More love of Iowa small-college football

Hanging out at recent Simpson College games against Loras College and Buena Vista U has stirred a whole lot of memories and thoughts for this old fan.

INDIANOLA, Iowa – For decades Simpson College here has used a stirring way to send its football players out of the locker room and on to the gridiron for games.  The players emerge from the front door of old Hopper Gymnasium, which looks south over Bill Buxton Stadium.  They walk down three flights of concrete stairs, cleats clicking, sometimes slapping hands with children and even some adults who line the steps.  And then they charge out on the field to the cheers of fans in the stands.

“One of our best traditions is filing the team out of Hopper,” said Reed Hoskins, now in his second year as the Simpson head coach.

Here they come!

I saw a new wrinkle on this twice in recent weeks, in what I’ve declared is my “Iowa small-college football season.”  My wife Mary Riche and I neglected getting tickets to big time games, so here we are.

On Sept. 28, I watched the Simpson Storm blow away the Loras College Duhawks 66-14.  Last Saturday, on Oct. 26, I saw a better game in which Simpson held on for a 24-16 victory over the Buena Vista University Beavers.

As the halftime break was concluding in the latter game, I was finishing my bag of popcorn at the north end of the stadium when the Simpson players again came out of the old gym. They were greeted again by youngsters lining their way.  And then I noticed that the very last person leaving Hopper and walking down the steps was Coach Hoskins.

The little kids started cheering as he approached.  One of them flipped him a small football, and several started running west on the grassy hillside behind the big scoreboard. The coach lofted a nicely-spiraling pass that the little receivers competed to catch.

Several were wearing red and gold Simpson jerseys with “Hoskins” across the shoulders.  Two of them were the coach’s kids, Addison, 8, and Carter, 6.  Then I saw a taller girl sneak up on the coach from behind and gave him a quick hug.  She’s his 13-year-old daughter Haylee. 

Head coach Reed Hoskins. (Simpson College photo)

There were more Hoskins kids there, too – the coach’s niece Harper, 10, and nephews Lincoln, 8, and Conner, 5, all in the line-up for the “low fives” with the college players. “Lincoln is the one that always wants to play catch,” Coach Hoskins told me later. “He loves football and he’s already got an ‘offer’ from me to play for the Storm!”

Then it was back to work for the coach, who walked down the last steps and strided out on the field and toward the west sidelines.

In this sport of football, which so many of us are guilty of taking way too seriously, it was nice to see a head coach make time for a happy family moment. 

I’m sure such moments happen more often on Simpson’s level of play – which is NCAA Division III non-scholarship football – than on higher levels.  You especially see it post-game when the players and coaches, win or lose, take time to mingle on the field with parents and other fans.  That’s part of what’s made me a pretty loyal fan of D-III and other small-college divisions the past 35 years.

Simpson senior quarterback J Jensen III throws for the end zone. Jensen, who is from Katy, Texas, is a prolific passer even though he is only 5 ft. 7 in. tall.

The three schools I saw play football here in recent weeks have all given me some very special moments.

In the early 1990s, my late wife Carla Burt Offenburger completed her long-delayed undergraduate degree work at Simpson, earned a master’s at Iowa State U., then returned to Simpson to teach literature and composition.  In the mid ’90s, I realized it was probably time for me to give up my column writing at the Des Moines Register. 

In hanging out with Carla at Simpson, I developed “a new life plan,” as I called it.  We’d move to one of Iowa’s small colleges, and she’d teach literature and writing. I’d be the old guy who in the mornings would drink coffee with the kids at the student union, and in the afternoons keep the scorebook at the ball games.

And that’s pretty much what we did for the next decade – first at Loras College in Dubuque, then at Buena Vista U in Storm Lake, while maintaining contacts at Simpson College.  Carla also taught a couple classes at Upper Iowa University’s centers in West Des Moines and Ankeny, and I spent a “January term” at Coe College in Cedar Rapids.

We always had to work a little harder than I’d dreamed, but I did spend a whole lot of time hanging out with athletes and coaches at their ball games.

This season’s Buena Vista team in a pre-game prayer at Simpson.

I recall being at a Buena Vista-at-Simpson football game here on a cold late-season Saturday in 1997 when Simpson was seeking its ninth consecutive win over BV.  By halftime, legendary Simpson coach Jim Williams had his team well on the way to what would become a 57-14 victory.  I meandered over to the concession stand for hot chocolate, and chanced to run into my friend Steve Jennings, the Simpson president.

“Jennings,” I said to him, “you know what I think?  I think you’re putting too much emphasis on football here at Simpson.”

He laughed, took a drink of his own hot chocolate and said, “Believe me, I am starting to hear some of that!”

At Loras in the fall of 1998, where I was serving as “writer in residence” and teaching journalism, head football coach Bob Bierie, another legend, named me “Honorary Coach” of the Duhawks for the Homecoming game.

Bierie especially liked me when he heard from his players that as a strict requirement in the courses I was teaching, each of my students was required to stand individually in front of the class sometime during the semester, and sing the fight song “Hail Loras Varsity,” which almost none of them knew.  That’s always been a requirement of classes I’ve taught, no matter which college.

For Homecoming, my Loras lads were hosting the Cornell College Rams in Loras’ “Rock Bowl” stadium, which has a bluff-top view of downtown Dubuque and the Mississippi River.  In the locker room pre-game, Bierie asked me if I wanted to say anything to the team.  I began my remarks telling the players that because I was a Catholic (then), I especially appreciated teaching at a Catholic college, that it was helping my own faith.  Then I turned to a graduate assistant coach, Matt Miller, who was stunned when I called on him.

“Miller,” I said, “I followed your career when you were quarterbacking Cornell and your dad Steve Miller was the Cornell head coach.” (He smiled.) “So, Miller,” I continued, “have you told us everything you know about Cornell’s team and what they might be trying to pull on us in this game?”   He winced, and said, “Yes.” I paused.  “Absolutely everything you know?” I said, pushing back.  “Yes,” he repeated.  I paused again, looked around the room, then back at him.  “Miller,” I said, “are you by chance Catholic?”  He got a funny look on his face, “Well, yes,” he said.  Then I looked at Coach Bierie and the Duhawks, and concluded, “I’m feeling a whole lot better about this now.  Let’s go get ’em!”

Loras won 34-26 that afternoon, allowing me to retire undefeated from college football coaching.

The Loras Duhawks attempting a field goal against the Simpson Storm in this fall’s game at Indianola.

Then I joined Buena Vista, where I had to help resurrect another forgotten fight song (“Beavers fighting with our spirits high/ With our colors brightly streeeeeaaaaaming./ We fight with valor and with dauntless care/ Let us shout it everywhere…”)

I became good friends with head football coach Joe Hadachek, and for a few years got the Loras vs. BV football rivalry named “The Battle for the Saddle Shoes,” in honor of my fashion fetish. I bought a pair of the black & white Bass shoes for the winning coach each year. If the head coach had already won a pair, he could award a pair of the shoes to one of his assistant coaches.

In the fall of 1999 or ’00 at BV, I had a journalism student Kelly Maricle who sang the National Anthem before a Beaver football game and she gave just a wonderful performance.  Late in that game, another of my students J Heathcote (“That’s ‘J’ with no period,” he made clear), a wide receiver, made several key catches as BV rallied to upset Coe College.

When I opened the next class, I asked everybody what the best part of Saturday’s game had been. Two or three raised hands and shouted, “When J caught all those passes!”  Well, I said, that was certainly good, but wasn’t what I was thinking. Then J Heathcote raised his hand, I called on him and he said, “When Kelly sang the National Anthem.”  Right, I said.  

That was such a fine D-III kind of moment.

Heathcote, by the way, had a hit with a feature he wrote on the sports pages of our student newspaper, “The Tack” (which had the motto, “The newspaper with a point”).  So anyway, J gave readers a glimpse inside the BV football program with his mini-column we titled, “Far-out with the wide-out.”

All of the above is why I love small college football.

The Simpson Storm’s mascot “Thunder.”

Back here at Simpson College, Coach Hoskins loves it, too. 

What I haven’t told you is that half his life ago, Hoskins was an outstanding quarterback at Wartburg College in Waverly.  He was a three-year starter in the old Iowa Conference, which has now become the “American Rivers Conference” when Nebraska Wesleyan University joined in 2016.

How has the league changed from his playing years at Wartburg now to his coaching years at Simpson?

“First of all, the make-up of the league has changed with Upper Iowa and Cornell no longer in the conference,” Hoskins said. “Obviously when Nebraska Wesleyan joined, that sparked the name change to the A-R-C. 

“One other big change is the head coaches in the league now – Coach Chris Winter now at Wartburg and I played and roomed together in college.  Coach Tyler Staker at Coe, Coach Austin Dickinson at Buena Vista and I played against each other 20 years ago, and they’re now back at their respective alma maters.

“Beyond that, the exposure for the league has been great, and it’s gained a lot more respect nationally with playoff teams making deeper runs in recent years. It’s still a great conference with talented players from all across the country.”

College Hall in the heart of the Simpson campus.

Then I asked him how he thinks the small-college football experience has changed in the past 20 years, and whether his players today ask him about that.

“They ask all the time!” Hoskins said. “There are certainly rules that have changed the practice format. In my playing days, we had three straight weeks of two-a-days in full pads.  Now you’re only allowed one practice a day in camp, with mandatory days-off built in.

“Another big change is in the use technology. We have less time on the field but a lot more time meeting in the classroom. We have drones and additional cameras on everything we do on the field, and that allows us to utilize a number of different film angles compared to when I played. This year the NCAA rules changed, and they now allow (computer) tablets on the sidelines to review film within games.  That’s a great tool for our players and coaches now.  I would have loved having that back in the day.”

But there’s one major similarity, then and now.

“Beyond all the rule changes, the experience is still all about relationships,” Hoskins said, “and we have a locker room full of great-character kids. Some things never change!”

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You can comment on this column below or write the columnist directly by email at chuck@offenburger.com.

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