Section 1: Q: This is tape one of the interview with
Ron Maly. Ron, this is kind of a general
statement. I'm going to ask you to think
back a little bit. The fact that you were at
the Des Moines Register from 1959 to 1999,
I'd like you to let the time during your
employment, whether it's one year or several
years, when you were happiest professionally.
What were those years and what was it that
made you happy about what you were doing at
the time?
A: I would say the years 1965 to roughly
1980 to 85. In '65 I had been on the copy
desk and I became a reporter in the fall of
1965. I began covering college football
games and then in the winter, college
basketball games and things that I really
wanted to do. I knew I did not want to spend
the rest of my journalist career editing
other people's copy, so I decided I wanted to
be a reporter and a writer and they afforded
me that chance in '65. Then, things were
going really well in those years for the
newspaper. They were spending money to go to
lots of games, lots of events. We would
cover Nebraska football games, Notre Dame
football games, big games in the Big 10 and
then the Big 8, which is now the Big 12. Big
national games, big bowl games. There was no
end to the things we did in those years. I
would say that until they started tightening
the crunch, the money belts, those were great
years.
Q: Tightening the money belts at the
Register?
A: At the Register.
Q: When did that start to happen?
A: Oh, it happened, I think - let's see.
Gannett bought the newspaper in 1985, I
think, and in the mid-eighties, I would say,
was when that began happening. The Register
began to be a newspaper like other Gannett
papers where the bottom line was the
important thing. We ceased doing the things
that I mentioned before. We ceased going to
big football games, big basketball games, or
football bowl games. Those things just
stopped because they thought it cost too much
money but the paper suffered because of it.
Q: How did it suffer?
A: First of all, the circulation was
going downhill. In fact, I've got some
numbers on that right here so I make sure I
don't get these numbers confused. I think
the up-to-date circulation figures right now
are daily circulation is 155,698. That was
as of a couple weeks ago. In the heyday, it
was about 275,000 daily. And believe it or
not, the Sunday circulation was about 540,000
and now it's 248,000. A lot of things had a
bearing on that. The presence of television
making inroads in news and sports coverage
and things like that. But it also had a lot
to do with, what I think, what the Register
was doing, kind of pulling in its horns, not
pursuing the big stories out there that were
out there then.
Q: Were there other ways that it
suffered, perhaps, employee morale?
A: Oh yes. Morale suffered then and my
understanding - I'm retired now - but my
understanding is that it is still suffering.
There was a movement to bring in a guild at
the Register in the 1970s because some
newsroom employees thought the salaries were
not high enough. In fact, it came down to
two votes and the guild did not pass. But
they were close votes. You can't really say
that morale was that bad then, because things
were stilling going pretty well for the
newspaper. But later, getting towards the
1980s and certainly when Gannett took over,
morale began suffering. They would bring in
young people. They got them pretty cheap
right out of journalism school or right out
of college. Those kids I never felt had any
plans to stay for the distance. I stayed
there almost forty years, but the day of the
40-year employee is gone. I think not only
at the Register but probably in all
newspapers as such.
Q: So you're saying that the kids didn't
have any plans to stay at the Register but
they did want to be journalists?
A: Yes, the Register still had a good
reputation in those days. And probably still
does, among people who know journalism. But
the young kids, many of them, did not plan to
stay. They wanted to get two or three or
four or five years under their belts and move
on to a Chicago Tribune or the Washington
Post, something like that, hopefully the New
York Times. And they're aren't that many
jobs around like that, but that was the idea.
The young person never established a
foothold here and wanted to stay, I don't
think.
Q: Do you think there were any good
things that happened with that changeover
from Cowles to Gannett? What were the
positive aspects of that, as far as the
reporters were concerned?
A: I can't think of many. The veteran
sportswriters at the paper felt that the
Gannett company just turned out newspapers
that all looked alike and wanted to save
money. USA Today, of course, was the major
newspaper in that in chain and the rest of us
were down there someplace else. I think most
of the resources went into USA Today and
papers like the Register suffered because of
it. But I don't think things improved any
when Gannett bought the paper and I don't
think it has improved since I retired either.
Q: Of course, a newspaper is a business.
A: Absolutely.
Q: And the bottom line is important. How
is it any different than the way Cowles
operated it?
A: I still think Cowles regarded the
Register as a statewide paper. They wanted
the state of Iowa covered, not only in news
but also in sports. They poured a lot of
money into the news operation and I just
didn't think Gannett had that feeling. In
fact, the movement started to even close the
news bureaus in places like Davenport,
Waterloo, and Dubuque. Those are gone. They
are gone forever and those were real
strongholds. But I guess the management of
the paper felt that there was no use having
those bureaus because the Register doesn't
sell any papers there anyway. With the
deadline situation being what it is, you can
get a later edition of the Chicago Tribune
and probably USA Today in a city like Iowa
City, than you can with the Register. If
University of Iowa plays a basketball game on
a Thursday night, in Iowa City, the Register
story is not in the paper the next morning.
They have to wait another 24 hour cycle to
get it. But the Chicago Tribune could have
that story in a vending machine in Iowa City.
Those are things that really hurt when you
stop and think about the negative things that
have happened.
Q: Generally speaking, does the paper
have a duty to do something other than make
money? And if so, what is that duty?
A: I always thought that - and I think we
thought - the people who worked there for so
long, we thought that we owed it to the state
of Iowa and the readers to give them a good
product. To act like you were a big-league
paper and to go to these events and to go to
Sioux City and to go to Davenport, to go to
Keokuk if there was a big story and don't
depend on somebody just calling it in from
those cities, from those towns. Yes, money
making is certainly important in any business
but we always thought we owed it to the state
of Iowa and to the readers to try to do a
good job. --
Section 2: Q: I see, before you came to the Register
in '59, you were at the Albert Lea, Minnesota
Tribune. How was it that you came to the
Register? What brought you? Were you out
seeking a job or were you recruited?
A: I went directly to Albert Lea,
Minnesota, from school at the University of
Iowa. I stayed there for a year and a half
and it had been my goal for a number of
years, to work for the Register because I had
read it since the time I was a kid in Cedar
Rapids. I remember riding my bicycle down to
buy the newspaper for whatever it was, a
nickel in those days or a dime, at a drug
store. I couldn't wait to read the sports
section, to see what was in there, to see
what they were covering, see if anything from
Cedar Rapids was in there. And it was my
goal, I guess, from the day I decided to be
sports writer to someday work for the
Register. Once I was at Albert Lea - that
was a great training ground for me. It
served its purpose for me. I learned a lot
of things there, got to know people well,
knew how to deal with people. But after I
had been there several months, I knew that I
wanted to see if I could transfer this skill
that I had to a larger paper, a paper like
the Register. So I did apply at the Register
in August of 1959. In early August I
interviewed with Layton Haush, the late great
sports editor. I got a job on the copy desk
and stayed on that desk for six years.
Q: You being from Cedar Rapids, were you
also reading the Gazette?
A: I worked at the Gazette. I worked
there as a fifteen year old high school
student. As you remember Jeff Schrader, who
was a long-time sports editor at the Gazette
and I think, in the back of my mind, from
maybe 10, 11, 12 years old, I thought I
wanted to be a sports writer. I took an
English class at the old Wilson High School
in Cedar Rapids, took this journalism course
and enjoyed what I was doing and got some
praise from the teacher, so that even made me
want to write newspaper stories even more.
So I applied at the Gazette when I was 15 and
began covering high school baseball games and
that developed into high school football
games and basketball games. I never worked
full time there but I worked there part time
all the way through school at the University
of Iowa.
Q: When you were in Albert Lea, why was
it that you chose the Register that you
wanted to go to and not the Gazette? Because
the Gazette was in your home town.
A: At that time, I regarded the Register
as a better paper. It was a bigger paper,
bigger city. It covered the whole state of
Iowa. I had worked at the Gazette, so I
thought it would be good to try it at the
Register and I never had regrets. I didn't
have a chance to go back to the Gazette. Gus
Schrader, the long-time retired sports editor
did try to hire me back but I had just gotten
my feet on the ground at the Register and
didn't want to give that up at the time. I
could have gone back, but that would have
been like, they say, you can't ever go back
home. I wasn't in the mood to go back home
yet. So I fortunately or unfortunately never
went back to the Gazette as a full time
employee, but that's how it happened that I
stayed at the Register. --
Section 3: Q: You know and a lot of people know that
the Register has this reputation, not only
state-wide but nationally, among journalists
and readers, that it is one of the best in
the country, at least at the time you were
reading it when you were fifteen years old.
What do you think made it so great back in
those heydays?
A: The things that we did in sports, the
things that my predecessors did in sports.
The Bert McGrains, the Bill Brysons, Tony
Cadarro, Sec Taylor, who was the long time
sports editor. They named a baseball stadium
after him. And the Register was a paper that
had a national scope. It had a Washington
Bureau. It reported national news. It was
well known to all people who worked in
journalism and all qualified journalists that
the Register always did a good job and it was
an aggressive paper, pulled no punches, won a
lot of Pulitzer Prizes and also did a great
job in sports.
Q: I'm just wondering. How do they
attain something like that out here in the
middle of the Midwest with Des Moines,
relatively speaking, a small town? And I
guess, its reach through the state,
statewide, with correspondents all over the
country? What was it, I wonder? I mean,
there were plenty of little papers out there
the size of the Register who were aggressive
and had correspondents out there, but there
must have been something unique about what
the Register was doing.
A: I think it was the Cowles Corporation
and it was the people. The people who ran
Cowles and who ran the operation in Des
Moines decided that they wanted to make the
Register a statewide paper and worked hard at
doing that. They had good people back in the
Ken MacDonald era, Gardner Cowles then Sec
Taylor, who was at the Register almost
forever. Les *** was still there and I got
to work under him. And he still worked there
up until the time he was about seventy-six
years old. It was those kind of people who
just poured their heart and soul into that
newspaper and they were determined to make it
a great product and they made it a great
product.
Q: You say you worked for Sec?
A: Yes. Sec was the sports editor in
name. Layton Haush was the executive sports
editor. Layton ran the office and made the
assignments but Sec was still called the
sports editor and wrote the column, the main
sports column. He was just a beautiful guy.
He was someone who, at his age, 70-72,
whatever he was and then up until the time he
died at seventy-six, he was willing to talk
to a young guy like me and tell me what he
thought and what it was going to take to be a
journalist at the Register. He was just a
class act and I consider it a real privilege
to work under him and for him.
Q: Do you remember any advice that he
ever gave you?
A: He said, "Do everything with class.
Don't do it any other way." In those days,
he thought the old Register tradition would
continue, that we would continue to cover big
bowl games and world series, baseball
all-star games and things like that, and
that's what he wanted to continue. He always
preached fairness, too. Be fair to the
people you are writing about and the people
you are dealing with and everything should
turn out well. Sec - I don't know if you are
aware of this, but in his earlier years, was
also a football official. You know, they
refereed the game and but then he wrote the
story about the game. I don't know how
anybody could do that. That would be quite
an undertaking. I would hate to think of
myself having to do that.
Q: That's the ultimate objectivity, I
guess, where you refereed the game and then
you were going to write about it objectively.
A: Well one thing, he wouldn't criticize
the officials, I know that. He'd be very
fair to the officials and say, well it was a
nicely called game.
Q: I think we've touched on this a little
bit, but again, when did you envision
yourself in a sports writing career,
seriously - I mean, when you were young, you
loved sports and such, but I mean, seeing
yourself as actually writing about these
events?
A: I think once I got that job at the
Gazette in Cedar Rapids and actually went out
to cover high school baseball games,
involving the old Wilson Roosevelt McKinley
and Franklin, which later turned into
Jefferson and Washington and also the
Catholic schools over there. I knew then
that that's probably what I wanted to do. I
enjoyed it. It was just like most of the
time when I worked full time, when I worked
part time, it didn't seem like a job. It was
fun. I wouldn't repeat this to too many
people, and here I am saying it on TV, but I
would have told people back in those days
that I would have done that job for nothing.
They wouldn't have had to pay me anything.
And they didn't pay me much! I always told
Gus Schrader that. I said, I'd work for
nothing and that's what you paid me, nothing!
Seventy-five cents an hour. That's what I
got.
Q: He took you seriously.
A: He took me up on it. But it was a lot
of fun. That's what got me very, very
interested in it. I think by the time I was
15-16 and knew that I could do that, that I
knew what was going on, in the business,
because I worked on the desk at the Gazette
after Iowa football games. I would go down
and spot for photographers at the Hawkeye
games, at Kinnick stadium. It got in my
blood and I knew I was going to keep doing
it. --
Section 4: Q: Did you ever have a thought about
being another kind of reporter, as in a
police reporter or being on the courts,
writing about politic leaders?
A: I never really wanted to do that. I
did have to write some stories that would
have qualified for police beat jobs, because
I had my share of assignments that I had to
do. I can think of a couple of them. I was
just telling someone about this the other
day. I seemed to be the guy that would get
the telephone calls and the letters from
people who were irate, irate parents who
thought their kids who were athletes were
being mistreated by some coach. And I'll
never forget one situation where some parents
had called from Ottumwa. They thought that
the football coach there was being too
aggressive with the players, maybe had
grabbed them and gotten aggressive with them.
Of course, that doesn't go over too good
these days, so I got the task of going down
there with the photographer to talk to that
coach at Ottumwa, and coaches don't like to
talk about those kinds of things, obviously.
I introduced myself and introduced our
photographer who was Larry Neibergall. We
had to confront this coach with these charges
that the mothers had made about that the kids
were being grabbed by this coach. First
thing he did was turn to the photographer and
say, "I don't want any pictures taken of
this." He was not a real happy camper but
that story would have qualified more as a
police type situation and not a sports story,
certainly not like covering the Rose Bowl.
Then, I had other situations like that, too,
where back in the 1960s I was boycotted by
some football players at the University of
Iowa. That was in the era of the black power
movement. Talk about Harry Edwards. There
was a walk-out of the black football players
at Iowa in spring practice when Ray Nagle was
coaching. I wrote that story for the next
morning after the boycott and it was a little
bit different kind of football story and in
those days, the newspaper referred to African
Americans as Negroes. That shows you it
wasn't that long ago that that was still the
case. The black players did not want to be
called Negroes anymore. They wanted to be
called, in those days, African Americans and
to a certain degree, black. But I got
boycotted. I could handle that. I knew what
the message was there. I had a long talk
with my managing editor then, who was Ed
Hines. I liked Ed. And Ed counseled me
pretty well on that. He said that I handled
the situation very well and that the whole
thing would turn out well and it did. There
were various things like that and I had to
deal with school boards when high school
coaches were fired and things like that, so
it wasn't all just who scored the winning
basket. I did have my share of those kinds
of stories.
Q: When you said that you were boycotted,
what do you mean by that? That they weren't
granting you interviews?
A: Yeah, that was the idea. They said
that they were boycotting me because I had
referred to them by a term they didn't want
used and that I was off limits. I couldn't
interview the players. But that didn't last
long. The same thing happened to me at Iowa
State. I also had to write the black
walk-out story at Iowa State. I guess they
figured I had a lot of experience with that
sort of thing. Same thing happened at Ames.
I had to deal with the coaches and players up
there on that. And they weren't real happy
with me either. But yes, it was a boycott.
It didn't last long, just a day or two. We
just carried on as normal after that.
Q: These kind of stories that you're
talking about, perhaps the one in a tunnel
where the coach was accused of manhandling
the players, would you follow through in that
story, as in talking to the police and the
mothers and all that, and perhaps even make
an additional [word on behalf of the next] or
would that be passed on?
A: With that situation, of course, in my
original story, I not only had to deal with
the coach and the mothers, but also with the
school's administrators and I don't think the
situation ever got to the police department.
So no formal charges were filed. So I didn't
have to deal with the police. And I followed
that story all the way through and it was
settled out of court. I guess the coach had
to agree to never touch a player again and I
think he got the mothers and the athletes
convinced that things were all okay. The
coach didn't stay down there very long, but
yes, I would follow that story all the way
through. Because I always felt that if I had
my hands on a story, I didn't want anybody
else to have it. I wanted to have it all the
way through. I always got the feeling that
there was a certain segment of so-called
news-side people, like police beat reporters
and city hall reporters and things like that,
who kind of thought maybe that sports writers
wouldn't touch stories like that. And I
wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to show
them that I could write those kinds of things
and I could be aggressive and I would pursue
anything that needed pursuing. Sometimes it
made for some long days and long nights, but
I was always happy with how I handled those
situations.
Q: Do you think you convinced the news
side that you were just as good as they were?
A: I think I did, yes. I think I
convinced them that I was willing to take on
a tough story. I would never hide from it.
If it was there, I would do the very best job
I could. I was generally satisfied with how
I produced and I am pretty well convinced
that the people at the paper were happy with
how I did, too.
Q: In a case like that story, would it
move from the sports section to perhaps a
local section?
A: Page 1A we used to call it. Yes, the
cover of the news side. There were several
stories that I wrote that wound up on the
front page, because they were big, big
stories. I'm pretty sure that the story I
did in the old Ronnie Harmon days at the
University of Iowa, when the Big 10 was
investigating Iowa. There was a lot of
controversy there. I think some of that
wound up on page 1A, too. Those things
started a trend. Big sports stories tended
to wind up on page 1A because they were
sometimes the best story of the day that
happened. --
Section 5: Q: Remind us of what the Ronnie Harmon
story was.
A: I've kind of refreshed my memory
myself on that. Ronnie was not the world's
greatest student. I think he was taking
courses such as - I don't know what it was,
actually - basket weaving, but the old basket
weaving course you know, just getting enough
coursework under his belt to survive.
Because Ronnie was never going to be a Phi
Beta Kappa. But he was a heck of a running
back and a heck of a pass receiver and he
later went on to a great NFL career. But I
think that there was some things being done
within the framework at Iowa City that kind
of let Ronnie pass his courses and the Big 10
found out about it and Iowa was in a little
bit of trouble for a time in that period.
But they finally got it all straightened out.
Q: Maybe it is a myth, but I thought it
was rather common that those big star
athletes were kind of ushered through the
curriculum with fairly easy courses?
A: Well, we used to hear that and I think
a lot of that did take place. I don't know
if there is so much of it going on now,
although from what I read about what happened
at the University of Minnesota in the Ken
Askin situation, that was a big, big story
for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the newspaper
that exposed that, that Minnesota players
were not taking coursework or maybe not even
going to class. I think that universities
are trying to a better job with that. We all
used to laugh about those situations in the
early fifties at Iowa, when they were really
bringing in some outstanding football players
and they went to two Rose Bowls, '56 and '58
teams. We wondered if any of those guys
actually went to class and I don't think some
of them did. Alex Kerris was in that group.
And we don't know if Alex went to that many
classes or not, but there is that prevailing
thought out there, among people, that the
athlete does not exactly sign up for biology
and science and things like that, in his
first couple years, because he is there to
play football and they hopefully play in the
NFL and maybe get a degree on the side.
Q: As long as we're talking about the
coverage of sports stories, one of the things
that Buck Turnbull brought up when I talked
to him was the big investigation into Forest
Evashevski and Coach Ray Nagle when they were
fired by the athletic department. Were you
doing anything with that story?
A: Buck did most of that, but I knew Ray
Nagle and I knew a little bit about
Evashevski, but I unfortunately didn't cover
any of his games because he retired as
football coach before I began writing for the
Register. That was a mess at Iowa. The
prevailing thought, in those days, was that
Evashevski, who was a genius of a football
coach - I mean, he's the guy that took them
to those two Rose Bowl games and they won
both games. He did not want to stay as
football. He wanted to become athletic
director and once he became athletic
director, he decided he missed being a
football coach. And he made it tough for
Nagle. I think I'm remembering this right.
The rules that Evy had to follow when he was
a coach, he didn't want Nagle to have those
same rights and it just made it a tough
situation for Ray. I think Ray was a decent
guy. There again, he had kind of a negative
finish to his career too, because I was the
guy who had to ask Ray if it looked like he
was going to get fired as Iowa's coach. It
was one of those Tuesday press conferences
that they had over there. In those days,
they held them at the Iowa Athletic Club up
there, just west of the stadium.
Q: On Melrose.
A: Yes. And fewer people would attend
those. Ray's team was not doing well and I
wanted to make it as easy on him as possible.
And I pulled him aside before the regular
press conference got started and I said,
"Ray, there is a rumor going around that you
are maybe preparing to resign as coach. I
didn't want to bring it up out there if there
was nothing to it." Well, Ray didn't like
that question so what he did was he didn't
answer it. So we went in to where the other
newspaper and TV people were and he said,
"You know what this guy asked me? He just
asked me if I was going to quit as Iowa's
coach. Isn't that terrible?" So I didn't
endear myself to Ray that day and I was
trying to protect him a little bit. I was
trying to get a good story, too, but I was
trying to make it so he wouldn't have to tell
everybody that he was spent, but a couple of
weeks later he was out as Iowa's coach. It
just didn't work out for him because of that
whole situation with Evashevski. --
Section 6: Q: I was going to ask about antidotes and
that's one of the antidotes you're talking
about. Do you have any other ones that you
remember about your sources and maybe
encounters that you had with people that you
were asking and trying to pursue a big story?
A: There were so many of them. Let's see
if I can think of a few of them here. I
covered so many coaches at Iowa. It seemed
like they changed every three or four years,
because they were always fired. They went
through twenty years of non-winning football.
They had one year where they lost as many as
they won. But otherwise, they just couldn't
win. Frank Lauterbur was another guy who got
fired as Iowa's coach. He came after Nagle.
We all thought that Frank would be a pretty
good coach at Iowa. He had been at Toledo,
in the Mid-America conference and had been a
big winner there. He was kind of a big,
gruff guy and we thought, this is just the
kind of guy that Iowa would need to restore
its football brilliance. He talked about
bringing a bunch of street riders in and
playing for his football team. Well, I got
to know Frank pretty well and I covered his
opening game, as Iowa's coach. The game was
played at Iowa State and he got clobbered
there. He got clobbered a lot of other times
after that, too. His last team at Iowa went
to 0-11. That means you lost all eleven
games. Toward the end of the season, it
became pretty obvious that this was going to
be his last year. There again, I went over
to the Tuesday news conference at Iowa City
and it happened that day that Bump(?)
Elliott, who was then Iowa's athletic
director, had informed people that Frank was
going to be replaced as Iowa's coach. In
fact, the way I heard it was that he had
taken Frank out on a drive the night before,
which would have been that Monday night.
This may or may not be true, but it's a good
story! Because Bump(?) didn't want anybody
else to know what was taking place. So we
wanted to get him away from the office so the
phones weren't bugged or anything, so they
are out there and he told Frank that they
were going to have to make a coaching change.
So I went to Iowa City on Tuesday and talked
to Frank, and I said, Frank Lauterbur,
"Frank, did you quit as coach?" He said,
"No, Bump fired me. He fired me." Well,
Frank wanted to be fired because that way he
would get his pay for the next couple years.
I'm sure he was under contract for another
couple of years. So then, poor old Frank -
it was raining that day, so he's holding an
umbrella over my head while I write this
stuff and hold the tape recorder to give me
his statement about why he got fired and what
went wrong at Iowa, and what a nice guy that
was.
Q: Making sure you got it right.
A: Yes, making sure I got it right and so
I wouldn't get water on my paper. I also
covered Bob Cumming's final game at Iowa. He
was another one of the coaches who was less
than brilliant as Iowa's coach. He recruited
pretty good players toward the end, though,
because when Hayden Fry took over, he used
some of Tommy's players and had a pretty good
season that first year. Bob's last game was
at Michigan State. I'll never forget the
picture we had on the front page of the
Register's sport section. Here's Cummings,
coming off the field at his last game, just a
few Iowa players coming off and I'm right
behind Cummings in my overcoat. It was a
cold day out there in November. I'm telling
myself, here we go again. Here's another one
of these terrible situations where we got to
ask the coach why he got fired. But Cummings
was a nice guy. He didn't take it out on
anybody. But there were a lot of those kind
of situations where we had coaches who were
being fired or needed to be fired, not just
at Iowa, but also at Iowa State where their
winning record was less than Magic II. I
remember when they had an athletic director
there named Gordon Slim Chalmers. They
really could not get it going in football or
basketball up there in those days. And I
interviewed Chalmers for a story which
appeared on Christmas Day. I was trying to
get him to compare Iowa State with other
schools, like Iowa and the committee, then
Big 8, which Iowa State was in, with the Big
10. Chalmers said, "Well, the Big 10 is
always going to be the Big 10. I don't think
Iowa State is going to be able to compete at
that level." That was not something Iowa
State's fans wanted to hear. So it wasn't
long before Chalmers was fired as Iowa
State's athletic director, but for just
speaking his mind. I guess I had a role in
him probably being showed the exit. But he
just tried to tell the truth and that's what
happened.
Q: This was a quote that he gave you?
A: Yes, gave me and then I used it in the
story and Iowa State held it against him. He
was just trying to tell things the way they
really were. Then later on, Iowa State did
get it going pretty good under the old Johnny
Majors regime but in those days, maybe a
little bit now even, the thought among
football coaches was: try to win at Iowa
State but once you do win, get out. It's
regarded as a coaching graveyard. I asked
Johnny Majors that one day, I said, "What do
you think is going to happen if you really
get it going?" And we thought he would get
it going. We thought he'd have a successful
program. I said, "You know, the word is that
it is regarded as a coaching graveyard among
you guys." And he said, "Yea, that's what
they say." Well, Majors took them to two
bowl games but he left right away. Iowa
State still fights that to a certain degree.
Fortunately, they finally had their first
winning season in a long, long time, the 2000
season, went 9-3. So I was happy for Darin
McCarney but it will be interesting to see
how long Dan stays there until he seeks
greener pastures. Because it's been less
than a success overall era.
Q: That doesn't have anything to do with
journalism, but wouldn't you think coaching
graveyard, [inaudible] meaning is that they
teach and then they taper off and after that
they get fired?
A: It's where a lot of coaches go to get
buried. If they can not succeed, then they
have to get fired and then they have a hard
time finding another job.
Q: In other words, they can't continue
coaching?
A: They can't be a [inaudible]. They
might have a couple of good years and then,
boom! They'll have five losing seasons,
something like that. You know, Iowa was
known as kind of a coaching graveyard in
those years when they had twenty-nine winning
seasons. Iowa State does not have a monopoly
on that. Iowa can do that, too. Because we
just don't have the big population in this
state to produce a lot of football players. --
Section 7: Q: Also, you were talking about the
rumors of these coaches getting fired. Did
you hear about it before hand?
Q: . . . the way you get a story in and
you would hear through the grape vine that
somebody was going to get fired before a lot
of people ever heard about it. How do you
get those? Where do you find those sources
and how do you get those rumors?
A: You hear them from fans. Fans who
maybe even - maybe more than fans, maybe
boosters, the so-called financial boosters,
people who give money to the program. They
become fairly influential. Sometimes those
financial boosters will say, "Look, if they
don't make a change," or they might go to the
school president and say, "Look if you don't
make a change, if you don't fire this
football coach, I'm not going to give you any
money next year." College presidents tend to
listen to people like that, especially if
they are big boosters. Sports writers will
talk with these boosters, they'll talk to
influential fans to see what is on their
mind, to see if they think that things are
going okay or if there are changes that
should be made. Then, after you've talked to
enough of those kind of people, you start
putting two and two together and think, well,
hey maybe there is something going on here
and we should pursue this a little bit.
Q: So it takes several years of nurturing
first, in finding who has the information and
who doesn't.
A: Sure.
Q: And going back to them when you need a
quote.
A: Yes, that's right. And you find out
who is reliable among those sources and who
isn't. They are very valuable sources and
you never reveal those sources either,
because they help you a lot.
Q: Which brings us back to what we were
talking about earlier, when you get some of
these young people in, people who aren't
going to stay more than two or three years,
how effective can they be when they don't
have the chance to really develop their
sources? You've got maybe a 27-28 year old
kid sitting there as a sports reporter who
knows that he or she is going to be moving
on, and they really don't have what you have,
sitting there for forty years.
A: Unless they grew up in the state and
knew a lot of people, unless they were from
Des Moines or Cedar Rapids or Iowa City, some
place like that, they would not be able to
develop those sources so they would have to
go at it a different way. They have to write
the so-called big story. They have to do a
big, investigative story that they can get
their teeth into, but they can't get it
through those sources that others of us have
developed. Or they can get help from people
within the newspaper who might tip them off
with sources who will help them. --
Section 8: Q: Let's go back to your earlier days,
too, when you were a copy editor, from '59 to
'65. What was different about that kind of a
job, than it was when you were actually doing
the writing and reporting?
A: It was a very structured job on the
copy desk. When I first started, I started
in late August of '59 and so the football
season was about ready to start. I went to
work on Saturday during the football season,
at 1:30 p.m. and worked until 9:30 p.m. It
kind of cut into the day. Then, during the
week I would start at 2:30 p.m. and I'd be
off at about 11:00 p.m. So it was a night
job and I worked five nights a week. You
went in at a certain time, you finished at a
certain time. And you edited copy. It was a
sit-down job. You very rarely ever left the
desk. You got your half hour lunch period
and that was it. You read all the wire
service copy. You read copy produced by the
Register reporters and that was it. It was a
very structured thing. It was okay for a
while but I knew I didn't want to continue
it. Some people are happy doing that kind of
job. Some people do not want to go out and
cover games and deal with people and ask them
questions. They are very content sitting
there and editing these stories. I was
content for a few years, but I also knew
there was something beyond that and that's
why I may have known that I did want to
become a reporter when there was such an
opening.
Q: How many were there of you on the copy
desk at the same time?
A: There would have been, back in those
days, probably seven or eight people and a
couple of full time people, a couple of
part-timers. We were there kind of by
ourselves. We'd sit on a rim type area. I
always got a kick out of - we'd be sitting
there like at 10:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. or 7:00
p.m., maybe not so much at 10:00, but 7:00
p.m., there might be a tour that came through
there. The promotion department was running
a tour and bring seven or eight people
through there to show them the workings of a
newspaper at night. So, one night one of
these tours was coming through and we were
all seated there, doing our work, and we'd
see this tour coming. This guy leading the
tour said, "This is the sports department.
There is nobody here right now." By nobody
here, they meant that there was no reporters
there! There was just us copy editors there
and we were actually putting out the paper,
but they'd say, "There isn't anybody here
right now." I used to tell that story to
people who had to work on the desk, that you
got no respect.
Q: What he was saying is that there is
nobody you'd recognize here.
A: Yes, nobody here you know and nobody
probably that you want to know. I guess I
knew that night that I didn't want to stay in
that job.
Q: Would it be that you would have
somebody out doing play by play and they'd be
calling in a story over the phone?
A: Could be. You always hoped you didn't
have to take that story by phone, the
dictation, because we did have - when I
started, I went through the whole gamut of
ways to send a story. When I first started
sending them in, we used Western Union. We'd
have a guy sitting there, a Western Union
operator, and we'd type our story on a
typewriter.
Q: You'd be out in the field, right?
A: Yes, I'm in the field. And that's the
way the stories came in when I first was on
the desk. Like when Bert McGrain was
covering an Iowa football game, he would send
it in with Western Union. And we'd get it on
the Western Union machine and then we'd edit
the story. Not until later did they improve
that whole situation. But if everything fell
down, if nothing worked, then McGrain or
whoever - Sec Taylor, would have to dictate
the story. I remember, I did take some
dictation from Sec when whatever way he was
trying to send didn't work. That was not
much fun, trying to take that dictation from
him because he was 75 years old and you had
to take dictation on a manual typewriter.
That wasn't much fun.
Q: So how would that work? He would have
the story already written and he'd be reading
it to you over the phone? Or would he be
just thinking out loud?
A: That could be operated both ways.
Hopefully, Sec would have typed his story on
a sheet of paper and would then read it to
me, if I was taking the dictation. But there
were situations, and I got to give a guy
named Bob Price credit for this - those seven
or eight people I told you about, that worked
on that rim, and edited those stories, well
Bob Price was what they called a slot man or
the news editor that night. Price worked
like an Associated Press guy. He believed in
getting the thing done and getting in the
paper. I'll use myself as an example here.
Like when I was out covering a game and they
needed that story right now, I would call
Price and tell him that I got this story and
he had this nickname for me, he called King.
He said, "Okay, King, read it to me." And I
didn't have anything ready. I'd just have to
try to write a story in my head and dictate
to him so that they'd have some kind of
story. And we used to do that. Now, I'm
going to step back to when I was on the desk.
We used to take these high school football
stories off the phone from correspondents.
We used to right little capsule articles of
these games, whether the game was played at
Primghar or Mason City or Davenport or Cedar
Rapids or Marion or Soling, wherever they
were, and I started doing it that way too.
I'd say, "Okay, tell me what took place."
And they would say, "Well, Joe Smith scored
two touchdowns and ran for 150 yards and
Soling won this game." I'd say "All right"
and I'd construct this story as he told it to
me so I wouldn't have to go back and write a
story after that. So it was a raw way of
doing it but it was a timesaving way of doing
it. You learned how to do those timesaving
ways when you're on the desk.
Q: That's interesting. So how long would
that story be?
A: Those stories were just short,
probably five or six sentences is what they
amounted to. But they still had to make some
kind of sense. It wasn't like you were
trying to write an Iowa basketball story off
the top of your head that would be in the
second edition, the old second edition which
is no longer, which used to go into Iowa City
and that was - you had to really try to make
sense out of those stories. You had to have
your facts straight and you had to make sure
you had the final score in there. And if you
had the right night of the week, so there
were a lot of things to try and remember. --
Section 9: Q: You also talked about the
correspondents who were out in these small
towns covering boys and girls basketball
games. Who were they? Were these kids?
A: They were kids and if it was a bigger
town, there were people who were
correspondents who maybe worked at the
newspaper in that town and also went to the
high school football games and earned a few
bucks by calling the Register with the
results of that game. Most of the time they
were just kids that would do. The Register
tried to pay those correspondents a few
dollars each month. I think it was each
month, if not every week. That kept them
continuing to call.
Q: Would they ever have equipment out
there like what you're talking about, the
Western Union?
A: No. I think that Western Union
operator tried to cost the paper some money.
But there again, back in those days, the
paper didn't mind spending the money. My old
Western Union operator, most of the time in
Des Moines was Harold. But we'd have a
Western Union operator at the old Iowa Field
House in Iowa City, in Iowa Stadium and
later, Kinnick Stadium, after it was renamed
and so did other papers. The Gazette would
have a Western Union operator, the Davenport
Democrat and then City Times would have
Western Union. Chicago Tribune would cover
some games with Western Union, so it was a
big business. But now, everything is done by
computer, and frankly, the computer is a
much, much better way of doing it than
Western Union or some of the other ways we
had of doing it, where you used to send in
some sheets of paper with some machine that
we had that half the time didn't work.
Q: I guess I still don't understand
though. You're saying you have a Western
Union operator at the site, like at Kinnick
Stadium. That's with a person who is sitting
there typing this stuff in. Is he someone
who came from the local Western Union office?
A: Yes, that came from the Western Union.
We'd have a Western Union operator at Vets
Auditorium, when the state boys and girls
basketball tournaments were going on. That
Western Union operator, Harold, would come
from the office down on, I think, about 6th
and Grand and he'd bring his machine up there
to the auditorium. And he'd sit there and I
had my portable typewriter and I'd type a
sheet of paper, give it to him, and then
Harold would type it and then it went in the
wire Western Union machine at the Register
office.
Q: I see.
A: That's the way that operated. If all
went well, what I typed on my machine, my
typewriter, would be done accurately by
Harold and then it would be received at the
Western Union machine in the sports
department at the Register.
