Tough Loss Last Night

Growing up, becoming a sports writer is always what I wanted to do for a living. However, the less than ideal hours, the minimal pay most receive, and the lack of quality sports writing positions led me away from that path. I routinely read the message boards that discuss all things Iowa Hawkeyes related, but I never leave posts of my own as feel that many of the posts end-up sounding ignorant. So here I go; I'm writing this post for several reasons: 1) to get the feelings that I have from last night's tough loss to Arizona out of my head and off of my chest so I can go forward with my Sunday, and 2) because I've always wanted to write about this stuff for a living. If this isn't going to interest you, don't read it. I'm writing this post more so for me; sorry for being selfish.

Let me preface this with the following information. I am a huge Iowa Hawkeyes fan; I always have been, and I always will be. I have seen maybe two great Iowa football teams in my lifetime, several very good Iowa football teams, a lot of above average Iowa football teams, and yes, unfortunately, even some bad Iowa football teams. For the most part, I would say, that we would fall into the category of being above average; recently, we have been lucky enough for Kirk Ferentz to begin to lead us into the category of, almost, consistently being in the very good category. Where Kirk Ferentz has taken this program is great! It is great for recruiting better players, it is great for gaining exposure throughout the entire country, and it is great as a fan to see your team competing to win every single Saturday. However, when you are consistently good and expecting to win, losing hurts a little bit more.

Unlike some of the message boards and preseason prognosticators, I never envisioned this Iowa Hawkeye football team to contend for a national championship this year. To me, this idea was always too far fetched due to, mainly, three reasons. One, we won too many games last year that could have very easily been losses. Two, even though our schedule this season is favorable, there are too many good games that we would have to sweep. And three, we are Iowa; we've won one national championship ever (and even that, in 1958, was not an outright national championship), we tend to thrive without the spotlight shining on us, we are a state that does not have a huge population and that gives us a disadvantage when it comes to recruiting, and unfortunately my favorite teams just don't usually win it all!

All of that being said, when I looked at our schedule at the beginning of the year I didn't see any match-ups that I thought we would lose. Head-to-head, week-by-week I thought that we would win every game. At the same time I never thought that we would go 12-0. I figured we would lose at least two, maybe even three, possibly even four games; I just didn't know which games we would lose. I know now that Arizona is one loss. I think that we will finish the season at 10-2; still not sure who I think the other loss will be. Hopefully, if you are still reading, this paragraph hasn't confused you.

Now for some reaction to last night's (Arizona) game. First of all, it started horribly. ESPN could not find one of their million different channels to put the game on at the very beginning. It was very difficult to only see: a blocked punt, a touchdown, and a pick six without seeing all of the little things in between. Once ESPN finally did tune in, it was already 14-0 Arizona. Secondly, I know that there were a lot of Iowa fans there; however, that crowd, in the red with the white pom-poms was unbelievably intimidating (and it did not help that we let them go up 14-0 right off of the bat!). And third, I don’t want to hear about how hot it was.

We got outplayed. The better team, us, did not win; that sometimes, unfortunately, happens in sports. If we play this game 10 times, in Arizona even, we win over half of the time (I think). You must give credit to Arizona though, they came ready to play. We made too many mistakes: blocked punt, tipped ball that goes for a pick six, kickoff return for a touchdown, blocked PAT, and the three or four sacks in a row that we surrendered to end the game highlight a few of them. Even with all of those things going wrong (Murphy's Law - everything that can go wrong, will go wrong), we still tied the game at 27 in the fourth quarter. That speaks volumes to the resiliency that this team possesses. They never quit, and you have to congratulate them for that.

Two other notes. Prior to the last drive, I thought that our pass protection was pretty good. I even mentioned at one point in time, I thought that it was one of the highlights of our performance; how quickly that changed. Adrian Clayborn is my favorite Hawkeye. Adrian Clayborn is the best player we have on our team. However, Adrian Clayborn needs to be more consistently dominant with his performance/production. I thought that last night would be his breakout game for this season, I was wrong. I'm sure he will still have a great season, but I was a little disappointed with the lack of disruption that he caused last night.

We are 2-1, but more importantly we are still 0-0 in Big Ten conference play. My goal going into the season was to get to another BCS bowl game, and more specifically the Rose Bowl game. That is still my goal; nothing about last night's performance has altered that goal. The fact that I see fans talking about benching Ricky Stanzi, firing Kirk Ferentz and his staff, finishing the season 7-5 is ridiculous! Look at the body of work of Ricky Stanzi; what is he, 20-5 as career starter? That is 20 wins compared to five losses, I'll take that record any day. Look at the body of work of Kirk Ferentz; he should be given a life-time contract to stay at Iowa for as long as he pleases to do so. NEVER has our football program been consistently as prominent as it has been the past ten years. 7-5? Come on. I guarantee you that these are the exact same fans that were talking 12-0, national championship prior to the game. Relax, it is one game. Have faith that our players will rebound; they did in the second half. Have faith that our coaching staff will make adjustments and coach these guys up; they've done it in the past. As Kirk says, weather the storm - play through the highs and the lows. That goes for fans, too; there will be more lows this season, but there will be highs also. Try not to get too high, and try not to fall too low. As is his rule for the team - you've got 24 hours to either celebrate a victory or dwell on loss before you must flush it and move on.

I think this just officially flushed the loss for me; as I feel better already. Thanks for listening.

Is it Saturday yet?!

You are captivating to me because...

I guess I haven't ever really grown up. I still have heroes, and I am still in awe when I see certain people. Just ask Amy and Scott how fast I ran when I saw Mike Ditka at O'Hare. Just ask Kyle how nervous he was that I was going to make a fool of us by bothering Brian Urlacher when we were recently eating dinner at the same restaurant. But I don't care...I'll be the first person to tell you that I'm a dork when it comes to stuff like this.

Recently, when filling out a "get to know you" questionarre at work, in an effort to build relationships, I was asked who my role models are, who my mentors are, and who I look up to. I thought about that question. Multiple people came to mind that I look up to and model myself after, but the two names that I put down are people that I admire a great deal from afar. I answered the question by naming Kirk Ferentz and Tony Dungy. Yes, these two men are very successful/were very successful football coaches, but that is not why I chose them. I chose these two men because of how they act, how they lead the young men that they work with, and the values that they hold.

Tony Dungy was an excellent football coach. He leads quietly; he is not an extremely vocal man . He is a man with very strong religious faith. He serves as a mentor to young men that are going through adverse situations. He has a website (allprodad.com) that I frequent. This website is full of good advice for dads, future dads, and people in general. From this website I signed up to receive their daily email, which is basically a tip of the day. One tip of the day that I want to talk about (the purpose of this particular blog) is how husbands (or men) should let their wives (or women) know that they captivate them. While I may not always be the best at verbalizing these things, and I may not always be the best at showing these things - I am pretty confident that I can write these things. So Amy, here you go (sorry that I don't tell you and/or show you all of these things regularly (I am who I am), but I feel them and I mean them!), here is the blog post that you wanted - dedicated to you!

Amy, you are captivating to me because you are beautiful; I thought this when I first saw you in our introductory elementary education class (I knew there was a reason I became a teacher), and I think this more than ever today while you are pregnant with our child. You are captivating to me because you are the nicest person that I know; you are nice to everyone, even when you don't want to be. You are captivating to me because you like to relax and have a good time. You are captivating to me because you have a passion for chlidren; you have a meaningful job and you work very hard at being successful at your job. You are captivating to me because you have inherited SOME (not yet enough ; -)) of my passion for sports. You are captivating to me because you do not try to limit my passion towards sports. You are captivating to me due to the excitement you have towards our unborn son. You are captivating to me because even though you are excited about Ryne being born, you still want to go to as many Iowa football games this year as possible (small things like this mean a lot to a foolish guy like me). You are captivating to me because you are fashionable and always dress nice, even though I tease you about never wearing enough Hawkeye, Cubs, Bears, etc. tee-shirts. You are captivating to me because you are such a good cook - and you cook with a lot of cheese and make things spicy, the two things I like most in my foods. You are captivating to me because I know that you love me. Amy, you are captivating to me. Thanks!

E is for Emotion

I don’t know how many of you, if any of you, ever had to create acrostic poems, the type of poem where a word is written vertically and then each letter represents a different word, during your schooling, but I frequently remember having to do them. Usually the word that was written vertically was my name, either Eric or Ewald. And usually each letter was supposed to be a word that you felt described yourself. I’m guessing that all of you that read this blog know me, some on a deeper level than others, but one word that I never selected for the E was emotional.

Chances are if you know who I am, emotional wouldn’t be a word that comes to your mind to describe me. I wouldn’t use it to describe myself. Very seldom, do I exhibit a lot of emotion externally. However, there are exceptions to the norm. As a senior in high school, while playing a football game that would decide the District Championship, in the fourth quarter of a game against our biggest rival, with only a touchdown lead for my team, I showed emotion. I fell on a fumble that in the backfield that a friend of mine had caused while rushing the passer. I was so excited and happy that without regards for the rules (because I fell on the fumble, I was down), I got up and did a celebratory sprint into the end zone! Remembering back to that moment…it felt like someone else was inside my body controlling those actions; not something that people would imagine to see out of me (on a side note, that was probably one of the five greatest single moments of my life. The others being (in chronological order): witnessing, live, Drew Tate to Warren Holloway’s touchdown that won the Capital One Bowl for the Iowa Hawkeyes over the LSU Tigers, my whole wedding weekend, Amy telling me that she was pregnant, finding out that our unborn child is a boy!).

However, I frequently have tears trickling down my cheek during movies; I can watch Remember the Titans, Rocky IV, or Rudy a million times and cry every time. It is good to cry. I can cry on command when I start to think, or see, or hear certain things. In Jimmy V’s famous ESPY speech, he said that there were three things that people should do on a daily basis. He said that you should think, you should laugh, and you should cry everyday. I try to do all of those things everyday; I think that it is good advice.

I cry. I show emotion. I feel. I’ve always told my teams that I coach, “Don’t ever get too high when things are going good and don’t ever get too low when things are bad,” (I’ve also heard Kirk Ferentz preach this same concept) and I try to live that. However, I must admit, when we were having the ultrasound done to determine our baby’s sex, it was a good thing that the room was dark. I had tears of joy rolling down my cheek after hearing the technician tell us it was a boy! I am extremely excited about the birth of our son, I just don’t wear my emotions on my sleeves…for better or worse.

I’ve never been an emotional person, and I’ve never aspired to become one. Traditionally, emotional men have never been well received by society. That is starting to change. I recently read a book that talked of how this generation of young boys is, for the first time on a wide scale, being raised by fathers that are openly showing emotion towards their sons. I realize the importance of this, and I realize that I will have to actively work toward this. However, I fear nothing because when there is something that I have to work towards, I always work until I’ve accomplished it!