Political Football

Bobby Jeter, 1958 Hawkeyes
Des Moines Register Article here

Bobby Jeter, Iowa Hawkeye running back and Hall of Fame cornerback for the Green Bay Packers, died this weekend.  He was the MVP of a Rose Bowl for the Hawkeyes when there were only 3,4 bowl games on every year and they were mostly on January 1.

Jeter was a particular favorite of my Dad’s – a great runner on a fantastic team of Coach Forest Evashevski’s that won the national title in the late 50’s.  “Evy” was also a favorite Coach of my Dad’s – held in high esteem because of the good years of IOWA football in the 50’s.  But Evy “retired” to become AD in the 60’s and the IOWA Football team was horrible in those years.  My folks would take some of us annually to knot hole games. (Knot hole games were $2.00 bleacher seats available once or twice a season – before they closed in the stadium)

IOWA never really regained national prominence until Hayden Fry showed up at IOWA in 1979.

I never saw Jeter play but we watched him play as a Packer (for some reason he never caught on as a running back in the pros but was an All -Pro Cornerback).

If you want to read more about Iowa Football – my family is covered a bit in this book – Link to Amazon.com.

It’s natural to follow IOWA players through the NFL or College coaching ranks – we still have some good ones – Nate Kaeding, Bobby Sanders, Dallas Clark and a few more…  I see Chuck Long was fired today from his Coaching job at SDSU.

All three Stoops bothers were Hawkeye players for Hayden Fry, Barry Alvarez and Brent Beliema at WISKY, Bill Snyder of Kansas, as well as Coach Ferentz all coached under Coach Fry.

I was thinking about Chuck during the Minnesota game on Saturday.  As QB of the Hawkeyes, his Freedom Bowl play in the Mid-80’s was a game “when nothing went wrong”, much like the the IOWA – MINN game last night.

But, when you’re a Hawkeye, you’re a Hawkeye for life.

RIP Bobby Jeter 1918-2008

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