Dennis Green. What a legacy and pioneer.
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Dennis Green, Jim Caldwell, Emlen Tunnell, Duke Slater, Calvin Jones
- Thread starter Franisdaman
- Start date
More than a sound bite, but the sound bites were awful damned good!
We let 'em off the hook!!
One of Dennis Green's best comments was - football is you find a weakness and pound it over and over. That was not his exact comment, but I remember his comment because if a team finds a weakness in a better overall team that all it needs to pull an upset. Not as memorable as his comments on the Chicago Bears.
Lol. The thread caught me off guard.
So I assume this is the 5-year anny of his death then...
So you started a thread about Dennis Green.. Alrighty then.
Pardon my initial confusion...I guess...
Green had some issues but was a tremendous coach. Went to the playoffs with like 5 or s6 different qbs for the Vikings. Also, some remember history a bit better than me but I think he was part of the Iowa team that walked out on a coach. That was a bit before my time but I remember that discussed before. I remember a Coach Green show for the Vikings and they had Paul Krause on and Green pointed out they he was a Hawkeye.
He also coached at two private schools that are generally difficult to succeed at.
Most of the losses came at Northwestern, where no one was winning. He built Stanford up in three seasons before heading to the NFL, where he was quite successful with the Vikings.
I guess but his successors have done pretty damn well at NWestern and Stanford, so theres that side of the argument.....
Back in 1985, I was a fresh Northwestern graduate serving as a combination TA and RA in the journalism division of NU’s summer “Cherub” program for high schoolers. This was back in the day when a 22-year-old hayseed such as yours truly could dial up the NU football office and get patched right in to the head coach. I asked Coach Green to come speak to my sportswriting class. There was nothing in it for him, but he readily agreed. (It might have helped that I told him I had grown up in Iowa as a Hawkeye fan.) He was nothing short of fantastic with the class. Gracious, informative, and funny. A class act and a great guy—not to mention a damn fine football coach.
I attended Northwestern from 1981 to 1985, when Dennis Green was the coach. Your flip remark is naive. You cannot even imagine the horrible facilities, lack of institutional support, and history of losing when Green took over at NU. He took a program that lost 34 straight games and at least made it into a three-win team with the worst facilities in the nation and a university president who wanted to eliminate the program entirely. It eventually took the lightning strike of Gary Barnett to clear the mountaintop, but you cannot discount the work that Green did at NU. He made a national laughingstock into a competitive team with no support whatsoever.
The criteria for the OP was Bump not landing JHF and getting Denny instead. At that time Denny would not have been a good choice. He struggled in difficult situations in college, similar to what he would have faced at Iowa. The main difference being the fan support at Iowa. The facilities at Iowa were low class as well. Denny wouldn’t have had the ability at that time like JHF did.
Yeah and times are not way different now than they were back then when he coached at Northwestern.
Crazy stat!
Denny Green--PAC 12
Denny Green--B1G
Jim Caldwell--ACC
Denny Green--PAC 12
Denny Green--B1G
Jim Caldwell--ACC
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Thanks. I misread it. Eddie Robinson, of Grambling State fame, also earned his masters degree at Iowa. He mentions it in his autobiography, but it doesn't say if had any official involvement with the football program during that time. He finished his masters in '54, which is in the middle of his run as Grambling's football and basketball coach. I assume he came to Iowa City in the summer months for school. Iowa has long and proud tradition in civil rights and African American studies.
Green was part of the initial boycott, but returned early on in Spring ball, IIRC.
Anyone know this?
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A portion of Kinnick Stadium needs its own name. The Hawks should enter from the Emlen tunnel.
Love seeing Kelvin Bell putting those tweets out there.
The saddest thing about the accusations that came out last year, aside from at least some of them seeming to be true, is that those accusations will overshadow Iowa football’s great history of being a place where black athletes could thrive in the early days of college football.
Frank Holbrook back in 1895
Archie Alexander in 1910
Duke Slater is one of the all time greats in football history at all levels
Ozzie Simmons, the guy with the story about how Floyd of Rosedale was created
Homer Harris, the first black captain of a Big a Ten team
Cal Jones, the first black Outland Trophy winner
and many others in between them
Frank Holbrook back in 1895
Archie Alexander in 1910
Duke Slater is one of the all time greats in football history at all levels
Ozzie Simmons, the guy with the story about how Floyd of Rosedale was created
Homer Harris, the first black captain of a Big a Ten team
Cal Jones, the first black Outland Trophy winner
and many others in between them
A couple more things to add.
1. First African American to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame was Duke Slater. (in the inaugural class of 1951)
2. Emlen Tunnell is second in NFL career interceptions. The man who broke his record: Hawkeye Paul Krause. So the Hawkeyes have the 1 and 2 spots in that category.
What follows is from Emlen’s autobiography “Footsteps of a Giant.”
His time playing for the Coast Guard is coming to an end and he is looking for a college to attend after Toledo.
Source (Sean Bucheit): @bucheis
His time playing for the Coast Guard is coming to an end and he is looking for a college to attend after Toledo.
Source (Sean Bucheit): @bucheis
Some how we need to parlay our history in this regard. Again our fricking University doesn’t have a clue how to talk about this issue and use it in a positive way. Come to think about it, when I go through the football facility not much of our black history is mentioned. I find it interesting that Eddie Robinson got his masters at Iowa,,,didn’t know that.
The most impressive stat of the bunch is Caldwell led the Lions to the playoffs in two of his four seasons there.
The Iowa PR efforts are just pathetic. All this racist bullshit could be buried with a big counter push. Start with the dozens of black players that love Ferentz. Then spend this month rolling out a big hitter from history, and Denny Green and Em Tunnell are two of the really big ones. Plus, why stick with just sports? How about the Writer's Workshop?
Iowa Nice is a real thing. Probably the least racially conscious people in the country. Just expect everybody to follow the same rules, engage in the same general civilities and decorum of life and leave other people alone. I think that is the most typical attitude held by the vast majority of Iowa residents.
Iowa Nice is a real thing. Probably the least racially conscious people in the country. Just expect everybody to follow the same rules, engage in the same general civilities and decorum of life and leave other people alone. I think that is the most typical attitude held by the vast majority of Iowa residents.
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