Hayden Fry's First Recruiting Film - 1980

MelroseHawkins

MelroseHawkins

Well-Known Member
Hayden Fry had the swagger. He just needed the players.

When the larger-than-life Texan arrived in Iowa City in 1979, the Hawkeyes' new coach faced a tall task: rebuilding and rebranding a football program that hadn't enjoyed a winning season since 1961. But how would he draw elite players to a team with its fourth head coach in a decade? The answer, at least in part, came in this 13-minute recruiting film, produced by the Iowa Athletics Department in 1980.



http://www.foriowa.org/iowa-stories...v625Myf9TOaFnYGdMGTGvJ86vkS-Za1WucTqt0YDt1qWc
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Hayden Fry had the swagger. He just needed the players.

When the larger-than-life Texan arrived in Iowa City in 1979, the Hawkeyes' new coach faced a tall task: rebuilding and rebranding a football program that hadn't enjoyed a winning season since 1961. But how would he draw elite players to a team with its fourth head coach in a decade? The answer, at least in part, came in this 13-minute recruiting film, produced by the Iowa Athletics Department in 1980.



http://www.foriowa.org/iowa-stories...v625Myf9TOaFnYGdMGTGvJ86vkS-Za1WucTqt0YDt1qWc
Click to expand...
Holy shit, man...that's just incredible.

Thanks for sharing, I've never seen that before.
 
Funny, Hayden was the 4th head coach in a decade.

In the past 4 decades, Iowa has had just two coaches with one including said Hayden Fry. Amazing.

Why doesn't the BTN or ESECPN do a segment on that? Iowa has to be the only school in that time frame to have only 2 coaches? Anybody know of anyone else?
 
  • OMG! A left handed Chuck Long.
Don't get excited out there, I knew that was Phill Suess

  • If those weight training facilities were considered state of the art, then WTF was there before? It is easy to see why we were getting manhandled for two decades.
  • Side note on weight training. Look at the players using the Nautilus machines. Two seconds down, four seconds back, rep after rep. Our high school borrowed this from what Iowa was doing at the time and used the same method for a while.
  • Whatever happened to the Statue of Liberty play?
 
Neat find. Our "high action" offense circa 1980 looks about the same 40 years later! The food looked great, those steaks were enough to convince me to sign up for the Hawks.
 
Good stuff. Hayden was the Miracle Max for the Iowa football program. He breathed life into a program that was mostly dead.
 
ssckelley said:
This is incredible! This had to be impressive to potential recruits back in the day.
Click to expand...
Playing frisbee on the Pentacrest. Yeah, that'll suck em in!:)

By the time I started attending Iowa in 1984 they had at least moved up to hacky sack.

When they weren't storming President Freedman's office for investing in South African companies and painting "Stephen Biko Hall" on the side of Jessup and things like that.

And no, I wasn't there. If it was a Thursday night I was getting hammered at Dooley's (One Eyed Jake's)
 
Northside Hawk said:
  • OMG! A left handed Chuck Long.
Don't get excited out there, I knew that was Phill Suess

  • If those weight training facilities were considered state of the art, then WTF was there before? It is easy to see why we were getting manhandled for two decades.
  • Side note on weight training. Look at the players using the Nautilus machines. Two seconds down, four seconds back, rep after rep. Our high school borrowed this from what Iowa was doing at the time and used the same method for a while.
  • Whatever happened to the Statue of Liberty play?
Click to expand...


I think this was the system!

4002_102Bench.jpg
 
homes said:
Good stuff. Hayden was the Miracle Max for the Iowa football program. He breathed life into a program that was mostly dead.
Click to expand...

People complain about our 7-5 and 8-4 records now. Iowa went literally A DECADE without a winning record prior to Hayden arriving. A DECADE!!
 
Northside Hawk said:
Playing frisbee on the Pentacrest. Yeah, that'll suck em in!:)

By the time I started attending Iowa in 1984 they had at least moved up to hacky sack.

When they weren't storming President Freedman's office for investing in South African companies and painting "Stephen Biko Hall" on the side of Jessup and things like that.

And no, I wasn't there. If it was a Thursday night I was getting hammered at Dooley's (One Eyed Jake's)
Click to expand...

Back in 1980 tho...who was even making recruiting video's? That alone had to be impressive to recruits.

That and the walking through cornfields with guns hunting. lol
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Hayden Fry had the swagger. He just needed the players.

When the larger-than-life Texan arrived in Iowa City in 1979, the Hawkeyes' new coach faced a tall task: rebuilding and rebranding a football program that hadn't enjoyed a winning season since 1961. But how would he draw elite players to a team with its fourth head coach in a decade? The answer, at least in part, came in this 13-minute recruiting film, produced by the Iowa Athletics Department in 1980.



http://www.foriowa.org/iowa-stories...v625Myf9TOaFnYGdMGTGvJ86vkS-Za1WucTqt0YDt1qWc
Click to expand...




"........a wide open and exciting brand of football........"
 
When Hayden showed up at Iowa, he was the "coolest" coach in the Big 10. He had serious swagger. He said that old astro turf was like playing on concrete.

Iowa RB Norm Granger at the 6:58 mark

As a joke, Ferentz should show this video to future recruits. They's be like WTF?!?
 
ssckelley said:
Back in 1980 tho...who was even making recruiting video's? That alone had to be impressive to recruits.

That and the walking through cornfields with guns hunting. lol
Click to expand...
Back then our on campus audio-visual facilities were probably more state of the art than the football facilities.

Hayden tells the story in his book of digging through the recesses of Kinnick Stadium and finding outdated equipment that may have dated back to Nile's day.
 
About the only thing that has not changed since those days is the pink visitor's locker room.

I bet Hayden would enjoy seeing this old video again.
 
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