From the corner chair

It's official: Heffernan leading Illinois wrestling

Dan Gable said he always felt Jim Heffernan was destined to be a wrestling “lifer.”

“It’s a good situation,” Gable, the former University of Iowa wrestling coach, said about Heffernan, who was named the 14th head wrestling coach at the University of Illinois on Tuesday. “I know that he’ll do a good job there.”

Heffernan, 45, was a four-time All-American for Gable at Iowa, winning an NCAA title in 1986. He then worked as a volunteer assistant with the Hawkeyes before embarking on his own career path, first as an assistant at Lehigh, then working with Mark Johnson, a former Iowa assistant himself, at Oregon State.

Heffernan went to Illinois with Johnson in 1992 and has been his top assistant since. Johnson retired last month.

“I kind of knew he would be a lifer in the sport when he came in,” Gable said in a telephone interview while flying from Washington, D.C., to Chicago. “He just had that passion for it.”

Heffernan is the fourth ex-Gable wrestler to land a Big Ten program, joining Barry Davis (Wisconsin), Duane Goldman (Indiana) and Tom Brands (Iowa). Northwestern Coach Tim Cysweski wrestled at Iowa when Gable was an assistant.

Gable said following Johnson won’t be easy. Johnson, with Heffernan at his side, coached the Illini to 10 Top-10 NCAA finishes in 17 seasons and had seven national champions and 45 All-Americans.

“He’s going to have to buckle down and get a little tougher than he has been probably even as assistant,” Gable said. “He’s moving up the ladder and if expects good results that commitment from him is going to make a big difference.”

Heffernan said he knows he has some “big shoes to fill.”

“Those expectations and goals are something I will continue to embrace as we continue on to the next chapter in Illini wrestling,” he said in a news release.

Gable thinks Heffernan is up for the task.

“He has a lot of good traits,” he said.

“He has paid his dues ... and he deserves this opportunity,” Johnson said in a news release.

Heffernan expected to be named Illini coach

The University of Illionis announced today it will name it's new wrestling coach this afternoon. Look for former Iowa standout Jim Heffernan, a long-time Mark Johnson assistant, to get the job.

Heffernan wouldn't comment Tuesday morning, but a source familiar with college wrestling said he will replace Johnson, a former Hawkeye assistant who retired last month.

Here is Heffernan's bio from www.fightingillini.com:

Jim Heffernan begins (just ended) his 17th season as Illinois' top assistant.

A 1986 NCAA 150-pound champion and four-time Big Ten Conference champion, Heffernan garnered the National Wrestling Coaches Association Assistant Coach of the Year honor in 2001 following the Illini's fifth-place national finish and second-place finish in the Big Ten.

Heffernan joined the Fighting Illini staff in May 1992 after serving as an assistant to head coach Mark Johnson at Oregon State for two years.

Heffernan's expertise as an assistant coach gained recognition in 1995 when he earned his first honor as Assistant Coach of the Year by the NWCA.

A 1987 graduate of the University of Iowa, Heffernan was a four-time All-American, while being a member of three Hawkeye NCAA and four Big Ten championship teams. Heffernan captained the Hawkeyes as a senior and grabbed Iowa's Male Athlete of the Year honor in 1987.

Heffernan began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Iowa before becoming an assistant coach at Lehigh University in 1988. He remained at Lehigh until moving to Oregon State in 1990.

He also coached the Cadet Wrestling Team at the world championships in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1992, and the USA World Espoir Team in 1989.

Heffernan graduated from national wrestling powerhouse St. Edward High School (Cleveland, Ohio), where he finished as a two-time high school state champion.

Heffernan and his wife, Rebecca, live in Champaign with their son, Sean, and daughter, Alex.

Heskett next ISU coach?

If Joe Heskett will become the next Iowa State wrestling coach, Ohio State Coach Tom Ryan isn't saying.

Heskett, a four-time all-American for the Cyclones and a member of Ryan's staff in Columbus, is being rumored as the next ISU coach after Cael Sanderson bolted to Penn State.

Ryan said Monday that those rumors were not true and "all speculation at this point."

He did say, however, that Heskett "has interviewed, he is interested and he's got a lot of pride in the place."

Ryan said Heskett, as of Monday, still was a member of the Buckeye coaching staff and, he hopes, will be for a long time.

"I'd hate to lose him," Ryan said.

This is what Brands wasn't talking about

Gazette sports columnist Mike Hlas wrote an excellent column for Friday's newspaper about Tom Brands and his new rivalry with new Penn State Coach Cael Sanderson.

Brands couldn't talk specifics, but below is what he was talking about. I know the Brands brothers wanted to land these two badly.

This is a story by Tom Fox of the paper in Lock Haven:

LOCK HAVEN - Penn State always ranked high on the list for Central Mountain junior wrestling standouts Andrew and Dylan Alton.

"It was always one of our top choices because it was close," Dylan said. "I wanted my parents to see us wrestle in college, and I knew if we were going to leave the state, it would have been a long trip for them."

When PSU announced recently that Cael Sanderson was going to be its new head coach, it was just the icing on the cake.

And the Altons figured, why wait?

The twins, both ranked No. 1 in the country in their respective weight classes by Amateur Wrestling News, gave their verbal commitment this morning to Penn State University and will continue their wrestling days in Happy Valley.

"I couldn't believe it when I heard that he was going to leave Iowa State and come to coach at Penn State," Andrew said. "It's exciting that we'll have an opportunity to learn from him. He knows what it takes to get to that next level. He knows how to train and what it takes mentally. Hopefully, he can teach it to us and we can reach the level that he has someday."

Sanderson has reached the pinnacle of the sport at the collegiate and Olympic level. He was the only undefeated four-time NCAA champion, finishing his career with a record of 159-0, and also won an Olympic gold medal at the 2004 Summer Games.

His resume as the coach of Iowa State was just as impressive. In his three years there, the Cyclones never finished any lower than fifth at the NCAA championships, and never had a wrestler not qualify for nationals.

The opportunity to wrestle for him was always on the Altons' minds. In fact, Iowa State was on their short list of schools, which ranged from PSU, Iowa, Iowa State and Nebraska.

"That was the deciding factor for me," Dylan said. "When Penn State hired him, that meant a lot. We know him pretty well, and know that he can train us for that next level. He's a pretty cool guy and is really down-to-earth. Now that he's close to us, that just made the decision a lot easier."

The Altons, who will be seniors in 2009-2010, have built up impressive scholastic resumes themselves.

Dylan, who wrestled at 145 last season, is a two-time state champion. He was 47-0 this season, defeating Cumberland Valley's Joey Napoli in the state final. Carrying an 89-match winning streak into next season, Dylan is 131-5 in his Central Mountain career with 70 career falls and 10 career technical falls. He's the No.1 ranked wrestler in the country at 145.

Andrew, who wrestled at 140 last season, won his first state title when he pinned Hempfield Area's Jake Bachman less than two minutes into the first period. Andrew has only lost one match in the last two years, finished with a record of 46-0 last season, and has a Central Mountain career record of 133-8 with 90 career falls. He is the No. 1 ranked wrestler in the nation at the 140-pound weight class.

Both should break the Clinton County record for wins, and the boys are Nos. 1 and 2 in the Clinton County top 15 single-season victories list. Andrew holds the county record for both falls in a career and single season, while Dylan was Central Mountain's first state champion in the sport and was named the PIAA Class AAA Most Outstanding Wrestling at the individual tournament in March.

Announcing the decision to attend Penn State now will let the twins focus on summer wrestling and their final year at Central Mountain without any questions as to their collegiate future.

"All along, we wanted to announce where we would attend before the senior season," Andrew said. "It is like a big weight has been lifted off our shoulders. I'm excited about the decision. I love the campus, and I really liked their business school. Plus, I'm going to receive a quality education. When we told our parents about the decision, they were pretty excited. My mom was happy because she didn't want us to be far away from home. My dad was supportive through the process and said it was our decision."

Now that they have given their verbal to PSU, the boys can focus on the sport they love. The next stop for both is the Junior World Team Trails in Colorado Springs. The event runs from May 18 through May 23. The top person at each weight then gets an opportunity to wrestle at the FILA Junior World Championships during the month of August in Ankara, Turkey.

Book review: The Interim

Recently finished the book "The Interim" by KCRG news anchor Chris Earl. Yes, the anchor guy from Wisconsin is an author, too, specializing in sports fiction.

It was a great read.

There were parts of the of 340-page book I would have edited, some minor typos and some style things I could have changed. But the story was wonderful.

Earl has published three books and "The Interim" is his second. He has a new one out now titled "The Last Out."

You can read more about Earl and his books at www.chrisearlbooks.com

This isn't some shameless plug for a colleague within the Gazette Family of Companies. I was pleasantly surprised when Chris told me he was an author and was impressed with the story "The Interim."

This novel follows the career path of Robb Markstran, a No. 2 TV sports anchor who wants to change jobs and become a basketball coach. He gets hired as the administrative assistant at "Wisconsin State," a Big Ten school in Madison in the shadow of the Wisconsin Badgers.

When the rest of the coaching staff is killed in a plane crash, Markstran gets the head coaching position.

He holds the team together through the tragedy, frustrating losses and a scandal while dealing with personal success and failures.

I have my favorite authors, guys like David Morrell who I read without fail. Reading sports all day on the job, I often stay away from sports novels.

But this is a very good story, well-written and interesting. I was pulled in right from the start and couldn't wait to get to the end.

It's a great book for sports fans and fiction fans.

Sanderson making right move?

Gazette sports journalist KJ Pilcher broke the news today that Cael Sanderson is leaving Iowa State for richer fields at Penn State.

The question now is why.

Why would Sanderson ditch is alma mater for Penn State, a school that has some rich wrestling tradition but runs nowhere near Ames' historic past?

It would be simple to say it's all about the benjamins. I've heard $500,000 a year for 5 years. That's $2.5 million. That's just a rumor, by the way.

That's a lot of change, a lot of security for a young and growing family.

I don't know Sanderson as well as many, but what I do know is he's not about money. This, I would guess, is not about only money.

My thinking is Sanderson is tired of playing second fiddle in this state. Tom Brands and the Iowa Hawkeyes have won two straight NCAA titles and have owned the Cyclones in recent duals.

Sanderson is an outstanding recruiter, but he'll never own Iowa like he can own Pennsylvania. That's big state with a lot of outstanding wrestlers. He can build a contender with wrestlers only from that state.

My guess is Sanderson wants to be the man in a state. The best he can hope for in Iowa is to share that title with Brands and company in Iowa City.

Sanderson wants to win a national title and, apparently, thinks that will come easier at PSU than ISU. He may be right.

I read many comments on various posts today and the common thought, even among ISU boosters, is the Cyclone athletics department is in trouble financially. Not cutting sports trouble yet, but strained like many, many others.

Maybe Sanderson didn't think he was getting the needed support in Ames. The crowds were always good, but not great. The administration, from the outside at least, seems to support the sport, but maybe something was happening internally we don't know about.

Don't rip into Sanderson for bailing on his alma mater, instead relish the job he did in three seasons and wish him the best in Happy Valley.

Sanderson wants to win. It's that simple.

Running in Boston

No, not me. Not this year.

I did qualify once, a long time ago, but that's a story for another day.

A total of 37 Eastern Iowa runners have entered Mondat’s 113th Boston Marathon, a historic 26.2-mile run through the streets of Hopkinton to Boston.

The Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest annual marathon, attracted nearly 22,000 finishers last year.

Here is a list of this years’s area entrants:

Amana — Dari Van Rheenan

Cedar Rapids — William Bradley, David Carney, Freddie Koontz, James Quigley, Eric Suthers, Beatrice Szalas, Donna Weeda Coralville — Jim Kee

Decorah — Molly Holkesvik

Epworth — Lee Valentine

Iowa City — Brian Bullis, Brian Busanich, Laura Dunn, Glen Fuhrmeister, Charlie Funk, Katie Funk, Jacob Heninger, David Moser, Bill Pringle, Jill Robertson, Tim Smith, Curtis Steyer, Michael Wagoner, Gene Wandling, Gary Whittington

Marion — Andrew Phillips

North Liberty — Dawn Cooksley, Barbara Lynn

Peosta — Russell Nieman

Swisher — Rae Lynn Lamparek

Vinton — Ramon Martinez

Washington — Mike Christensen, Shawn Loy

West Amana — Nathan Hopp

West Branch — Kathy Whiteside

West Union — Kim Wander

Arizona climbing

Just got back from a wonderful - and long - weekend in the Phoenix, Ariz., area.

My wife and I got to spend Saturday afternoon at the Arizona State track meet, watching our son, Jack, run for UNI. We spent the rest of the weekend with our friends, Kirk and Lisa Hobbs, and their three wonderful children - Max, Ben and Charles.

A highlight of the weekend was the mountain climbing Lisa and I did - first Camelback, then a "hill" they call Squaw Peak. Wow! Those climbs were wonderful.

Camelback took about 45 minutes to climb, grabbing for a rock or tree here and there and pulling ourselves up higher and higher. Sqauw Peek was shorter and was more of a hike, but it will went up and up and, in many areas, was downright scary, looking of the edge.

Although I'm not a fan of anything high, I would reccomend both climbs to anyone planning a trip to that area. It helps to be in good physical condition, but I saw a lot of folks taking breaks. I also saw several running!

NCAA reprimand's Iowa's Metcalf

Although this doesn't mention what the punishment is, here is the latest on the Brent Metcalf-Darrion Caldwell saga:

"The NCAA Division I Wrestling Games Committee has reprimanded University of Iowa student-athlete Brent Metcalf for inappropriate behavior following the 149-pound weight class match in the 2009 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships.

"Specifically, Mr. Metcalf’s post-match actions of aggressively shoving his opponent jeopardized that student-athlete’s safety. Because of these actions, the committee decided to issue a public reprimand to Mr. Metcalf.

The wrestling committee was disappointed in Mr. Metcalf’s actions and strongly believes the championships should not be tarnished by such acts.

Fay named Wrestler of Year

CEDAR FALLS — University of Northern Iowa senior Moza Fay has been named the Western Wrestling Conference wrestler of the year.

A former Anamosa prep, Fay won the honor for the second year in a row after earning his second All-America honor with a sixth-place finish at 165 pounds at this year’s NCAA Championships.

Fay posted a season mark of 29-7 overall mark this past season and ended his career with 119 wins and 37 falls.

Wyoming’s Mark Branch was voted Coach of the Year and Wyoming’s Joe LeBlanc was named Freshman of the Year.

Where are the box scores?

This is a question I've been hearing a lot the past two days, with the start of the Major League baseball season.

I received several calls and e-mails wanting an explanation. Some readers have threatened to drop the paper, others have been understanding.

The simple answer is we don't have the space to dedicate an entire page to baseball in the newspaper Monday through Saturday. We will continue to have a full baseball page in Sunday's Sports section.

With reduced space in the Sports section on a daily basis, we have been forced to make some tough decisions. We've dropped NBA boxes and NHL sums already, with little to no complaints. We needed to reduce our baseball "package" and have done so by reducing the number of boxscores we run.

We will continue to feature baseball games on the cover of the Sports section when we can. We will run boxscores from all the Midwest teams - Cubs, White Sox, Twins, Royals, Brewers, Cardinals.

We will run features on players of interest when space is available. We will continue to provide standings and scores on a daily basis.

But our focus will continue to be on local sports, events and features on players and teams that are in our backyard. The University of Iowa, Iowa State, Northern Iowa will remain important to us, as well as the 80-some high school teams in the newspapers circulation area.

It's a changing world and there are many ways to get information these days. That's why we want to focus on local, something, for the most part, our readers cannot get from the ESPNS and various Web sites around the globe.

I hope you will give this new format a chance, take a look at the whole package and not just the items we've dropped but, hopefully, the value we've added.

Pro golfers coming to C.R.

My Sunday column this week will deal with the upcoming Duramed Futures Tour bringing a tournament to the Metro area.

The inaugural Ladies Titan Tire Challenge is June 5-7 at Hunter's Ridge in Marion.

Former Cedar Rapids Washington H.S. AD Denny Goettel, 63, is co-director of the event, working alongside Charity Tyler of the Junior League. Their challenge is selling the tournament to area businesses and the public.

“It’s been an adventure,” Goettel said. “But I’m excited about the event.”

The first step is introducing the Duramed Futures Tour to Eastern Iowa.

So what is it? Here are a few of the “fast facts” provided by the tour:

- The Duramed Futures Tour is the LPGA’s Developmental Tour, in its 29th season.

- Through 2008, tour alums own a total of 345 LPGA victories and 37 major championships.

- Tour alums won 17 of 34 LPGA tournaments and two of the four major championships in 2008.

- The tour’s 2009 schedule includes 17 tournaments in 14 states, including its debut in Iowa.

- Tournament purse for 2009 is nearly $1.8 million, including $110,000 for the Ladies Titan Tires Challenge.

- The tour’s 2009 roster has attracted professionals from 31 different nations and 40 U.S. states, including Jill Frantz of Iowa City, the lone Iowan on the tour.

“It will be a pretty unique event,” Goettel said. “We really want to make it a community event ... family entertainment.

Wariner sounds off

Olympic gold medalist Jeremy Wariner can’t wait to redeem himself after a disappointing runner-up finish in the 400-meter dash in 2008 Olympics.

That road to recovery will get a jump start later this month at the 100th Drake Relays.

Drake Relays director Brian Brown announced Wednesday that Peredita Felicien and Wariner will compete in special invitational events on April 25, the final day of the four-day meet. Felicien will run the special invitational 100-meter hurdles, challenging Des Moines native and 2008 Olympic finalist Lolo Jones, and Wariner will run his specialty, the 400 dash.

Wariner, who won Olympic gold in the 400 and 1,600 relay at the 2004 Games but took silver in the 400 last summer, did not participate in the teleconference Wednesday. But he told the Dallas Morning News last week he’s looking forward to an outstanding 2009 season.

“The way I ended my season last year, I didn’t want it to end that way,” he said before running the 200 at the UTA Invitational at Texas-Arlington on Saturday. “So this year I want to change it. That’s why I’m working harder, and I got refocused.”

Wariner changed coach last year, but said that had nothing to do with his Olympic silver medal in the 400. He did win gold in the 1,600 relay again.

“I’m tired of people saying that honestly,” Wariner told the Morning News. “Nothing changed last year. It was just unfortunate things happened. For one, LaShawn Merritt got better. “I learned from my mistakes. I learned from the races that I lost, what I did wrong. I learned how to correct them.”