportI cover, and I'm you know,
closer to the players and kind ofsee their strengths, and you know,
there's just so many, just somany great stories. I mean, I

(01:00:00):
really kind of like the coaches,I really enjoy see and come in as
freshmen and then all of a sudden, it's like you went from being you
know, six' one two ohfive to six two to forty and just
lighten people up. I mean,I think it's great. I think i'd
have to agree with you on that. It would be really hard to put

(01:00:20):
a football player up there. I'mnot even sure would be your top one,
even that Sheriff was the highest draftedin that time. I think,
yeah, I mean recency bias,says Jack Campbell to me, But I
don't think he's on the same levelwhen you think about impact. I mean,
I mean, if we're talking playersof the year, three time national

(01:00:42):
champ and uh, I mean,Caitlyn's literally an A list celebrity, like
no one's on hurt, Like there'sa sub there's a What's crazy to me?
You mentioned the little girls wearing herjersey. The subculture that's developed across
general society around Kaitlyn Clark, noteven sports fans, but just your everyday
person is crazy. And then it'snot just little girls. I will drive

(01:01:08):
around my neighborhood take my daughter todaycare when school was still in session,
and I'd come back and in themorning, before jumping on the bus,
there would be little boys wearing KaitlynClark jerseys. There's grown men just walking
around. Well sure, I mean, but you know, little boys still
have that, Like you know,they've got heroes that they would openly wear

(01:01:29):
a jersey for and it's Kaitlyn Clarklike it. That is the biggest change
that I've ever seen in sports,you know, just to go from when
I was a kid, certainly,I mean even when you guys were in
college or before, you would neversee a boy wearing a female jersey.

(01:01:50):
It had to be a special reason, like that was my sister or something
like that, and she's getting herjersey retired or something. The see young
boys, to see men wearing twentytwo. I heard stories, you know.
One one friend of mine told mehis ten year old son was in
a league and he shot at threeand he threw his hands up like this

(01:02:12):
and was going up the court andhe immediately goes, oh, it was
that for Jordan, you know,Michael Jordan used to do that and goes,
no, Caitlyn Clark, And I'mlike, wow, people are looking
at Caitlyn Clark and they're not seeinggender, they're seeing cool, they're seeing
awesome. And I think that's that'sreally you know, that's transcended and it's
really amazing to witness. And so, you know, I think that's why

(01:02:37):
it's just I don't think we've everseen or you know, in my lifetime,
I don't think I'll see another personthat matches her and charisma and effect
of you know, to go andbreak every television record in the WNBA and
in college basketball and every attendance record. I mean, you look at the
difference in attendance when she's there versuswhen she's not, and it's you know,

(01:03:01):
and and of course there's the wholeWNBA situation, which has really caused
me to back way off on Twitterbecause I just don't want to get Oh
my god, it's the most toxicthing I've ever been a part of.
I mean, I'm not even apart of it. Just witnessing it makes
me feel gross, I think,And it'll be very hard to do,

(01:03:22):
and it's hard to even quantify orreally determined. But if there's one person
who, as an athlete at theUniversity of Iowa, is going to surpass
Nile Kinnick, which is really hardto do, especially because he has this
military like war hero lore to him, I think it's Caitlin. I don't

(01:03:44):
think you can even determine that foranother twenty or thirty years. But as
far as impact and like what theyI think Caitlyn might be even number one
all time. And that's a reallyhard debate that could never be settled.
But that's my opinion and I don'tthink we'll ever see I don't. I
think it's the ones in a severallifetime sort of athlete. Honestly, Yeah,

(01:04:08):
I mean I tried to put thattogether too, and try not to
be hyperbolic and take things in perspective. Because now Kinnick's shadow, I mean,
the stadium is named after him.I mean, and and if I
still think it could be it couldbe Clark Arena in four years, not
unless she writes a forty million dollarsfrom the university. They ain't given out

(01:04:28):
name for free anymore. Yeah,but maybe twenty eight million dollars. Shoot
deal. I think that that statuewhere the gable statue was might be a
good spot to have her throw upher arms or something like that, you
know, right out there. Butyou'd wait for a few years, so
c and you do that so thenpeople could come and spend money and you
know, on a game or whatever. But now, I mean, you

(01:04:50):
know, Nile Kinnick again, hisshadow has loomed so large, but in
a different way. She is biggerbecause Nile Kinnix is narrowed to the Iowa
fan base and to you know,and but you also look at it.
We look at it with what couldhave been. You know, he lost
his life during you know, themost epic struggle in human history and tragically

(01:05:12):
died. And we always talk aboutwhat he could have done, what he
could have been governor like his grandfather, or maybe even president, and it's
endless because of how smart he was. But I look at Caitlin Clark and
I see some of the same strengths. I listen to her and I just,
you know, you're overwhelmed with howshe carries herself. At her age.

(01:05:33):
It's like she's twenty two and she'sa polished professional. And I wonder
in twenty twenty five years, isshe going to a either be running her
own company or be well, shebe an elected official. And I'm not
going to get into the party partof it, but but she can handle
herself, and she could she comeback to Iowa and be governor or senator

(01:05:53):
or whatever. Absolutely, you know, she's got that kind of charisma,
and she's well spoken and articulate andbrilliant obviously, and as the name recognition
that I think, I think thisguy is the limit for her. She
might be the she might be abillionaire. She might be like lebron Or
or Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods.When it comes to revenue generated by the

(01:06:13):
time her career ends, she alsomight be able to coach the fever better
than Christis sides right now. Yeah, so I don't want to keep you
too long. Last topic, we'llswinging around Iowa football. On the most
recent podcast of Chat, I heardyou talking about, you know, Tim
Lester, We've got the new face. Finally we got, you know,
what we think people want. Althoughthere was some pushback on Lester's higher as

(01:06:39):
well over some other options always goingto be the players were starting to hear
you know, you guys are gettingsome opportunity to interview the players, interview
some of the coaches here. Whatis different about this this new offense?
What's Lester gonna do that's going tochange things around? Players seem to you
know that a lot more opportunities we'redoing. You know, there's there's rumblings
and this the the we're you know, it's it's off season, but it

(01:07:02):
is right about June July where thingsstart to build into that into that hype
for the season. I heard aboutcompletion percentage from you. I heard about
red zone efficiency, yards per carry, some stats that you threw out on
the latest podcasts. What is legitimatelywhat what should a fan expect from this

(01:07:24):
Iowa football team in twenty twenty four, Well, I look at the offense,
and you guys know this better thanalmost every fan, and this is
kind of how I expect it is. It's it's the smallest details that will
create the biggest impression. And andfor me, because I kind of dig

(01:07:44):
offensive line play and I really liketo watch it, it's how do you
create an advantage up front that enableseverything to go around it? And and
what I like is and I keepI've kept track, and I do it
myself. I don't use like PFFor anything. You know, how they
perform with like jet sweeps and justjust the motion itself, how it just
changes. And you know, andKevin can tell me I'm full of shit

(01:08:08):
or whatever, but it forced.It seems to me that it forces the
second level to just have that slighthesitation. And as we know, if
there's a slight hesitation, then theoffensive line has a little bit more of
an advantage. And I can't tellyou how many times that I saw it,
and I know you guys saw it, that the blocks would be very
close to being there. They're justa step, a fraction of a step

(01:08:30):
and if I and every time,I mean, like the yards per carry
were like two difference, like threepoint three without it without motion, you
know five you know with motion,five point three five with with jet sweep
motion. So if you're doing thaton each and every play. And I
talked to one assistant, He's like, I think it was out of a
sixty seven play scrimmage, like fiftynine included some sort of motion. And

(01:08:55):
he goes, what it did wasit wrecked our fits on And if you
can do that over and over andover again, as we know with this
this is the way it's always been. You get that one wrong fit at
the right time, and bam,and they've got a good running backs.
I'm pretty confident in that. Ilove our stable running backs. I mean,

(01:09:16):
I think, you know, CalebJohnson just looks the part. I
mean, you know, big strong, athletic, Lashawn Williams, underestimated at
your own value, you know,you know, because he's he's a tough
kid. And then I think KamariMoulton might be a breakout star, you
know, really quick and everything.So I think it all plays out from
that. And then also, Imean they completed sixty percent of their passes

(01:09:39):
when they went to when they hadjet motion, even with Deacon Hill.
And so if you have that kindof motion with a much more accurate sorry
Deacon, but you know, evenif you have a quarterback like Cad who
is much more accurate, and you'reputting that motion in because again the safety
again you know, doesn't spot itor the lineback is not in place,

(01:10:00):
and then somebody's out here. Somy expectation it isn't real like big as
far as like, oh, they'regoing to score touchdown more a game or
anything like that, and older theyshould. It's more how do you do
in those situations. And that's whyI kind of identified like four areas on
offense. Yards per carry seem tomatter because it's it's cumulative. It just

(01:10:23):
it's like you know, constant bodyblows in a fight. Third down percentage,
you know, you've got to convertthird downs, you know, to
keep drive alive. Red zone touchdownpercentage, you've got to make sure when
you're in the red zone you scoretouchdowns, you're not kicking field goals.
And we've seen it both ways withthe IOWA before. And then finally you
know, it's it's completion percentage you'vegot to get You got to complete those

(01:10:45):
passes, and there will have beena lot that haven't been completed. The
last one to hit sixty in aseason with CJ. A. Beth third
and fifteen. So if they canmove incrementally, maybe get to sixty,
maybe four point four yards per care. You know, touchdown percentage be in
the top half in the country.You know, third down percentage being the
top half in the country. Ifyou could get to that number with this

(01:11:09):
defense, with this schedule, Iwas going to be hosting a playoff game
in December. Now if you can'tor if there's injuries, which is always
the asterisks, yeah, then youknow you're can struggle because you just can't
have what you had last year.Because ten and four with that type offense,
man, you good luck. It'sa fairy tale. Yeah, once

(01:11:31):
every five years thing. Yeah,it's uh. I look at the schedule
and I you know, I heardyou guys go through it too, like
it's it's about as favorable as youcould get in the new Big Ten.
I'm looking at this Iowa State gamein week two. Is Iowa State?
You know, if you're going togo through them and be like, let's

(01:11:51):
rank the importance of these games thisyear? Is I always state the most
important game on the schedule, becauseyou could argue, and I know we
we don't like to do this.Kevin punched me in the face, yell
as a As a as a player, you go into every game thinking you're
going to win. I'll put onmy journalist media cap in this. Let's

(01:12:12):
say that more times than it not. We don't beat Ohio State. Every
other game is very winnable, andthat Iowa State game early on is always
so tricky because it takes a fewgames, a few weeks new offensive coordinators,
especially to get into the flow.There is a very possible scenario where

(01:12:33):
that Iowa State game, looking backin hindsight about November comes around and it's
like, oh, that that wasa big one to get, especially because
of what Iowa State could be thisyear. Do you feel the same I
do. I think they right now, based on the schedule, that's probably
the second best opponent on the schedule. And I usually don't say that about

(01:12:56):
I would say usually about fourth orsomewhere in there. But this year they
return more production than any other teamin the country eighty six percent of their
production. You turn a quarterback thathad three thousand yards you return, you
know, a really pretty good defense. There's a lot of players that are
productive. They're back receivers, youknow, Higgins and nol And and up.

(01:13:18):
You know, they have a reallygood young tight end and Ben Bramer.
I mean, there's they have alot of really good players and they
have a good coach because it whenit looked like it was trending down.
And last year, as bad asthe gambling situation was for Iowa, it
was doubly so for Iowa State football. I mean, they lost quarterback,
their best running back, you know, defensive tackle, tight end, left

(01:13:41):
tackle, and they're still able togo to a bowl game, and they
want pretty good games down the stretch, so you know the games in Iowa
City. But they won in IowaCity last time. I think, as
you mentioned that this game broadly hasmore implication than it maybe ever has because
playoff it's being expanded that you know, I brought up this scenario and it

(01:14:04):
could have big ramifications beyond you know, even if i Wa wins, because
Iowa, let's say they go tenand two, they get stung somewhere and
then they beat or lose to OhioState. Iowa State could go on win
its conference and get a bye andbe one of the top four teams,
and Iowa could get left out evenif they beat Iowa State. So,

(01:14:26):
boy, without would be some traffichere and especially in Central Iowa. But
I would be it would be funto be a beat writer in that situation.
No, it'd be right. ButI think both teams should be ranked.
I think by the end of theyear, both teams will be very
very good on the fringe at worstof being a playoff discussion team. Top
twenty, top fifteen, possibly so. But I also think I understands and

(01:14:51):
then losing at home two years ago. You know, I'm sure it's always
funny to me because whenever I getasked about Iowa's rivalries, I'm like,
they're four and they're all kind ofimportant in their own way. It's hard
to really bunch one forward. Butin Central Iowa it's it seems like the
Syhawk lives every single day. Outin Eastern iowa's kind of like, well,

(01:15:14):
they're all kind of ballmark, Iwould agree. I would agree.
I won't ask any more questions.We've already taken up too much of your
time, Grant, if you haveanything you want to throw in there,
pop in. Shoot a nice questionover to just Scott before we leave.
Yeah, Scott, I'm curious who'sgot some of the best and worst press
boxes you've seen in your career.I know, people dog on Indiana's press

(01:15:35):
row for their basketball statum. Theysend you guys up to the moon,
But like, what are some ofthe good ones the bad ones? What
do you see over there? Iwould say the best. You know,
Iowas both are not bad, andthey're parking is great, So I'm not
going to complain about Iowa parking abig factor. It is well compared to

(01:15:55):
Wisconsin where I turned them into theFWAA, because I mean, we have
to park one point two miles away, and for some fifty year old fat
guy like me, that sucks.But for I really fear for like,
you know, some of the femalereporters, you know, and it's a
night game and they've got to waterthat far in downtown and they're twenty five,

(01:16:16):
and you know, I mean,that's really not cool. Maybe they
should have some sort of shuttle systemor something like that. And so the
parking situation, I would say Wisconsinthen Northwestern is being the worst two.
But as far as press boxes go, Wisconsin is so old that when they
do the jump around, you feellike you're going to fall. It's like

(01:16:39):
literally like this. And I thinkit was Morehouse who did a video of
a once he put his coffee cupthere and you could just see the spilling,
you know, because of just howit feels. It's like, man,
this place is one hundred plus yearsold. You're you know, you
kind of worry. And plus it'sthey don't have heat in the front row,
so you're playing in November and it'slike forty and rainy and you're kind
of getting wet in there. Iwould say Nebraska is great. Maybe you

(01:17:03):
don't want to hear that, butthat's true. Produced we echo that from
a stadium standpoint as well. Theyjust have a great facility over there.
Yeah. Yeah, Northwestern is notvery good, but of course it got
destroyed, so that's good. Basketballwise. Northwestern was the old arena was
terrible where we used to have toI mean, going way back, I

(01:17:26):
just have a flip phone and Ihave to turn in on so I can
learn to find the place the outletto plug in your laptop up up the
top rafts and then finally they gaveus uh lamps, but even then he
still couldn't do it. And there'suh, you know, I'd say Penn
State sucks too. For the pressbox. It's just god awful. You

(01:17:47):
have to climb over people to getto your seat and that sort of thing.
So yeah, Maryland's all right,Rutgers is okay. So I'm looking
forward to going out west on theRose Bowl and some of those places.
See, it'll be fun. Yeah, anything else correct? Now? I
mean you guys kind of steal allthe questions as how we do it around

(01:18:11):
here. I take all the goodones. Scott, thank you so much
for your time tonight. Did notmean to go twenty minutes obver, but
we have good conversation. You havegreat answers, tons of insight, and
uh, like I said, werespect your stuff. So thank you so
much for coming on the show.Thanks for inviting man. I'm happy to
be the third member of the IowaMedia crew to have an appearance on your
third one is the charm, Ithink the I think the fourth. Right,

(01:18:33):
we had Kenny on right too?Oh? Ken? Did we did
have Kenny on? Didn't we Iforgot about it? Oh man, Well
hopefully I know. I know whatwhen we had more House on, it
was like eight days later that allthat stuff happened in twenty twenty. So
hopefully, you know, major eventwithin the ecosystem of the Iowa Hawkeyes happens

(01:18:56):
after we have you on. Nonetheless, hope everybody listening enjoyed the show.
Thank you guys so much for tuningin. We'll be back in next week.
I'm trying to get Pat Anger on. We got to talk about the
new gig. How he's gonna tonehimself down for that one. But anyway,
thank you guys. We'll talk toyou next time. Peace. Hey,
thanks for listening to the show.If you want more, you can
check us out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube by searching Washed

(01:19:18):
Up walk Ons. And if you'reinterested in supporting the show, head over
to patreon dot com slash Washed Upwalk Ons, where you can find bonus
podcasts, merchandise, and other coolperks. Best part, half of your
subscription benefits the kids at UI Children'sHospital. We'll see you next time.
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