Don Lund

This is the third part of Iowa football preview. This week, I’ll start out with the Hawkeye linebackers, the core of the defense.

Linebackers

Josey Jewell (6-2, 236) is a prototypical Hawkeye player.
Jewell was lightly recruited with Upper Iowa and UNI the only two schools to recruit him and offer a scholarship.
Iowa came in late and the rest is history.

Media day for football was last Saturday, and since I missed my first media day in 16 years last August, I was ready to go.
My niece Kym got married and it was a great wedding, but it was in Missoula, Mont., on the same weekend as football media day.
Kym and her husband Ryan are Hawkeye fans so it was a great time.
The next three weeks I’ll break down the offense, defense and special teams.

Offensive Line

The Hawkeye offense always starts up front with the offensive line and this years’ group should be one of Iowa’s strengths.

I’ve talked about some of my favorite Hawkeye football players and men’s basketball players.
This week I’ll look at my favorite women’s basketball players since Lisa Bluder took over in 2000. That was also my first year covering the Hawkeyes for the North Liberty Leader.
I didn’t get to see many of Vivian Stringer’s team in the 1980s and ‘90s, but if I did I would probably go with Michelle “Ice” Edwards, Franthea Price and Toni Foster.
All were First Team Kodak All-Americans and Big Ten Players of the Year.

I’ve already talked about Game Time shutting down this summer after 16 years of playing in North Liberty.
It’s kind of sad for me because I was there at the beginning helping Randy Larson, who also runs the Prime Time League, get Game Time going.
Prime Time moved to North Liberty in 2001 because it was air-conditioned, but there was only one basketball court at the time and there would be three games a night for Game Time, four for Prime Time.
I kept the stats and sometimes did play by play for North Liberty Television.

This is the third part of a look back to 1983.

In 1983, the price of a one story, two-bedroom house was $36,000.
A new Ford Escort cost $6,900, gas was $1.29 per gallon and you could buy a stamp for 20¢.

The Hawkeye basketball team had a new coach in George Raveling, who coached at Washington State from 1972-83.
The Hawks finished 13-15, 6-12 in the Big Ten that year.
The starting lineup included the twin towers Michael Payne (9.3 points per game) and Greg Stokes (14.9). Both were juniors.