The Spring Game is a Game in Name Only
Iowa State head football coach Matt Campbell has long-disdained spring games, and now others are "catching up" with him
THE WARM-UP
Why waste the 15th practice of spring football on a so-called “game?” A dog and pony and pigskin show that may or may not feature crappy weather? A meaningless exercise that may or may not attract a crowd?
Pshaw!
That’s Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell’s thinking anyway. The Campbell era will encompass a full decade once the 2025 season ends — and that’s remarkable longevity in what’s become a wide, wide, wild world of college sports.
The Cyclones will open the season on Aug. 23 against arch-rival Kansas State in Dublin, Ireland. I’ll be there to cover the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, unless the world ends before that, which, you know, is always on the table in these troubled times.
Will any of you be going? If so, what are your plans? I’d love to meet up sometime before the game, work schedule permitting. But I’ll be in Ireland for 10 days before the game journeying off the most heavily beaten path in Counties Mayo and Donegal.
I’ll write more about my plans on that trip as it nears — so back to sticking to sports. Specifically the “spring game,” a.k.a. the bane of Campbell’s existence. Here’s a link to my article about his general dismissal of the concept, which occasionally he revisits (heck, ISU had a “spring game” last April, which indeed was in name only).
I’ll also add links to my other most recent football stories, below. Busy time of year is winding down — until I start covering big track and field events for the Gazette at Drake Stadium soon. See ya’ at the big blue oval.
On star ISU safety Jeremiah Cooper emerging as a leader in his senior season.
On second-year Cyclones safety Marcus Neal’s transformation thanks to offseason “football school.”
IN CLOSING
I’m not sticking to sports in my closing thought today. So here goes. Can we all agree that the USA should not — ever — be in the business of “deporting” people to foreign prisons? I mean, nobody should be subjected to that, whether documented or undocumented. Right?
Also, please read Sarah Kendzior’s excellent new book, “The Last American Road Trip.” It’s hauntingly beautiful and deeply terrifying all at once. It’s a road map that links the past to the present and refuses to give up on the future. As Kendzior often says, America is purple, like a bruise. Ain’t it, though?
I’m SO PROUD (nod to Paul Rhoads) to be a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please peruse the illustrious and extensive list below and subscribe and support as you’re able. Thanks!
Meet our writers
Newcomers: Here is a link to the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Sunday Roundup, where you can get a compilation of our members’ work published the previous week.
The Iowa Writers Collaborative is made up of some of the foremost regional journalists in the country.
Each writer is independent and has a Substack of their own.
Who We Are
Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Roster
Des Moines Metro
Chip Albright: Chip Happens
Rekha Basu: Shouts and Whispers
Kelsey Bigelow: There’s a Poem in That
Dartanyan L. Brown: My Integrated Life
Jane Burns: The Crossover
Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media
Christina Fernández-Morrow: Hola Iowa
Daniel P. Finney: Paragraph Stacker
Abena Sankofa Imhotep: The Imhotep Report
Wini Moranville: Wini’s Food Stories
Kyle Munson: Kyle Munson’s Main Street
John Naughton: My Life in Color
Dave Price: Dave Price’s Perspective
Teresa Zilk: Talking Good
West Des Moines
Jane Nguyen: The Asian Iowan
Norwalk
Macey Shofroth: The Midwest Creative
Clive
Dennis Goldford: Let’s Talk Politics
Altoona
Ken Chester: TecMobility
Bondurant
Kali White VanBaale: Mind the Gap
Ankeny
Maxwell Schaeffer: Maxwell’s Voice
Rob Gray: Rob Gray’s Area
Christie Vilsack: Common Ground, Van Meter
Connie Taylor, Grandma’s Recipe Box, Des Moines
Eastern Iowa
Cedar Rapids
Todd Dorman: 24-hour Dorman
Oelwein
John Crabtree: Though the Heavens Fall
Carol Montag: Monday’s Music
Jeff Morrison: Between Two Rivers
Iowa City
Nina Elkadi: Corn Belt Confidential
Michael Judge: The First Person
Ty Rushing: Ty’s Take
Zachary Oren Smith: Cornhole Champions
North Liberty
Steve Semken: Ice Cube Press, LLC
Davenport (Quad Cities)
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi
Alison McGaughey: In the Fields
Eldridge
Deidre Cox Baker: Baker’s Heartbeat
Waterloo
Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley
Elkader
Larry Stone: Listening to the Land
Boone County
Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business
Quad Cities
Tory Brecht: Brecht’s Beat
Northwestern Iowa
Storm Lake
Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook
Joan Zwagerman: Nuts and Bolts
Carroll
Douglas Burns: The Iowa Mercury
Sioux City
Taylor Decker: Taylor’s Millennial Mindset
Sioux Center
Nicole Baart: This Stays Here
Okoboji
David Thoreson: Northwest Passages
Northern Iowa
St. Ansgar
Kurtis Meyer: Showing Up
Decorah
Hannah Breckbill: Humble Hands Harvest
Southern Iowa
Lovilia
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt
Bussey
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture
Ottumwa
Rachelle Chase: Reading with Rachelle
Central-West Iowa
Jefferson
Chad Elliott: Iowa’s Renaissance Man
Yetter
Darcy Maulsby: Keepin’ It Rural
Boone County
Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business
Southwestern Iowa
Creston
Sarah Scull: The Piecemaker
Kathryn Severing Fox: Creston
South-Central Iowa
Earlham
Jason Walsmith: The Racontourist
Madison County
Debra Engle: A Whole New World
Winterset
Marianne Fons: Reporting From Quiltropolis
Vicki Minor: Relatively Minor
Vicki Minor: Narratives and Notes
Southeastern Iowa
Washington
Daniel Henderson: Things We Don’t Talk About, Like Religion
Marengo
Avery Gregurich: The Five and Dime
Kalona
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land
Iowa at Large
Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin
Randy Evans: Stray Thoughts
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck
Arnold Garson: Second Thoughts
Nik Heftman: The Seven Times
Rick Jost: Biz Whispers: Fresh Iowa Business News and Commentary
Iowa Capital Dispatch
Black Iowa News: Dana James
Letters From Iowans
Hola Iowa
Diana Wright: Startup Iowa’s Hot List
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger
Out of State with an Iowa Connection
Romen Borsellino: Hollywood, CA
District of Columbia
Peter Hedges: New York, NY
Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.
Michigan
Phoebe Wall Howard: Shifting Gears, Detroit, MI
Massachusetts
Chris Gloninger: Weathering Climate Change, MA
Florida
Stacey Walker: Dispatch Revolution, FL
Hi Rob. Well I get what Coach Campbell is saying. But for an old ISU alum like me who harkens back to the halcyon days of Earle Bruce, that spring game was the last vestiges of what was ISU's annual Veishea celebration, which unfortunately deteriorated into a big and sometimes violent drunk and was canceled for good in 2014. I remember telling my son that a car was overturned and set afire out in front of the Jimmy John's on Welch Avenue where we ate before attending our last spring game during Coach Rhoads' time.
Working for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier then, I also interviewed celebrated Iowa-born opera star Simon Estes, teaching at ISU and Wartburg at the time, who would have been Veishea grand marshal that year, about the event's cancellation for good and for all time. My boss, who was a Hawkeye alum, didn't get the signficance of it at all and wondered why the hell I was even doing the story (um, because it involved an international opera star living in our coverage area and we do have Iowa State readers in our area?) . In Iowa City of course, the spring game was such a sacred ritual that I recall a couple actually got married on the field at halftime back in the Hayden Fry era. And now they have "Fryfest" worshipping the legacy of the man who bailed Iowa fooball out of the dark days of the Ray Nagel, Frank Lauterbur and Bob Commings eras that some Hawk fans today are too young or too spoiled by decades of success to remember. So they shouldn't begrudge us older 'Clones at at least the memory of our own seemingly silly but fun rituals.
When I was in school, of course as a dormie I thought Veishea was just a showcase for the frats. But now that I'm old, I miss it. I miss the cardinal and gold tulips on campus (and maybe they still do that), the parade, all the families on central campus and the kids running up to see and hug Cy like Santa or Mickey Mouse at Disneyland; they even had a Stars over Veishea variety show. My sis and brother in law brought my then-little niece one year and she just loved the parade. Now if you say "Veishea," someone will either respond with a blank stare or say "Gesundheit!"
But as the expert ESPN analysts observed during the Pop Tarts Bowl, I guess we Cyclones out in that big cornfield west of Chicago known as Iowa should be happy with our tap water and pool tables. And now we have a trophy in the Jacobson Building with a working toaster too!