JonDMiller
Publisher/Founder
One of the rites of spring is the annual I-Club Circuit barnstorming tour that University of Iowa officials, coaching and athletes take part in.
There will be more than 30 stops around the state of Iowa and a few neighboring states over the course of the next two months, so many chances for Hawkeye fans to get out and see their Hawkeyes.
The first stop on this year’s tour took place on Monday, April 12th at Music Man Square in Mason City, Iowa. Iowa was honored to be asked to emcee the event and even though allergies were determined to take away much of my voice, it was a very enjoyable evening.
After mingling with Iowa fans during the social hour, retelling stories from years gone by and reliving some of those from this past athletic year, I sat down at a table with some Iowa fans and we began to break bread. Then someone plops down to my right, none other than Iowa Defensive Coordinator Norm Parker who was one of the featured speakers. As for whether or not Norm realized it was me he was sitting down next to, I cannot say.
Being that this is not a press conference setting, I don’t roll tape on conversations and I wasn’t about to ask him anything that sounded like an official inquiry, but we did talk a lot of football and it was one of the more enjoyable such conversations I have had in a long time.
The man has been around the block a time or two, and as he told me last night, ‘there’s nothing new under the sun in this game.’
We got to talking about Pat Angerer, AJ Edds and where they might fit into 4-3 and 3-4 schemes. Always one to learn as much as I can whenever I can, I asked Norm about the nuances of those schemes from his point of view. He said “When you played for Butch Pedersen at West Branch, I bet you played a 5-2 defense?†I said yes, we did. “Well, the players that were tackles in that defense are called defensive ends in a 3-4. The players that were defensive ends in that defense, we want to make them sound prettier now so we call them linebackers. And the rest of the players on the field add up to 11. That’s it.â€
And that’s Norm Parker.
Later on during the program as I was introducing Norm, I shared a story that Abdul Hodge told me once…there are times when the cameras cutaway to a shot of Parker on the sideline, and he is rolling his arms one over top of the other in what would be the signal for traveling in basketball. I asked Hodge what that meant once, and he said, ‘It Norm’s way of saying things are working, so whatever we just did, do it again.â€
You see a lot of that with Iowa’s defense through the Parker years, and those defenses have been amongst the best in school history. You hear a lot of Iowa’s opponents saying they know exactly what Iowa is going to do on defense, and far more often than not, it just doesnt matter because Iowa executes their assignments better than the opponent executes theirs.
“This isn’t a physics class,†Parker told me. “It’s just football. See the ball, tackle the ball, do it for six seconds, then huddle up.â€
There were more quips like that, and while they are simple, when you see the results on the field through the last decade they are cumulatively profound.
I also asked Parker what he thought of Big Ten expansion, and how much the bowl layoff the Big Ten faces each year affects teams from the league.
He said that the layoff does a couple of things…one, it gives leagues like the SEC, Big 12 and other conferences that play a title game a weekend unto themselves to showcase the best teams in those leagues, which is a recruiting advantage, in his opinion.
The next aspect was this: “It’s hard to keep these guys focused for that long, between our last game and when we really get down to preparing for the bowl opponent. It takes two or three weeks to figure out who we are playing, and the guys are sick of us before we have even scouted our first tape.â€
Again, something that seems fairly simple, even obvious, yet I hadn’t given that angle much thought through the years. We are talking about 19 to 23 year old people here, we are talking about Thanksgiving breaks, upcoming final exams, NFL dreams for some players, etc. Keeping their attention and focus was something of a problem following the 2002 season, as Iowa played its last regular season game on November 16th that year and the Orange Bowl was a few days after January 1st.
As you know, Iowa changed their plan and approach to bowl games since then and they have been 4-2 in bowl games during that stretch (wins at the Cap One, two Outbacks and the Orange) and the two losses were not decided until the final minutes of those games.
When Parker took the stage, he did not disappoint. Always funny, great one liners that a lifetime of public speaking has equipped him with.
With regards to football ‘news’ of substance, Parker spoke highly of freshman defensive lineman Dominic Alvis. Saying that right now he is “too smart†and that he needs to learn to let his ability take over, Parker has no doubts he has the ability to be good at that position. He mentioned it several times. He also spoke highly of Jeff Tarpinian, who would be Iowa’s starting middle linebacker if the season started today, Parker said. It wasn’t just once, either; he spoke of him several times. He also talked highly of backup defensive linemen Mike Daniels and Lebron Daniel, and said Micah Hyde would be a starter at corner opposite Shaun Prater if the season started today. He said that Jordan Bernstine still needs to trust his ankle more, and isn’t flying around with the speed they saw last fall just yet.
As he said two weeks ago, he feels that the 2010 Iowa defense should be better than the 2009 Iowa defense, because they return eight starters and each of those players should be better than they were a year ago. Back at the dinner table, I did ask Parker to clarify one thing, because I saw some folks on the message boards going a little crazy with one of his comments from two weeks ago. Parker was asked about Tyler Sash and Brent Greenwood, and how they rank with some safety combination’s he has had in the past…Parker said “These two should be better.â€
Some people took that to mean he meant this tandem should be better than the Bob Sanders Sean Considine duo…Parker didn’t mean it like that. He meant that the 2010 Sash/Greenwood combination should be better than the 2009 Sash/Greenwood combination.
As it relates to Karl Klug, Parker loves the kid. He said that people talk about other players, such as Adrian Clayborn, and there is good reason because Clayborn is good. But he said, “I am not so sure that if we were talking about a street fight that Klug wouldn’t take ‘em all out.â€
The last thing that I distinctly recall from Parker’s talk was how he opened it…saying that he tells his friends in the business that the people of Iowa are the nicest people in the world…and that one of the secrets of the Iowa football program is that the team is comprised of so many kids from the state of Iowa, and these aren’t kids that are sitting around playing video games growing up; they know how to work. Some of them are out working on the farm before they go to school and when they get done with their day they are back at work on the farm, and how that rubs off on the kids that come in from other parts of the country.
After Parker was done speaking, I introduced wrestling coach Tom Brands. I had a glowing introduction planned, but the minute I grabbed the microphone after Parker was done talking, Brands gets up out of his chair and walks over to the side of the stage…I took to that to mean he didn’t want a long introduction. I did start to talk about the number of team national championships he had been associated with Iowa as either a wrestler (two), an assistant (seven) and as a head coach (three). When I looked over at him and asked him if that was correct, he gave me a bug eyed look with his hands up in the air as in “I couldn’t tell you and I really don’t care.â€
I then shared my feelings on the sport, and how into it I get at home while watching Iowa wrestling, and how I am down on my knees sometimes and my daughter thinks I am crazy, doing granby rolls on the floor. Well, I misspoke with regards to that particular move and got it mixed up…but I didn’t realize that until Brands took the mic from me…
“We have a lot of passionate fans, and that’s good.†Brands said. “But Miller, you need to get it right. You can’t do a granby roll from your knees. Barta, I am sure this is going to make you nervous, as this is a possible workman’s compensation injury coming, but here is how you do it.â€
Brands proceeds to take off his suit jacket, gets down onto the wooden stage, starts to dart on all fours and executes a granby roll right there on the wood…
If you have never seen one or am not sure what I am talking about, here is a video…less than :40 seconds..focus on the bottom man…needless to say, this is something that is hard to do on the mat, and it’s not for the weak of heart. “You have to have a pair to do this move†Brands joked.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1akJK1U7Ac]YouTube - Granby Roll[/ame]
Needless to say, I wasn’t doing granby rolls in my house…I had the wrong move in mind. I mostly just get down on my knees and holler out ‘Turn him!’ when things get close to a fall…I have the passion right, but need to work on my technique.
Brands then shared a few stories about how the rest of the nation thinks the Iowa wrestling program is going to fall off the mountain this year…while he wouldn’t make any predictions, he certainly sounded confident of what he has in the room…and he said he got a text message not too long ago from a Pennsylvania area code…anonymous…along the lines of “you are going down, PSU in 2011.â€
When I heard that, I jotted it down, as I was going to take the stage after he was done and bid everyone good night, and I had the perfect finishing question for him: “Coach, I didn’t know Cael Sanderson had your cell phone.â€
But Brands beat me to it a few minutes later, saying “It was probably Sanderson that sent me that text message.â€
The lasting message from Brands, outside of his unparalleled passion, was that he doesn’t forget. “I am like an elephant, if elephants really do have long memories.â€
He’s keeping track of who is saying what…he’s making a list and will be checking it twice all summer and fall.
If you have a chance to get out to one of these events, I highly recommend you do so…and support your local I-Club. Here is a list of the events that are on the schedule right now.
The next one is tonight (Wednesday, April 21st) in Clive, at the Seven Flags Event Center. Kirk Ferentz is the featured speaker, and I believe Terry Brands will also be on hand, along with some Iowa football players. I will emcee this event as well and can’t wait to see you there.
There will be more than 30 stops around the state of Iowa and a few neighboring states over the course of the next two months, so many chances for Hawkeye fans to get out and see their Hawkeyes.
The first stop on this year’s tour took place on Monday, April 12th at Music Man Square in Mason City, Iowa. Iowa was honored to be asked to emcee the event and even though allergies were determined to take away much of my voice, it was a very enjoyable evening.
After mingling with Iowa fans during the social hour, retelling stories from years gone by and reliving some of those from this past athletic year, I sat down at a table with some Iowa fans and we began to break bread. Then someone plops down to my right, none other than Iowa Defensive Coordinator Norm Parker who was one of the featured speakers. As for whether or not Norm realized it was me he was sitting down next to, I cannot say.
Being that this is not a press conference setting, I don’t roll tape on conversations and I wasn’t about to ask him anything that sounded like an official inquiry, but we did talk a lot of football and it was one of the more enjoyable such conversations I have had in a long time.
The man has been around the block a time or two, and as he told me last night, ‘there’s nothing new under the sun in this game.’
We got to talking about Pat Angerer, AJ Edds and where they might fit into 4-3 and 3-4 schemes. Always one to learn as much as I can whenever I can, I asked Norm about the nuances of those schemes from his point of view. He said “When you played for Butch Pedersen at West Branch, I bet you played a 5-2 defense?†I said yes, we did. “Well, the players that were tackles in that defense are called defensive ends in a 3-4. The players that were defensive ends in that defense, we want to make them sound prettier now so we call them linebackers. And the rest of the players on the field add up to 11. That’s it.â€
And that’s Norm Parker.
Later on during the program as I was introducing Norm, I shared a story that Abdul Hodge told me once…there are times when the cameras cutaway to a shot of Parker on the sideline, and he is rolling his arms one over top of the other in what would be the signal for traveling in basketball. I asked Hodge what that meant once, and he said, ‘It Norm’s way of saying things are working, so whatever we just did, do it again.â€
You see a lot of that with Iowa’s defense through the Parker years, and those defenses have been amongst the best in school history. You hear a lot of Iowa’s opponents saying they know exactly what Iowa is going to do on defense, and far more often than not, it just doesnt matter because Iowa executes their assignments better than the opponent executes theirs.
“This isn’t a physics class,†Parker told me. “It’s just football. See the ball, tackle the ball, do it for six seconds, then huddle up.â€
There were more quips like that, and while they are simple, when you see the results on the field through the last decade they are cumulatively profound.
I also asked Parker what he thought of Big Ten expansion, and how much the bowl layoff the Big Ten faces each year affects teams from the league.
He said that the layoff does a couple of things…one, it gives leagues like the SEC, Big 12 and other conferences that play a title game a weekend unto themselves to showcase the best teams in those leagues, which is a recruiting advantage, in his opinion.
The next aspect was this: “It’s hard to keep these guys focused for that long, between our last game and when we really get down to preparing for the bowl opponent. It takes two or three weeks to figure out who we are playing, and the guys are sick of us before we have even scouted our first tape.â€
Again, something that seems fairly simple, even obvious, yet I hadn’t given that angle much thought through the years. We are talking about 19 to 23 year old people here, we are talking about Thanksgiving breaks, upcoming final exams, NFL dreams for some players, etc. Keeping their attention and focus was something of a problem following the 2002 season, as Iowa played its last regular season game on November 16th that year and the Orange Bowl was a few days after January 1st.
As you know, Iowa changed their plan and approach to bowl games since then and they have been 4-2 in bowl games during that stretch (wins at the Cap One, two Outbacks and the Orange) and the two losses were not decided until the final minutes of those games.
When Parker took the stage, he did not disappoint. Always funny, great one liners that a lifetime of public speaking has equipped him with.
With regards to football ‘news’ of substance, Parker spoke highly of freshman defensive lineman Dominic Alvis. Saying that right now he is “too smart†and that he needs to learn to let his ability take over, Parker has no doubts he has the ability to be good at that position. He mentioned it several times. He also spoke highly of Jeff Tarpinian, who would be Iowa’s starting middle linebacker if the season started today, Parker said. It wasn’t just once, either; he spoke of him several times. He also talked highly of backup defensive linemen Mike Daniels and Lebron Daniel, and said Micah Hyde would be a starter at corner opposite Shaun Prater if the season started today. He said that Jordan Bernstine still needs to trust his ankle more, and isn’t flying around with the speed they saw last fall just yet.
As he said two weeks ago, he feels that the 2010 Iowa defense should be better than the 2009 Iowa defense, because they return eight starters and each of those players should be better than they were a year ago. Back at the dinner table, I did ask Parker to clarify one thing, because I saw some folks on the message boards going a little crazy with one of his comments from two weeks ago. Parker was asked about Tyler Sash and Brent Greenwood, and how they rank with some safety combination’s he has had in the past…Parker said “These two should be better.â€
Some people took that to mean he meant this tandem should be better than the Bob Sanders Sean Considine duo…Parker didn’t mean it like that. He meant that the 2010 Sash/Greenwood combination should be better than the 2009 Sash/Greenwood combination.
As it relates to Karl Klug, Parker loves the kid. He said that people talk about other players, such as Adrian Clayborn, and there is good reason because Clayborn is good. But he said, “I am not so sure that if we were talking about a street fight that Klug wouldn’t take ‘em all out.â€
The last thing that I distinctly recall from Parker’s talk was how he opened it…saying that he tells his friends in the business that the people of Iowa are the nicest people in the world…and that one of the secrets of the Iowa football program is that the team is comprised of so many kids from the state of Iowa, and these aren’t kids that are sitting around playing video games growing up; they know how to work. Some of them are out working on the farm before they go to school and when they get done with their day they are back at work on the farm, and how that rubs off on the kids that come in from other parts of the country.
After Parker was done speaking, I introduced wrestling coach Tom Brands. I had a glowing introduction planned, but the minute I grabbed the microphone after Parker was done talking, Brands gets up out of his chair and walks over to the side of the stage…I took to that to mean he didn’t want a long introduction. I did start to talk about the number of team national championships he had been associated with Iowa as either a wrestler (two), an assistant (seven) and as a head coach (three). When I looked over at him and asked him if that was correct, he gave me a bug eyed look with his hands up in the air as in “I couldn’t tell you and I really don’t care.â€
I then shared my feelings on the sport, and how into it I get at home while watching Iowa wrestling, and how I am down on my knees sometimes and my daughter thinks I am crazy, doing granby rolls on the floor. Well, I misspoke with regards to that particular move and got it mixed up…but I didn’t realize that until Brands took the mic from me…
“We have a lot of passionate fans, and that’s good.†Brands said. “But Miller, you need to get it right. You can’t do a granby roll from your knees. Barta, I am sure this is going to make you nervous, as this is a possible workman’s compensation injury coming, but here is how you do it.â€
Brands proceeds to take off his suit jacket, gets down onto the wooden stage, starts to dart on all fours and executes a granby roll right there on the wood…
If you have never seen one or am not sure what I am talking about, here is a video…less than :40 seconds..focus on the bottom man…needless to say, this is something that is hard to do on the mat, and it’s not for the weak of heart. “You have to have a pair to do this move†Brands joked.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1akJK1U7Ac]YouTube - Granby Roll[/ame]
Needless to say, I wasn’t doing granby rolls in my house…I had the wrong move in mind. I mostly just get down on my knees and holler out ‘Turn him!’ when things get close to a fall…I have the passion right, but need to work on my technique.
Brands then shared a few stories about how the rest of the nation thinks the Iowa wrestling program is going to fall off the mountain this year…while he wouldn’t make any predictions, he certainly sounded confident of what he has in the room…and he said he got a text message not too long ago from a Pennsylvania area code…anonymous…along the lines of “you are going down, PSU in 2011.â€
When I heard that, I jotted it down, as I was going to take the stage after he was done and bid everyone good night, and I had the perfect finishing question for him: “Coach, I didn’t know Cael Sanderson had your cell phone.â€
But Brands beat me to it a few minutes later, saying “It was probably Sanderson that sent me that text message.â€
The lasting message from Brands, outside of his unparalleled passion, was that he doesn’t forget. “I am like an elephant, if elephants really do have long memories.â€
He’s keeping track of who is saying what…he’s making a list and will be checking it twice all summer and fall.
If you have a chance to get out to one of these events, I highly recommend you do so…and support your local I-Club. Here is a list of the events that are on the schedule right now.
The next one is tonight (Wednesday, April 21st) in Clive, at the Seven Flags Event Center. Kirk Ferentz is the featured speaker, and I believe Terry Brands will also be on hand, along with some Iowa football players. I will emcee this event as well and can’t wait to see you there.
