Jailhouse Hawks
What the hell has happened to the Iowa football team?
Early Saturday morning, Iowa City Police arrested Riley Thomas Reiff, a to-be freshman defensive end from South Dakota, after a 20-minute foot chase through downtown alleys. He’s being charged with public intoxication and interference with official acts.
According to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Reiff is now the seventeenth Hawkeye football player to have been arrested or fallen into legal trouble since last year.
On top of this, the mother of a UI student-athlete sexually assaulted by two former football players, Cedric Everson and Abe Satterfield, last October has blown the whistle on the university, saying head coach Kirk Ferentz and athletic director Gary Barta encouraged her daughter to “keep the matter in-house.” The victim reported the incident to police in November when the university failed to act and protect her after being repeatedly harassed by her assaulters.
This is serious stuff. Dallas Cowboy-like. For years Hawk fans have been keen to similar problems at other universities. Programs at USC, Florida State, Miami, and Ohio State have been plagued by the criminal activities of their players and allegations of special gifts and payments from boosters. We thought those were big school problems — the rotten fruits of sustained success and the recruiting of top-notch athletes. (Now, I don’t mean to say all talented football players are arrogant assholes. There are many mature men on every roster. But, as anyone who’s gone to high school and college can attest to, there are a lot of bad apples.) We assured ourselves nothing like that could happen at lowly Iowa, no matter how good the team and players became. Kirk Ferentz ran a tight ship.
In college I remember hearing many good things about the football players. They were the first to show and last to go in their classes. They were smart and respectable, and acted humbly and with dignity. In the fall of 2004, Abdul Hodge had a class in the EPB at the same time I did. He was always there beforehand like everyone else, waiting in the hallway for the earlier class to leave, wearing his black letterman jacket. Someone once leaned over and asked me if it was really Hodge, and I nodded. “He’s actually not that big,” he said. I was proud of what they represented in the classroom and on the field. The basketball players, on the other hand…
Of course, there were also bad apples on the football team. I heard rumors. A friend who lived in the Hillcrest dorm, where many athletes roomed because of its proximity to the sports facilities, told me a Hawkeye linebacker walked around the halls buck-naked after showering. (He was released from the team in the summer of 200_ after being arrested for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. He pushed a woman's head into a window and police used pepper spray to subdue him.) From my cousin I heard a curious story about a star defensive lineman. On the day a paper was due a teammate walked into class, handed the lineman a folder, and walked out. The lineman turned in the paper that had been inside the folder. That story isn’t trustworthy or incriminating since it’s just hearsay, but everyone automatically assumes someone else wrote the lineman’s paper, a big NCAA no-no. In reality I’m sure he accidentally left the folder at home and his roommate came to the rescue, delivering it just in time. But who knows?
A few players, isolated cases, are understandable. But 17 in one year? That is flat out unacceptable for the program, for the university, and for the fans.
The worst of it is there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Iowa’s rash of trouble bucks the “big-name, always successful program” stereotype, too. The Hawks have been mediocre at best the past three seasons, and it doesn’t seem as if Ferentz has been landing many — if any — blue-chippers who you think would cause problems with airs of arrogance and invulnerability. So what’s happening in Iowa City?
My dad informed me of Reiff’s arrest last night. (According to pops, the defensive end was buck-naked as he ran the alleys with the pursuing cops — eight of them, by the way, which is pathetic in its own way. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports Reiff was taking off his clothes when police first confronted him. I guess Hawkeye football players have a thing for public nudity.) As we’ve done with the other player troubles, he and I tried to think of a reason for it. Dad thinks it’s because Ferentz is recruiting ill-behaved players, riff-raffs who think they can get away with anything. He may be right, and I partly agree with him. But I think there are two other big contributing factors: 1) The way football players have been treated as gods the past six years, and 2) the delights of downtown Iowa City. The admiration of fans, including local business owners, gives them a sense of imperviousness, and the lively bar scene pulls them into a vortex of noxious drunkenness. Invincibility and booze are a bad combination. A lack of personal restraint makes the mix volatile.
Despite the allegations of suppression and inaction by Ferentz, the athletic department, and the university, it appears something is being done to address the problem. Yesterday Barta released a statement regarding Reiff’s arrest:
It’s unapparent what Ferentz is doing, and I should probably be a good reporter and dig a little deeper to see if I can find out. But it’s hard to ignore the fact something has happened to the Iowa football team.
Whatever the problem is, I hope it graduates or transfers to UNI soon.
Early Saturday morning, Iowa City Police arrested Riley Thomas Reiff, a to-be freshman defensive end from South Dakota, after a 20-minute foot chase through downtown alleys. He’s being charged with public intoxication and interference with official acts.
According to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Reiff is now the seventeenth Hawkeye football player to have been arrested or fallen into legal trouble since last year.
On top of this, the mother of a UI student-athlete sexually assaulted by two former football players, Cedric Everson and Abe Satterfield, last October has blown the whistle on the university, saying head coach Kirk Ferentz and athletic director Gary Barta encouraged her daughter to “keep the matter in-house.” The victim reported the incident to police in November when the university failed to act and protect her after being repeatedly harassed by her assaulters.
This is serious stuff. Dallas Cowboy-like. For years Hawk fans have been keen to similar problems at other universities. Programs at USC, Florida State, Miami, and Ohio State have been plagued by the criminal activities of their players and allegations of special gifts and payments from boosters. We thought those were big school problems — the rotten fruits of sustained success and the recruiting of top-notch athletes. (Now, I don’t mean to say all talented football players are arrogant assholes. There are many mature men on every roster. But, as anyone who’s gone to high school and college can attest to, there are a lot of bad apples.) We assured ourselves nothing like that could happen at lowly Iowa, no matter how good the team and players became. Kirk Ferentz ran a tight ship.
In college I remember hearing many good things about the football players. They were the first to show and last to go in their classes. They were smart and respectable, and acted humbly and with dignity. In the fall of 2004, Abdul Hodge had a class in the EPB at the same time I did. He was always there beforehand like everyone else, waiting in the hallway for the earlier class to leave, wearing his black letterman jacket. Someone once leaned over and asked me if it was really Hodge, and I nodded. “He’s actually not that big,” he said. I was proud of what they represented in the classroom and on the field. The basketball players, on the other hand…
Of course, there were also bad apples on the football team. I heard rumors. A friend who lived in the Hillcrest dorm, where many athletes roomed because of its proximity to the sports facilities, told me a Hawkeye linebacker walked around the halls buck-naked after showering. (He was released from the team in the summer of 200_ after being arrested for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. He pushed a woman's head into a window and police used pepper spray to subdue him.) From my cousin I heard a curious story about a star defensive lineman. On the day a paper was due a teammate walked into class, handed the lineman a folder, and walked out. The lineman turned in the paper that had been inside the folder. That story isn’t trustworthy or incriminating since it’s just hearsay, but everyone automatically assumes someone else wrote the lineman’s paper, a big NCAA no-no. In reality I’m sure he accidentally left the folder at home and his roommate came to the rescue, delivering it just in time. But who knows?
A few players, isolated cases, are understandable. But 17 in one year? That is flat out unacceptable for the program, for the university, and for the fans.
The worst of it is there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Iowa’s rash of trouble bucks the “big-name, always successful program” stereotype, too. The Hawks have been mediocre at best the past three seasons, and it doesn’t seem as if Ferentz has been landing many — if any — blue-chippers who you think would cause problems with airs of arrogance and invulnerability. So what’s happening in Iowa City?
My dad informed me of Reiff’s arrest last night. (According to pops, the defensive end was buck-naked as he ran the alleys with the pursuing cops — eight of them, by the way, which is pathetic in its own way. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports Reiff was taking off his clothes when police first confronted him. I guess Hawkeye football players have a thing for public nudity.) As we’ve done with the other player troubles, he and I tried to think of a reason for it. Dad thinks it’s because Ferentz is recruiting ill-behaved players, riff-raffs who think they can get away with anything. He may be right, and I partly agree with him. But I think there are two other big contributing factors: 1) The way football players have been treated as gods the past six years, and 2) the delights of downtown Iowa City. The admiration of fans, including local business owners, gives them a sense of imperviousness, and the lively bar scene pulls them into a vortex of noxious drunkenness. Invincibility and booze are a bad combination. A lack of personal restraint makes the mix volatile.
Despite the allegations of suppression and inaction by Ferentz, the athletic department, and the university, it appears something is being done to address the problem. Yesterday Barta released a statement regarding Reiff’s arrest:
Kirk and his staff have worked extremely hard throughout the summer setting a tone and laying expectations. This makes Riley's actions even more disturbing. It's simply not acceptable. I don't yet have the details on the situation, but Riley and the other young freshman coming into our program have to understand the responsibilities that come with being a Hawkeye. We'll deal with it in accordance with the Student Athlete Code of Conduct. But again, I can't express enough how discouraged I am. I'm confident with all the steps that have been taken by the staff this year, but this is not a sign of what we'll see this season.
It’s unapparent what Ferentz is doing, and I should probably be a good reporter and dig a little deeper to see if I can find out. But it’s hard to ignore the fact something has happened to the Iowa football team.
Whatever the problem is, I hope it graduates or transfers to UNI soon.
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