tiggerhawk
Well-Known Member
Don't know much about McCaffery as a basketball coach. But he has one immense positive from where I stand (Iowa's #1 Phillies Phan with more than 65 years as the masochist one must be to endure 10,000 lost games. Cubbie fans are such naive novices at learning what it takes to endure "lovable losers", especially if they try to give up clownishness & cease being "lovable" while still phutile...that's how the word is spelled in Philly)).
McCaffery, by all accounts, is a HUGE, DIEHARD Philadelphia Phillies fan, has kept his loyalty and intensity through all his years of exile in Indiana, North Carolina, New York.
He might even be as fanatical in his love for the Phillies as Bo Ryan, who similarly has not lost his ardor for his hometown Phillies.
If McCaffery coaches at anything close to the level of Ryan, and does for the Hawkeye program what Ryan has done for the Road Kill, we finally have our guy. The indications are he is a smart guy, graduated from the prestigious Wharton School of Finance at the U of Pennsylvania...and evidently confident enough in his own abilities to risk marrying a very smart woman.
Which leads to a suggestion--well, actually two. One useful step to returning enthusiasm from boisterous fans in Carver-Hawkeye would be to create the "Franatic", the counter-part to sports' most celebrated mascot, the Phillie Phanatic (trivia: the original Phillie Phanatic was born in the U of Iowa Hospital, when his father, Tubby Raymond, was an assistant coach to Evy in the first golden era of Hawkeye football).
Not as a replacement to Herky, but instead a fun-comic character with appeal to children, but a source of amusement to fans AND a productive resource to UIHC, other hospitals, hospices, assisted-living & nursing homes, elementary schools, etc (to build in the same manner as the Phanatic has in Eastern Pennsylvania not just a bigger fan base for the baseball team but also nearly a hundred million dollars from his/their charity appearances etc (to handle the demand, the Phillies have "cloned" a half-dozen Phanatics).
At the same time this would allow Herky to become even more of a prototype athletic super-cheerleader, a ferocious embodiment of the Tiger Hawk symbol of Iowa athletics.
For no charge, I throw in the second suggestion. McCaffery's given name provides the basis for the perfect name for fan groups, including the students in the Hawk's Nest. What else is anywhere nearly as appropriate (and suited to the need of the moment) as "The Franatics"? Make Margaret McCaffery the Chief Franatic, put her & the kids in the front row of the Hawk's Nest.
McCaffery, by all accounts, is a HUGE, DIEHARD Philadelphia Phillies fan, has kept his loyalty and intensity through all his years of exile in Indiana, North Carolina, New York.
He might even be as fanatical in his love for the Phillies as Bo Ryan, who similarly has not lost his ardor for his hometown Phillies.
If McCaffery coaches at anything close to the level of Ryan, and does for the Hawkeye program what Ryan has done for the Road Kill, we finally have our guy. The indications are he is a smart guy, graduated from the prestigious Wharton School of Finance at the U of Pennsylvania...and evidently confident enough in his own abilities to risk marrying a very smart woman.
Which leads to a suggestion--well, actually two. One useful step to returning enthusiasm from boisterous fans in Carver-Hawkeye would be to create the "Franatic", the counter-part to sports' most celebrated mascot, the Phillie Phanatic (trivia: the original Phillie Phanatic was born in the U of Iowa Hospital, when his father, Tubby Raymond, was an assistant coach to Evy in the first golden era of Hawkeye football).
Not as a replacement to Herky, but instead a fun-comic character with appeal to children, but a source of amusement to fans AND a productive resource to UIHC, other hospitals, hospices, assisted-living & nursing homes, elementary schools, etc (to build in the same manner as the Phanatic has in Eastern Pennsylvania not just a bigger fan base for the baseball team but also nearly a hundred million dollars from his/their charity appearances etc (to handle the demand, the Phillies have "cloned" a half-dozen Phanatics).
At the same time this would allow Herky to become even more of a prototype athletic super-cheerleader, a ferocious embodiment of the Tiger Hawk symbol of Iowa athletics.
For no charge, I throw in the second suggestion. McCaffery's given name provides the basis for the perfect name for fan groups, including the students in the Hawk's Nest. What else is anywhere nearly as appropriate (and suited to the need of the moment) as "The Franatics"? Make Margaret McCaffery the Chief Franatic, put her & the kids in the front row of the Hawk's Nest.
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