College football provides three things for a student athlete:
1. Access to a great education.
2. A chance to grow as an athlete and play the sport you love (and for some, a chance to play pro ball).
3. An opportunity to grow from a young man to a “great man” through the mentor ship of coaches and the lessons they learn about effort, commitment, trust, teamwork, etc. All coaches talk about how this is an important and rewarding part of being a head coach.
I am a diehard cyclone fan, but I have always admired Coach KF and considered him one of the good-guys in college athletics. Before this recent news, I would have said the Iowa program nailed all three of these. I would have thought that Coach KF’s culture was a model for item #3 above. Which is why I find this so disappointing and surprising.