Describe Your Best Memory from the Fry Era

[uihawk82]

Last game of the regular season at Kinnick, vs Minnesota, sometime in the late '80s/early '90s. Huge snowfall preceded the game and still snowing -- almost no fans willing to come out into the stadium seats until kickoff. Shoveling of the yard markers as the game went on. Iowa received the kickoff and started from inside their own 20 yd line. First play of the game. Everyone expected both teams would run the ball on every play because you could barely see anything. So Iowa's first offensive play was a fake off-tackle handoff, drop-back pass bomb to a WR on a deep post route in the middle of the field -- who made a diving catch at the 50yd line. THAT play symbolized Hayden Fry more than any I remember.

Good choice. We had to turn back about 10 miles east of Des Moines because the snow was getting ice packed on I80. Listened to the game. But we did see some nice pictures in the Big Peach the next day.

And of course I always watched the Hayden Fry show on Sunday nite so we did see a fair amount of the replay. I havent watched the Kirk Ferentz show in ages and not even sure if it is still on now that you have BTN replays, you tube highlights etc

 

[LoyalSon]

It is tough to pick one single memory, but I'll go with meeting him during the "High Porch Picnic" celebration in Carver after his retirement. He signed books on the concourse beforehand, and the line was around then arena. He took time to personalize each autograph, pose for pictures, and make a personal connection. I was blow away by how genuinely caring he was.

 

[M1911A1Hawkeye]

I heard that Kinnick lights were on all night and Fry was up on the jumbotron. Does anyone have pics of this?

This came from KCRG.

 

[GVGiant44]

The first home game of Haydens tenure. The very first play, the quarterback went to the line to get under center and shifted to the shotgun. The crowd went crazy! We had never seen anything like it. I also remember, not sure of the year, We buried ISU and we kept running at their big highly touted tackle. Cant remember his name...Bostic maybe? After about the 3rd play he could hardly get up.
I remember he came to Black Hawk County I club banquet in 1979. Had the room in the palm of his hand.

Tom Boskey - or by that time it was probably his brother, Chris Boskey.

 

[GVGiant44]

I love the games many of you chose. So I will pick two that haven't been chosen.

Minnesota, in the dome, 1982, and again in 1986. The 1982 game, to this day, was one of my most heartening wins. Minnesota's "Bad Journalist Alert expert" Sid Hartman from the Star-Tribune was one of the ultimate purveyors of DISrespect to Hayden Fry and Iowa, almost since the day JHF arrived. Admittedly, Hayden had lost his first three games to the Goofs, including a game in Iowa City in Hayden's first Rose Bowl year the season before.

But besides saying Iowa would NEVER beat Minnesota (and their coach, 'Smokey' Joe Salem), Sid had taken to calling Iowa "a bunch of farmers" before that game. He had also previously shown his disrespect by virtually threatening two Minneapolis area recruits (John Alt and Dave Strobel), who had the audacity to pick Iowa over Minnesota in one of Hayden's first years.

We went to the dome and beat the Gophers 21-16, in a game that featured a great Hawkeye goal-line stand. After the game, Hayden changed into bib overalls and other similar farmer attire for the post-game press conference and gladly played up the "farmer" thing. HILARIOUS!!

Then in 1986, again in the Dome, we came from being down 17-0 at the half, to winning 30-27 after Rob Houghtlin, who was the beneficiary of a 15-yard penalty on Minnesota for "illegal participation" after having 12 men on the field for the play, kicked another final-play game-winning field goal.

After the game, as Hayden approached new Minnesota coach John Gutekunst to shake hands, a tall figure stepped in front of the Goofer coach and yelled at Hayden, "I oughta clobber you for winning like that." To which Hayden replied to one Jesse "the Body" Ventura, "Well if you folks would learn how to count to 11, we could both save ourselves a lot of trouble." CLASSIC Hayden.

One more thing. To this day, I have no respect for Sid Hartman. And I will admit, he has probably done THE most classy thing towards Hayden Fry's death he is capable of, and that is to say absolutely nothing.

 

[Northside Hawk]

I love the games many of you chose. So I will pick two that haven't been chosen.

Minnesota, in the dome, 1982, and again in 1986. The 1982 game, to this day, was one of my most heartening wins. Minnesota's "Bad Journalist Alert expert" Sid Hartman from the Star-Tribune was one of the ultimate purveyors of DISrespect to Hayden Fry and Iowa, almost since the day JHF arrived. Admittedly, Hayden had lost his first three games to the Goofs, including a game in Iowa City in Hayden's first Rose Bowl year the season before.

But besides saying Iowa would NEVER beat Minnesota (and their coach, 'Smokey' Joe Salem), Sid had taken to calling Iowa "a bunch of farmers" before that game. He had also previously shown his disrespect by virtually threatening two Minneapolis area recruits (John Alt and Dave Strobel), who had the audacity to pick Iowa over Minnesota in one of Hayden's first years.

We went to the dome and beat the Gophers 21-16, in a game that featured a great Hawkeye goal-line stand. After the game, Hayden changed into bib overalls and other similar farmer attire for the post-game press conference and gladly played up the "farmer" thing. HILARIOUS!!

Then in 1986, again in the Dome, we came from being down 17-0 at the half, to winning 30-27 after Rob Houghtlin, who was the beneficiary of a 15-yard penalty on Minnesota for "illegal participation" after having 12 men on the field for the play, kicked another final-play game-winning field goal.

After the game, as Hayden approached new Minnesota coach John Gutekunst to shake hands, a tall figure stepped in front of the Goofer coach and yelled at Hayden, "I oughta clobber you for winning like that." To which Hayden replied to one Jesse "the Body" Ventura, "Well if you folks would learn how to count to 11, we could both save ourselves a lot of trouble." CLASSIC Hayden.

One more thing. To this day, I have no respect for Sid Hartman. And I will admit, he has probably done THE most classy thing towards Hayden Fry's death he is capable of, and that is to say absolutely nothing.

Is Sid still alive? He's in his nineties himself.

We got nice payback in 1983 when about 27 backs rushed for over 100 yards. That was Salem's last game, if he even finished it. Rumor was he had a ride waiting and may have quit during the game.

By the time Jon G had arrived the Gophs had cycled through another coach, the ever affable Lou Holtz.

NOT! Insufferable was more like it.

Another metro area where Hayden was not popular was Chicago, especially veteran writers like Les Grobstein, Terry Boers and Rick Telander. They did have a nice mention of him on the Bernstein and McKnight show when former Hawkeye Anthony Herron was in studio.

 

[HawkPrdatr40]

#1 No brainer for me “85” 1 v 2 first game I ever attended at Kinnick! Was 16.. incredible!

#2 while in Marines Hayden Fry signed football for me. “Hayden Fry, Semper Fi”. Hayden was a Marine as well in case anyone didn’t know that. That ball been in A glass case for 20 years!

 

[Ree4]

Got to jump on Finkbine once and play two holes with Hayden back in the 90's, was awesome meeting him in person. Such a down to earth guy. He definitely lived up to all the stories.

 

[HawkGold]

1998 at IL. Took my kids old enough to go. After the game some of us fans were sitting around in the corner of the stands. It wasnt a nice day.

After the the field cleared some good amount of time later he came out of the tunnel to walk to our far corner and came over and said very emotionally... Thank uou several times, waved warmly and left. Seemed he was about to cry of appreciation. Crossed my mind he was there for the last time.

 

[SomersHawk]

Was at the 81 MI ST Rose Bowl clinching game. The whole second half the celebration was on as the bottles were being shared with strangers. The cheerleaders did pushups in the south end zone after every TD and by the 4th quarter fans started joining them. By the end of the game there were so many it filled the field to the 20 yard line! Nobody cared! Love to see a film of that again.

 

[SpiderRico]

My favorite memory is the toilet paper streamer in the end zone just as Houghtlin’s kick sailed thru the uprights against Michigan in ‘85.

 

[trj]

OSU ‘87. Not Hayden specific, the game wasn’t televised, but everyone has a story where they were and how they were listening when Hartlieb hit Cook.

 

[EstronHawkKing]

 

[Xerxes]

Is Sid still alive? He's in his nineties himself.

We got nice payback in 1983 when about 27 backs rushed for over 100 yards. That was Salem's last game, if he even finished it. Rumor was he had a ride waiting and may have quit during the game.

By the time Jon G had arrived the Gophs had cycled through another coach, the ever affable Lou Holtz.

NOT! Insufferable was more like it.

Another metro area where Hayden was not popular was Chicago, especially veteran writers like Les Grobstein, Terry Boers and Rick Telander. They did have a nice mention of him on the Bernstein and McKnight show when former Hawkeye Anthony Herron was in studio.

Yeah Sid is still alive. He'll be 100 in March. He still has columns in the Star Tribune but many believe its a ghost writer putting his thoughts to print but he's also still on sports radio every week. A little slow with his delivery at times but he's a encyclopedia on Minnesota sports.

 

[proudhawkfan21]

There were so many.

Mine was the famous game in 1981 at Michigan. Michigan was the powerhouse in the Big Ten at that time but Iowa was a surprising 4-1. Michigan was still a heavy favorite to defeat Iowa. Back in those days, most of the games were NOT televised.

There was a closed circuit live showing of the game at the Cedar Rapids 5 seasons center. We drove from Des Moines to attend. There were about 5,000 screaming Iowa fans packed into that arena. It was so loud that there was no sound, but occasionally the live telecast would pan in on the famous Michigan scoreboard.

The game went back and forth and we knew Iowa had a slight lead. It was excruciating, because you did not know how much time was left in the game, and you knew Iowa's lead was oh so precarious.

Finally, after many changes of possession, the camera panned in on the big Michigan scoreboard: IOWA 9 MICHIGAN 7 QUARTER: 4 TIME: 2:34

Can you imagine the excitement when the crowd realized there were only 2 minutes and 34 seconds left in the game? Iowa had not defeated Michigan in 20 years. Michigan was the king of the conference, and UNBEATABLE in the Big House. Michigan had just taken possession on their own 20 yard line after an Iowa punt, and for the FIRST TIME it dawned on that crowd in that arena in Cedar Rapids that Iowa COULD WIN. You just can't imagine the roar and the emotion when the scoreboard appeared with 2:34 showing. I've never experienced any thing like it before or since! Iowa stuffed Michigan on 4 downs and took possession, and then people went crazy. CRAZY. Mobbing each other; crying; laughing; screaming; drinks being thrown; hats or jackets being thrown; yells of ROSE BOWL....ROSE BOWL. That crowd counted down the final 10 seconds and then everyone was hugging everybody. Absolute pandemonium. A monumental, incredible, truly unbelievable and unexpected upset. It had to be one of the biggest, most surprising wins in Iowa football history. Little old Iowa had slayed the Michigan dragon. It was truly David bringing down arrogant Goliath.

I was with my brother and a couple of buddies. It has been 38 years but I remember it like it was yesterday.

Vivid memories of this one. I was 8 years old, out in the country at my grandparents house somewhere between the Amanas and Iowa City. Upstairs in a hardwood floor bedroom i was a bundle of spastic energy diving onto the bed with a football securely tucked getting important first downs, listening on the radio as indeed it was the 3 channel paradise that was 1981 television and no coverage.

Ball of socks rolled up into a ball, tension as thick as fog, i also launched several successful FG attempts into the love seat splitting the uprights with devastating accuracy, similar to tom nichol that day. What a celebration! My sister was pretty certain that I was a complete spaz...and for one of the few times in her life she was absolutely correct!

 

[proudhawkfan21]

Chuck Long on the naked bootleg as he jogged into the endzone with the ball held statue of liberty style so even the officials could see it. I still love that play at the goal line and wish Iowa would run it.

I was 13, played football the first part of the day visiting a friend that lived in Waterloo. His neighborhood had 8-10 kids that got together on Saturdays and played football games on an elementary school field that was used by a middle school team for its practices. If there were 10 of us, 6 were wearing Chuck Long jerseys. I had 2, one for good one for play. Added the 3rd with the rose bowl emblems on the shoulders later in the season.

Got home somewhere around the start of the 4th qtr, watched the game play out stunned that the Hawks might get beat. One of those perfect days being a kid and a Hawkeye fan.

 

[leiserom]

Counting only the games i was actually at would be the a** kicking of Washington in the Sun Bowl

 

[westender]

I was only 11 for the '81-82 Rose Bowl, but do remember the heartache of the 28-0 defeat. I think the most distinct glorious memory I have is after the Iowa State game in 1985. I was euphoric after the 57-3 dismantling and distinctly remember thinking to myself that we were going to be the #1 team in the country the next week! That was a beautiful five weeks.

You remember that song someone did for that Rose Bowl? In 85 first game ever attended at Ames. Rainy and a bit chilly but Iowa crushed them.

 

[westender]

I hate looking at that picture of him in the Dallas article. That's not how I want to remember Coach Fry.

Time will do that to us all.

 

[ssckelley]

Time will do that to us all.

Cancer makes it even worse.