Certainly how his stint at ISU ended has tarnished Larry's reputation, along with what has happened at subsequent stops and he has to own that. I also, however, remember some of the positives, and he would always speak what was on his mind. One of my favorite quotes was when he was asked what he thought about Tyray Pearson having the #2 FG% in all of division 1 basketball he responded, "Too bad whomever he is guarding is #1!"
CF Chronicles: Larry's Last Days
- Thread starter JStanz51
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Certainly how his stint at ISU ended has tarnished Larry's reputation, along with what has happened at subsequent stops and he has to own that. I also, however, remember some of the positives, and he would always speak what was on his mind. One of my favorite quotes was when he was asked what he thought about Tyray Pearson having the #2 FG% in all of division 1 basketball he responded, "Too bad whomever he is guarding is #1!"
But that’s kind of a **** move. It’s part of a bygone era and our beloved Johnny said things like this (although I’d say in a more joking way) but I’m not sure I’d appreciate a coach belittling his players often in the media.
I think the 2000 team was our best team. But it’s fair to point out that the north wasn’t as good that year and we had the two best south teams at home. Not to mention yep fewer conference games.
I remember seeing the picture on Deace's old sites forums. The kid who's party Larry crashed posted them and told the story. No one believed him and said it was a photo shop.
I also remember walking across central campus after the story broke and seeing a student rally in support of Larry on the steps of Beardsheer. Hiawatha Rutland was leading chants on a bullhorn. Good times!
So we all knew he was a drunk and many wanted him to come back as our coach. Does him trying to boink college kids at a party change anyone's opinion that he should have been allowed back>
I think the 2000 team was our best team. But it’s fair to point out that the north wasn’t as good that year and we had the two best south teams at home. Not to mention two fewer conference games.
Did we all though? We probably should have known but we all believed what we wanted to.
As an aside, in 2019, the register doesn’t break this. The pictures are on twitter right away. Hell maybe if Larry is thinking at all he’d realize it would get out. In 2004 the pictures were still film for Christ’s sake.
I never felt LE should have been fired over those pics from the MizzU party. I adamantly felt he should have been fired about a year+half earlier for what he did in Austin after the UT game.
President Geoffrey's comments after the firing point to other issues besides the MizzU incident and about what he valued from a head coach.
To this day, I'm still so pizzed we paid LE $950K to settle the lawsuit when I felt we had a lock-down case to fire 'for cause' (but I concede, as my Cyclone lawyer friend explained after the court case, 'for cause' should never be considered locked-down),
President Geoffrey's comments after the firing point to other issues besides the MizzU incident and about what he valued from a head coach.
To this day, I'm still so pizzed we paid LE $950K to settle the lawsuit when I felt we had a lock-down case to fire 'for cause' (but I concede, as my Cyclone lawyer friend explained after the court case, 'for cause' should never be considered locked-down),
Agree with your comment. I remember hearing that in a live interview on the radio as I was taking a drink of Diet Coke and almost spewed it all over my dashboard. It was a quick response, not one he had thought about ahead of time. Kind of like when Keith Murphy was interviewing Fred (as a player) and asking him a question as Murphy's voice audibly cracked. Murphy, "What was that?" Fred in rapid response, "Puberty?"
I had my company's basketball tickets right behind the ISU bench for an exhibition game--which we almost lost. Larry yanked Richard Evans from the game after he had blown assignments 2 or 3 times in a row. Richard walked past him and sat down. I won't quote him directly (it was obscenity laced) but he basically yelled that he had to put a guy (Stevie Johnson) back in the game with 4 fouls because Richard had his head stuck someplace making it difficult to see the sunshine.
For anyone who wants to know how the transition from Larry to Wayne went down and the Wayne Morgan years. Here you go. You won't find a more detailed review with player/coaches comments during that time than here. It's LONG though.
https://carmonwilson.wixsite.com/cy...2017/05/31/The-Wayne-Morgan-Era-In-retrospect
The sad thing is from everything I've heard from people over the years is his drinking was no secret to anyone who was around the program and athletic offices yet no one stepped in and tried to get him help before it was too late. One former player even told me it wasn't uncommon for Larry to have the smell of alcohol on his breath at practices. There's been stories shared here before about drunk Larry at a bar or restaurant in Ames and sometimes harassing the bartender so even within Ames it was pretty well known too apparently. Bruce Van De Velde supposedly knew about those photos WEEKS before the DM Register published them and chose to deal with the fall out and public opinion than head off the story in advance and make their own narrative by proactively releasing their own statement and how they were going to address the situation. After how that played out in the media BVD basically had no option other than fire him and some think that is exactly what he was hoping would happen which is why he let things play out they way they did.
I always wondered what would have happened if that mess with Larry had not happened as that first year under Wayne Morgan that had freshmen Stinson and Blalock. Larry was a much better game day coach than Morgan and Morgan was the top recruiter on his staff so makes you wonder if they could have re-stocked the program with some good recruits and got things back on track again.
After all we've been through since then having Pollard and Prohm running things is a breath of fresh air. Those are 2 high quality guys that are good at what they do and are men of good character as well. We had to go through some rough times to get where we are now but I think it's safe to say the current state of ISU athletics and it's major sports are in a pretty good spot going forward,
I always wondered what would have happened if that mess with Larry had not happened as that first year under Wayne Morgan that had freshmen Stinson and Blalock. Larry was a much better game day coach than Morgan and Morgan was the top recruiter on his staff so makes you wonder if they could have re-stocked the program with some good recruits and got things back on track again.
After all we've been through since then having Pollard and Prohm running things is a breath of fresh air. Those are 2 high quality guys that are good at what they do and are men of good character as well. We had to go through some rough times to get where we are now but I think it's safe to say the current state of ISU athletics and it's major sports are in a pretty good spot going forward,
Was this the year lute Olsen lied to get the one seed! Thus the screw job vs Michie state!!
That's the one I recall seeing. Someone posted in on an ISU message board that I visited, but no idea what the site was. Probably saw it there shortly before the main story broke.
The first official thing I saw was on PTI, back when I used to watch that frequently. You know how they have the scrolling menu to the right with the top stories/categories. And I saw "Eustachy" at or near the top. I didn't make any connection of the party photos to the PTI topic until they started the segment. I'm sure it had been published already in DMR before that, but not living in Iowa, I didn't see anything prior to that.
