Even the players who said they had a good experience at Iowa let their voices known that there was plenty of room for improvement. And I’ll admit, when I first heard about it, I tried to justify things in my mind, not that the actions were justified, but that this happens all over college football. But just because something is widespread does not make it right. And Iowa needs to be better.
To start, Chris Doyle has to go. He has had an incredible impact on the Iowa program, and I have no doubt that he is one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the nation and a huge reason for Iowa’s success. But let’s face it, this guy should have been fired after the rhabdo issue where he sent multiple players to the hospital for working them out so hard that their kidneys were bleeding. That’s about as bad as you can mess up as a strength and conditioning coach and if a single one of these allegations are true (which seems likely since there are at least a dozen), it’s time to move on from Doyle.
Kirk Ferentz is an absolute control freak (just about every college coach is), so I don’t really believe his claim of ignorance. I believe Kirk knew about just about all of these things, but to give him the benefit of the doubt, I don’t know if he understood how much it was affecting those players.
I think Kirk is pretty outward on wanting folks to conform, but it’s also pretty obvious that his version of conformity is conforming to traditional white standards. He wants to restrict any behavior outside of his norms, and it’s pretty easy to see how this would make black players uncomfortable and also afraid to speak out about their issues. I hope Kirk Ferentz, and the entire Iowa program, can use this chance to grow as leaders, and it leads to a more positive experience for the black athletes in the Hawkeye program.
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