George Raveling Appreciation Thread

HawkeyeMHA said:
Interesting thread I ignored for quite some time. I was young during the raveling days so I didn't know much about this stuff in the community. Did he grow up in an urban area, where? Where's he at today?
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George played at Villanova, and was born in Washington DC. I believe the fishbowl atmosphere at Iowa was too much for him to be comfortable. He would have something like panic attacks during games and would sit away from the team. In LA the fishbowl aspect would not have been a factor with UCLA, the Lakers and the Clippers.....

I don't buy the racism explanation......
 
storminspank said:
Yes, I remember Lickliter recruited Devyn.

But I also remember teams like Minnesota, Michigan, and elsewhere didn't offer Devyn.
In fact, Iowa was the only Power 6 school to offer... this is why I posed the question.

Devyn wanted to play in the Big Ten. Iowa was his only Big Ten offer.

So unless RDM wanted to play ball at Dayton, Buffalo, or Providence, I think he was coming to Iowa regardless.

JMO, though.
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This is good insight. I was not paying much attention to recruiting at that time and didn't realized he was not more heavily recruited. Where was Roy Sr. living at the time dev was recruited? Anybody know?
 
storminspank said:
There are a lot of reasons a coach leaves a program. Here's my opinion on why they left.

Ralph Miller: Left because the job opened up in Oregon State. Wanted that job. Nothing against Iowa, just wanted a different opportunity.
Lute Olson: Left because Iowa was a fishbowl. Only gig in the state, magnifying glass on everything he did. Too much stress and attention by the locals.
George Raveling: Bottom line is Raveling left for the west coast because he didn't want to be at Iowa anymore. Like Olson, there was a magnifying glass on him (an even bigger one considering he was a black man in a predominately white community), it wasn't a good fit for him personally. He was also very used to the west coast.
Mr. Davis: Left because Bob Bowlsby is an idiot.
Steve Alford: Left to coach at a mid-major because he was on the hot seat and was worried that he wasn't going to get the resources to back his program.
Todd Lickliter: Left because he oversaw the worst three year period in the history of Iowa Basketball.
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I agree with all but Lute. I've heard another story more than once. No, I'm not going to share because we already argue about past coaches enough without going all the way back to Lute.
 
Here's an interesting tidbit on Miller. I can't remember if I read this back in the day or someone told me. Miller was before my time. Anyway, there was some talk about moving the basket up to 11 feet. The way I remember it Miller had an 11 foot basket for practice...made all of the players do some shooting on the 11 foot basket...was going to be way ahead of the rest of the country when the change took place. Can anyone else verify this or am I totally losing it?
 
hawkeyz10 said:
This is good insight. I was not paying much attention to recruiting at that time and didn't realized he was not more heavily recruited. Where was Roy Sr. living at the time dev was recruited? Anybody know?
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He might have been living in DM. He lived for a while behind an ex-girlfriend's house, and she and her mother used to talk to him over the fence. He was very friendly. My children went to elementary school with two of his children, Carlos and Royanna. He wife at the time was Carla.....
 
storminspank said:
Mr. Davis: Left because Bob Bowlsby is an idiot.
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Then there were a lot of idiots in 1998 and 1999 because Iowa fans were ready for change.. I lived in Iowa at that time and was going to most all home games the last 3 Mr. Davis seasons and fans were ready and I would argue it was by an overwhelming majority.
 
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