 Marc MorehouseHi, I'm Marc Morehouse. I've covered sports for more than 15 years, mostly in Eastern Iowa. I've had Hayden Fry [...] |
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Ferentz awards Doyle assistant of the year
Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle watches as the team stretches during the team's open practice and Kids Day event Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)
CLIVE — Kirk Ferentz first got the idea in late January. The topic was the inaugural assistant coach of the year award.
You know where this is headed.
Iowa became immersed in the aftermath of the rhabdomyolysis outbreak that sent 13 players to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics after a strenuous workout in late January.
The outbreak, which a UI investigation later concluded had no root cause, happened under the watch of strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle, who bore the brunt of the waves of national criticism.
Tuesday night, Ferentz said a lot of the lessons players learn start with the strength and conditioning program and then announced to the Polk County I-Club that Doyle was Iowa’s most valuable coach of the year.
Doyle, who declined an interview request, accepted to a standing ovation and loud cheers. He also spoke publiclly for the first time since the rhabdo outbreak.
“We went through some well-documented difficult times this past offseason,” Doyle said. “Sometimes when we face adversity, you really find out what you’re made out of.
“The strength of the Iowa program is in the people, the character and community that has been developed under coach Ferentz and his leadership. That’s where it starts, with Kirk. He does his best stuff when there are tough times. That’s when you see Kirk’s best stuff, you see his best grit. That was certainly the case here.”
Doyle also thanked UI President Sally Mason and athletics director Gary Barta. He also spoke about the families involved in the rhabdo outbreak.
“Most importantly, the athletes’ families who were involved this past winter, their character, their strength,” Doyle said. “There’s a lot we can learn from this and move forward from there.
“We know we have an obligation to the people of the state of Iowa to come to work everyday and build a program that represents this state and the people in it the way they’d want it run. And we’re going to continue to do that.”
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Tell me this is a joke.
no mark, if the ‘award’ would have went to the special teams coach for letting the fake punt doom us at home to wisconsin, or ‘D’ line coach for letting OSU and Arizona convert on 4th and a million, THEN it would have been a joke.
wait. conditioning coach? wasn’t it this ‘conditioning’ that landed a dozen players in the hospital? man, i guess it is true what they say, you practically have to ki.ll yourself today (or in this case, ‘kill players’) to get accolades!
Mark – Your a joke.
This is great news! Doyle deserves the accolades!
Please let me clarify. I wasn’t implying that Doyle is a joke, or that he’s not good qt what he does, because I think that we all know that he is very good. Nevertheles, it’s hard to imagine worse timing. One kid landing in the hospital I would chalk up as a fluke, but thirteen. Sorry, thirteen isn’t a fluke. I’m not suggesting that the guy be crucified, but at a salary of a quarter of a million dollars a year, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to expect him to anticipate the possibility of inducing exertional rhabdo doing a workout like that after an extended break.
Finally, Doyle’s statements about the rhabdo situation sound disturbingly disingenuous like our good friend Coach Sweatervest over at tOSU when he talks about weathering ‘adversity.’ This implies that the rhabdo happened due to forces beyond anyone’s control – which could n’t be further from the truth. The National Strength and Conditioning Association (of which Doyle is a member) released a statement after the incident that said in part, “This workout is not common and has no scientific basis to be used to train college athletes.” I think that if we expect 19 & 20 year old college athletes to ‘man up’ when they make a mistake, we should expect at least as much from the coaches who are responsible for keeping these players safe. So far, Doyle hasn’t even hinted that he bears any responsibility.
Sorry about all the typos – I typed this on my iPhone.
No such luck. As a public relations move, it is as tone-deaf as it gets.
I would bet that all those Hawkeye players who have recently made it to the NFL would give Doyle very high grades along with the rest of the great Iowa coaching staff..
Boy, this is all just so important. Another strange day in the world of college sports …
Another drive by blogger. Next time Michael just keep on going without forcing us all to take cover from your indiscriminate sarcasm.
Thanks for stopping by everyone. Special thanks to Michael for denigrating my job. Cute pooch! Love dogs. Golden retriever? We have a wheaten terrier, a gentle, wonderful dog.
My guess is this was a heartfelt show of support and not the middle finger to national media or whatever. That’s just my guess.
Why can’t it be both? I’m sure it’s meant as a show of support for Doyle, but KF probably figures it’s a nice “F*** YOU” to the Dodds, Fordes and Doyels of the media.
I don’t think KF would use that forum and Doyle that way. But again, this is all interpretation that might be meaningless.
Marc, I agree that this is not an in-your-face to the media, at least I hope not. That is not KF’s style at all. I just question the timing of it in light of rhabdo-gate, or whatever it will come to be called in the years to come. I do not doubt that Coach Doyle cares deeply about his guys and was as blind-sided as anyone else by what happened, whatever conspiracies that McCauley or anyone else dreams up in his head. The timing, however, could end up causing a re-opening of a recent wound that has been addressed already. We will have to wait and see how it pans out.