Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Eight former Hawkeye football players demand $20M from the University of Iowa

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

News broke over the weekend regarding eight former Iowa Hawkeye football players demanding money and personnel changes at the University of Iowa. We break down what we know and give you our thoughts on today's episode.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BuiltGoVisit BuiltGO.com and use promo code “LOCKED,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back, Hawkeye Nation, to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes Podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and today's episode is brought to you by Built Bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get 20% off your next order. And on today's show, a couple things. Obviously, I would love to be able to get into the Iowa vs. Purdue game. We're going to touch on a few things there, but we're going to focus most of that

effort on Iowa vs. Purdue on the following show or the upcoming shows. Today, though, much more important than that, we're going to talk about the recent lawsuit. I'm sure you heard this on some of the other Iowa shows. I wanted to get an episode out this morning or yesterday morning, I should say. At this point, you're listening to this Tuesday morning, but I did have some friends in town and I wanted to make sure I'm obviously giving the time and the day that they deserve considering they came out and flew out to see me. So I want to make sure I was doing that, but I do want to make sure I cover this because

it's a very important topic to discuss and we've discussed it quite a few times here on the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. So we're going to get into that. That's going to be most of the show today. We're going to hit on what happened, and then we'll give some thoughts on it and whatnot and go through that. Before we do that, though, a few things I do want to touch on because I do think it is important as well. On Iowa had their last podcast episode hosted by Scott and Mark. They have done a fantastic job over the last almost decade hosting that show.

No longer going to be happening. Obviously, a sad day for the Iowa Hawkeye podcasting community. Kyler Casper, son of Kevin Casper, he got an Iowa offer and his recruiting seems to be exploding from an offer standpoint. Awesome stuff for him. We're going to talk about that. I do think it's worth talking about. When I talked to Kevin, he was so excited about the opportunities and potential that his son had. I want to make sure I give that the due diligence it deserves. And then Jordan Oladukun, a three-star corner out of Florida. If you remember, he was the one who committed to Iowa, decommitted to Iowa a week later, recommitted to Iowa, and now has decommitted from Iowa again. I want to give some thoughts on that. I think it's important as well.

First and foremost, he's a kid. He's an old teenager, I guess to give some thoughts on that. I think it's important as well. First and foremost, he's a kid. He's an old teenager, I guess, young kid, young adult, whatever you may say. Be respectful of his decision. We don't know what's going on with him. We don't know what his thoughts are. You can make assumptions. I certainly have, but my assumptions are not what he's going through. So whatever he wants to do, it's his own choice. But I think as Iowa fans, we need to be respectful of that choice. And as an Iowa fan, personally, if he's going to decommit twice from our school already, I don't care to have him on the team. I wish him the absolute best. Best of luck going forward. Hope he has a fantastic college career. If he's unsure or uncertain, you definitely

shouldn't be committing. And I think from an Iowa standpoint, that probably puts the nail in the coffin from an opportunity for him to return to Iowa. They want people who are committed to the program and committed to being Iowa Hawkeyes. And I don't seem to be getting that sense of a commitment from him. And again, making a small assumption there, but that's kind of my thoughts. a commitment from him and again, making a small assumption there, but that's kind of my thoughts, but let's, let's hit into the heavy stuff. Um, so it came out this weekend that eight former Iowa Hawkeye football players, um, have officially demanded $20 million in compensation from the university of Iowa. And they've demanded the firing of athletic director, Gary Barta, head coach, Kirk Ferentz and and assistant coach Brian Ferentz.

It was a letter that was sent on October 5th, and they alleged that the Ferentzes and Gary Barta were responsible for intentional racial discrimination during their tenures. So it sounds like the same guy, the civil rights attorney, DeMario Solomon Simmons, sent the letter, and this is for Akram Wadley, former wide receiver Kevontae Martin-Manley, defensive back Maurice Fleming, Andre Harris, Marcel Jolie, Aaron Menz, Jonathan Parker, and Reggie Spearman. Obviously, this is something that should not be taken lightly. I think it's clearly there's whenever things come out like this, it's always important to not just quickly judge either side. There's always two sides to every story. I think that's the first part I want to get out and I'll

give my thoughts on this in a little bit, but first and foremost, two sides to every story. I think it's definitely worth, you know, obviously looking at regardless when things come out like this, regardless of how you feel about some of these players, it is important to try to understand maybe where they're coming from or understand why things are coming out and what they're looking for. If they feel like they have not been given the time of day or feel like the actions that were taken to account for the racial bias and discrimination that was alleged in June, starting with that James Daniels tweet, if that was not enough, I do think it is important to continue to listen to these players. I've always been pro player throughout the course of the summer.

I've been very vocal about being willing to listen to anyone who has a concern. As it seems, the Iowa football program has done as well. I think Kirk Ferentz has done an outstanding job of listening and reflecting. And I was actually having a conversation with some friends this week who are actually Cyclone fans. And they asked me about that and said it seemed kind of interesting coming out of the Iowa program. And I explained my thoughts and basically that there clearly were some issues. I don't think it was intentional racial bias by Kirk or by Brian or Gary Barta, but that is not, you know, it's not for me to tell someone how to perceive something. And the perception was that it was holding back

certain races more than others. And that I'm, I understand that. I mean, some of the policies that were in place, I think Kirk had good intentions, but they were badly aligned with the people that he was representing with those intentions. And it seems like they've done a lot to get better. And everything we hear coming out of the Iowa football program now and by black athletes is positivity from the players, from the coaches, excitement about the direction of the program. excitement about the direction of the program. So to me, there seems to be some good progress being made within the Iowa football program. They let go of Chris Doyle after 21 years.

It sounds like a lot of players really supported that. And for the most part, when you hear from former players talking about alleged racial bias and whatnot, they almost always don't mention Kirk Ferentz. They talk very highly about Kirk. They talk very highly about what he's done for the program and that he's the guy who can lead Iowa out of this and to a better spot going forward. So that is my initial thought. That's kind of the demand. If the demands are not met, it sounds like they're going to file a civil lawsuit against the University of Iowa. They also want a black male senior administrator position as part of the Iowa athletics. They want anti-racist training for the athletic staff and a board of advisors that includes black players and tuition waivers for any black athlete who did not graduate during Ference's time as head coach.

waivers for any black athlete who did not graduate during Ferentz's time as head coach. And then the final thing I want to touch on is that the University of Iowa General Counsel, Carol Reasoner, did say that we respectfully decline your monetary and personal demands, personnel demands, excuse me. And Kirk Ferentz also issued a statement saying he's deeply committed to helping anyone and everyone who joins the Iowa football program reach their full potential both on and off the field according to Keith Murphy Murphy I'm disappointed to receive this type of demand letter due to the threat of litigation I am not able to address the specific comments made by our former players as you may know this past summer we made adjustments to create a more inclusive and welcoming environment for all of

our student-athletes these changes include both policies and rules as well as an expanded leadership council of current players and a new advisory committee comprised of former players. I'm deeply committed to helping everyone who joins the Hawkeye football program reach their full potential on and off the field. My focus is now on our current players who are preparing for our first game this Saturday. So that's where we are. Coming up on segment number two, I'm going to get into, I think, why a lot of Iowa fans are pretty upset about seeing this and why I can support that. So we're going to be touching on that on segment number two. Before we get into that, though, I have a very important message for you because if you're listening to the show, you obviously love the Iowa Hawkeyes. You probably follow football

pretty closely, but it probably isn't your full time job. Personally for me, I work a lot. I have two jobs. I have my full time job and then I have the analyst here as a host of Locked on Hawkeyes covering everything and anything surrounding the Iowa Hawkeyes. I'm also a

full time husband. I'm a dog dad and a cat dad. I got two dogs and a cat and obviously all the responsibilities that come with owning a home. It always feels like I am on though. I'm constantly working. I'm constantly moving. I'm constantly doing something for the house. And sometimes I just need a moment to chill. I just want to hit a reset button to get ready for what is next. Just take a second to relax, right? And when I need to do that, I grab myself a Coors Light. I'm not kidding. I live in Denver, Colorado. I live 10 minutes away from Golden, Colorado, where Coors Light is brewed, and it is the beer I choose when I want to chill. Mountain cold refreshment made to chill.

Literally, Coors Light is cold lagered, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's literally made to chill. It's as crisp and refreshing ased, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's literally made to chill. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. And believe me, I would know. I live here. It was about 30 degrees yesterday when I hit the golf course. And, of course, I brought an ice-cold Coors Light with me. The Rockies were blue.

The Coors Light was crisp. And it was absolutely delicious. Like I said, Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. And right now, they have a fantastic opportunity for you. You don't have to go to the store if you want to get that Coors Light that you need to chill and relax during your day. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door at get.coorslight.com Right now,

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17 grams of protein, 130 calories, four grams of sugar, and four grams of net carbs. Right now, go to BiltBar.com and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get 20% off your next order. Use promo code LOCKEDON for 20% off at BiltBar.com. And as we were talking about before we took a quick break and talked to you about the sponsors of the show today, that lawsuit happened this week. They're looking at at least filing a civil lawsuit. And I wanted to touch on why some of these things are concerning. A couple things

that concern me about this lawsuit. First, the timing to me is very interesting. I find it interesting that the lawsuit comes out a week before Iowa's first game. That to me seems a little bit suspicious. We've been talking about this since the beginning of June. I think what James Daniels did for the Iowa football program is huge. It was such a great step for the direction of this program to build and develop this program even more going forward.

And that was four months ago. I know lawsuits take a long time to get going, but they don't take four months. If you felt like there was not enough done after the Hush Blackwell investigation that concluded that there was, Iowa was taking the right steps, we should have been hearing

about it sooner than this, is my first thought. Also, I would not, I don't want to question any man's character, and if you have thoughts on this, please, I would love to hear about it. If Akram or Kervante or any of those guys want to come on the show. I can't speak to the other guys.

I don't have as much familiarity with them. Kervante Martin-Manley was actually the very first person I had on this show. And the way I got him on this show, I was young, hungry. I mean, it was three years ago. I was starting out, wanted to get a show together that Iowa fans would love. And you've all shown me so much great support over the last couple years. But when you're first starting out, getting the all-time receptions leader for Iowa Hawkeye is a huge deal.

So, you know, Kavante Martin-Manley actually reached out to me asking if I wanted autographs. Asking if I wanted autographed pictures from him. And I said, you know, Kavante Martin Manley actually reached out to me asking if I wanted autographs, asking if I wanted autographed pictures from him. Um, and I said, you know what? Sure. I'll take autographed picture. If you come on my podcast, I was hoping to get an Iowa football player. And, you know, my first thing is Kavante was always very gracious and nice to me. Um, I, I paid for the autographed ball pictures. He sent me 10 for 20 bucks.

Um, it was a deal he wanted to, to definitely promote on the show that we did. And so I will forever be gracious for him hopping on the show and talking to me and talking about his time at Iowa. But I would not be doing you justice if I left it at that. Again, thank you to him for coming on. In my conversation with him, it was definitely one of the more vague conversations I had. I mean, he didn't want to talk about what he was doing now. And to each their own.

You don't have to talk about what you're doing now. I don't want to speculate on anything. But the fact that I had to pay for autographs to get him to come on the show. And I've had a lot of awesome people on the show. We had Ricky Stanzi. We have Matt Vandenberg. LaShawn Daniels, who I thought we had a great conversation. Kevin Casper, Quinn Early.

There's been so many Iowa Hawkeyes we've had. Drew Tate. And that was one of my least favorite interviews that I've done. Again, nice guy, but just didn't really want to talk about a lot of things, which I thought was interesting, but always spoke very highly of the Iowa football program. So two years ago, spoke very highly, glowingly of Kirk Ferentz, glowingly of the Iowa Hawkeye football program.

So to then come out and do this is very interesting to me. Akram Wadley, if you are on Iowa Hawkeye Twitter, you know how much he has screwed a lot of people out. And I don't, again, if you've listened to the show, you know I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. If you felt like this was happening, if you perceive this happening, I want to listen to you. Some people put themselves in a position that doesn't warrant as much consideration. And I tend to have a little bit less of respect for it. And I tend to have a little bit less of respect for it.

People who steal people's money for autographs they don't actually deliver, to me, takes away a lot of credibility. And then I think one of the things that was alleged in the lawsuit was the fact that Kirk Ferentz didn't do enough to get these guys to the NFL. And, you know, Akram Wadley and Kevontae Martin-Manley are the two headliners there. So let's just, let's go on that. Let's talk a little bit about that as an issue. Akram Wadley was considered a potential first round pick going into his senior season. He got the ball a lot that year and played really well. his senior season. He got the ball a lot that year and played really well. But at the end of the day,

as a 194 pound, five foot eight running back, five foot, yeah, five foot seven, five foot eight, who ran a 4.54 40 yard dash. His vertical leap was only 32 inches. He only bench pressed 12 reps. He did not broad jump. His D. It was terrible. That is not going to get you in the NFL. And when you're that small and you don't have the quickness that you expect from a small guy, I mean, on tape, I agree. I mean, Akram Wadley is explosive. We've always been very high on Akram Wadley on the show. You see him on

game film and whatnot. He's very talented, but he got an opportunity with Tennessee and got cut. They were able to see him in practice. NFL teams are not going to care about all these extra stuff. If you can play football, you're going to get a shot. And they did not feel like he was worth being on their team. The measurables don't paint that picture either. So I struggle with the concept of Kirk Ferentz not doing enough to help him get to the NFL. It seems like in what Kirk has said in the past is that he's talked about all the things he did do for Akron Wilde.

So that's concerning to me. Kevontae Martin-Manley. Let's go into that one. 198 pounds, coming out of college. He was listed as 6' exactly. His 4-yard dash time, 4.58 seconds. His 3-cone drill, 6.94. That's pretty solid. I'll give him that.

Broad jump, 124 inches. Not great by any means. 20-hour shuttle, 4.21 seconds. So that is not great. And we have not seen a lot of Iowa wide receivers really have a lot of success in the NFL in general. Kevontae Martin mainly put up some fantastic statistics because he was the go-to option. That does not mean he was made and ready for the NFL. I definitely thought he had an opportunity, but he did not get drafted.

He also didn't really, he was on the practice, or sorry, in a training camp for a little bit, but didn't go any further than that. You cannot tell me Kevontae Martin Manley, if he was a great NFL player, wouldn't have gotten an opportunity. He clearly had the exposure from a catch perspective, but the things you need from a measurable perspective as a wide receiver just weren't there. And again, I don't want to speak to his character, but he was in a training camp. If they liked the guy, they would have kept the guy. So I struggle with the concept that Kirk Ferentz did not do enough for those guys to get to the NFL.

That, to me, is tough for me to imagine. That being said, on segment number three, we're going to talk a little bit more about this and also talk about some of the allegations that Kirk Ferentz is not good to former Iowa Hawkeyes because I adamantly oppose that. But we're going to talk about that on segment number three. All right, we are back for our third and our final segment of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. And again, I wanted to get into the Iowa vs. Purdue stuff,

but this is too important not to talk about. And I want you to form your own opinions. I want to know your thoughts on this. I am not the expert by any means. This is just my thoughts. I wanted to give you the background and give you some of the perceptions. Again, I think the main thing is let the process play out. It seems like I said, the timing is questionable. The two of the players that are in that lawsuit, I would argue, are pretty questionable as well. I do think there was a lot of room for growth and a lot of opportunity. And I think what James Daniels did

for this program cannot be measured in any way because it was so huge for the program. It was such a great step in that program to get the Iowa Hawkeyes and make them even better. And a lot of the former players have also talked about that. They want to leave Iowa in a better place. They did this to improve Iowa. And this doesn't seem like that's actually the case. So to me, that seems pretty questionable. There's a lot that's going to go on with this and continue to go on with this over the next couple weeks, couple months probably. And we're obviously going to continue to break that down.

Also, as of last night, the civil rights attorney that is representing these Iowa Hawkeyes, DeMario Solomon Simmons, did release a statement. I would highly recommend checking that out. You can search on the internet did release a statement. I would highly recommend checking that out. You can search on the internet, get that statement. I don't want to go through the entire thing here. One of the things I found interesting about that was even mentioning the fact that Iowa paid $1.1 million to separate from strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle. I want to talk about that for a second. That was actually probably the cheapest option just to get rid of it and put it to bed. They probably would have had to go through a lot of legal fees to fight Chris Doyle on

that money. And by doing that, they can continue to, they can start moving on and getting out of that very quickly. So I'd actually think that was, I mean, no, it makes it, it can be tough when you see $1.1 million, but I do think that was probably the mean, it can be tough when you see $1.1 million, but I do think that was probably the quickest and easiest option just to start over and start fresh. I also find it interesting, you look at past tweets from Akron Wadley, past tweets from Kavante Martin-Manley, they've always spoken so highly of Iowa and the program. So again, the timing here is quite questionable.

I've reached out to a few players that I've been in communication with, and the big thing was not sure what was going on. They thought progress was being made, and they haven't really kept in touch with those guys. So it's not as easy to – they can't say what those guys are going through, but they're interested. They're curious to understand why now, what is happening. So hopefully we'll hear more about this from the players.

But I thought it was important to at least touch on this. The other thing that kind of came up this weekend was some players feeling like Kirk Ferentz doesn't give them the time of day and doesn't welcome back Hayden Frye players. I can only speak off of the experiences that I've had. And I've probably talked to 25 to 30 former Iowa Hawkeye football players over the course of my time hosting this podcast. And all of those players have spoken glowingly about Kirk Ferentz and always in some facet or another have mentioned how welcoming the program is to them to come back and join the program. Quinn Early, you know, a wide receiver for the Iowa Hawkeyes during the Hayden Fry era. He did know Kirk when Kirk was there as an assistant coach. He talked a lot about keeping in touch with Kirk

and how great Kirk has been to him. Kevin Casper has always talked very highly about the program as well. And so to me, I just, yeah, I'm sure one or two people might be pissed off. Maybe Kirk wasn't able to give them a lot of his time. He's a busy guy. There's thousands of former Iowa Hawkeye players. Maybe someone had a bad experience. I'd be very curious to understand what that experience was or how that actually happened. Again, always want to listen to each side of the story. But from everything I've heard from former players, not just my perception, not just my thoughts,

is how great Kirk Ferentz has been as a coach and as a leader of this program and how willing he has been to embrace former Iowa Hawkeyes, whether they were in his tenure or not. So that was really disheartening to see that come out this weekend as well. Coming up, though though on future episodes, again, we're going to be breaking down the Purdue news. We're going to be talking about stuff that's happened in the NFL this past week. I know we're a little bit delayed again. I wanted to get this episode out yesterday, but I decided I'll just put it out today. We're probably going to do a double episode day at some point this week. So be on the lookout for that. I want to make sure I'm giving you all the coverage you need to be ready for Iowa versus Purdue this week. So be on the lookout for that. I want to make sure I'm giving you all the coverage you need to be ready for

Iowa versus Purdue on Saturday. So be on the lookout for that. We are back though every single Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Awesome stuff coming on the pipeline for this show. I'm really excited to let you know about that. We'll talk about that on tomorrow's show as well. So I can give you what that daily cadence is going to look like. So you know what to expect from the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast.

As always, I appreciate you all tuning in. I know this wasn't the easiest episode. You and I both probably want to be talking about the good things that are happening, but it's also important to cover all the things that are happening. And this is a very important subject to touch on. It's very important to talk about. It's very important to listen. And I'm listening.

I'm trying to listen as much as possible. I'm getting some information from some former Iowa Hawkeye players as well, trying to build my understanding of what is happening. Again, I thought this was all kind of put to rest in a sense as Iowa started to rebuild their program's culture. But it doesn't seem like that was the case for some of these players. We'll let the legal system play out and see what happens with that. You can form your own opinion, but it is important to talk about

and to at least be willing to discuss, and that's what we did on today's show. Thank you all for tuning in. We're going to be back tomorrow covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Have a fantastic day, Hawkeye Nation. And as always, let's go Hawks.