Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Basketball: Who will replace Kirk Speraw

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

On today's episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast I sit down to discuss the second assistant coach to leave the Iowa basketball program this off season in Kirk Speraw. The question of who will replace Speraw but thankfully there are more than a few notable candidates for the position. Most of which played for the Hawkeyes back in their college days. Two of Iowa's future women's wrestlers picked up some hardware over this past weekend at the USA Women's National wrestling tournament down in Texas. Reese Larramendy and Adaugo Nwachukwu went a combined 11-1 over the weekend and both took home a gold medal and a spot on the USA U20 Women's Freestyle team which is set to compete this August in Bulgaria.Iowa football's newest class of 2023 recruit, Preston Ries, committed to attend the University of Iowa over three other B1G football programs. Ries is an extremely versatile who can play anywhere on the field he is needed. Ries joines three other in-state recruits for the Hawkeye's in the class of 2023. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our 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 Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Wright Hillpiper, and I want to thank you all for making the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast your very first listen every single day. You can find the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts at, and also on YouTube by searching Locked on Hawkeyes.

for free wherever you get your podcasts at, and also on YouTube by searching LockedOnHawkeyes. Now before we get into things today, I want to apologize to you all for my brief two-day hiatus. If you don't follow the LockedOnHawkeyes page on Twitter, I put out a tweet a couple days ago explaining that I was in a car accident on Mother's Day. I am fine. Everybody else involved in the accident is fine. It happened on the interstate on I-80 around exit 182, a fairly high speed crash. But like I said, everybody was fine. I just needed to take a couple of days and kind of get, you know, get everything figured out

with my vehicle and insurance and, you know, everything else like that. I want to make a shout out to, I know it sounds, it sounds a little weird,, I want to make a shout out to, I know it sounds, it sounds a little weird, but I want to make a shout out to, um, the people that I, um, that were also involved in the accident, uh, with me, they are wonderful people. I won't say their names on here just for privacy reasons, but they are wonderful people. Um, I got the chance to talk to, uh, the father, uh, as well as the daughter quite a bit. As I said, they are wonderful people, very understanding, very forgiving people. So shout out to them for being such great people, especially in this very hard time. As I said, it did happen on Mother's Day, which is not a great

day to have that happen, especially with my mother being involved in that. So like I, like I said, uh, I really, really appreciate those guys, uh, for being so understanding and so forgiving about the whole thing. Um, it was a terrible situation, uh, but we were able to find some good out of it. So, um, that, that's great. But like I said, had to take a couple of day hiatus just to, um, you know, get everything cleared up, make sure everything was set straight and narrow. I am back at my regular job, my not 9-5, but more like 7-6 job working construction throughout the week. So all is well that ends well, and everybody is okay, so we thank God for that. There's a few things that I want to talk about today. One is Iowa lost another assistant basketball coach. We'll get into that first.

And then we will get into a couple of women's wrestlers that are going to be wrestling at Iowa their freshman year. Um, taking home some, some hardware at a recent tournament, as well as a new football recruit, uh, for Iowa in the class of 2024. So the first thing I want to talk about today, as I mentioned, is Iowa losing another assistant coach, Kirk Sparrow. He has chosen to retire from coaching basketball and his retirement will go into effect on June 30th. Now, as you know, Parra is the second assistant coach to leave Iowa this off season as Billy Taylor took that job at Elon over in North Carolina. Again, congratulations to him. That's great.

Sparrow was a part of Iowa's Big Ten championship team, the last Big Ten championship that Took that job at Elon over in North Carolina. Again, congratulations to him. That's great. Sparrow was a part of Iowa's Big Ten championship team, the last Big Ten championship team they had back in 1979. So Iowa was his alma mater. Along with being an assistant coach at Iowa, Sparrow was also an assistant coach at Florida from 1990 to 1993, as well as a head coach at Central Florida, which was UCF, excuse me, from 1993 to 2010. Sparos said, quote, I was fortunate Coach Olson gave me my start in coaching here at the University of Iowa, and I am grateful that Coach McCaffrey and Gary Barta brought

me back to my alma mater to finish my coaching career with a Big Ten championship. I want to thank my wife, Tracy, and our four kids for their support and patience throughout my coaching career. And I want to thank all of these student athletes that I have had the honor of coaching throughout my career. Go Hawks. Now, Fran McCaffrey said about the situation, quote, Kirk has been the ultimate professional, excuse me, and an important part of our basketball program

since I arrived here in Iowa City. Kirk was well respected by the players and was one of the key components of rebuilding the program. His knowledge of the game and relationships that he has developed with players, families, and fans will be greatly missed. It has been an honor to work alongside Kirk all these years. Now, if you don't know who Sparrow is, he was a wonderful coach at the University of Iowa, wonderful assistant coach, along with Billy Taylor as well. And he had some coaching experience in the past just to kind of sum up what I just said. So he was, he was a great, very valuable asset to this Hawkeyes team. So it's, it's really sad to see him leave, but he decided to retire. So, you

know, those things happen. You just kind of have to roll with the punches. There are a few replacements that I came up with that, you know, could in theory replace Sparrow. The first one being Justin Wyke. He's a fourth year head coach at Minnesota Duluth. He's coming off one of the best seasons that Minnesota Duluth has had in their entire program history. They started off the season 16-0. He's also a former Iowa walk-on. So he would be a great addition to Iowa's coaching staff. It's going to be hard to get him to leave from that head coaching spot over there at Minnesota Duluth.

But it's a possibility. coaching spot over there at Minnesota Duluth, but you know, it's a possibility. It's all three of the guys that I have listed as, you know, potential, um, um, potential job takers for Sparrow's vacancy are, you know, they're all kind of long shots, but that's how it is nowadays with coaching. Um, it's always going to be a long shot, especially when, you know, these guys that are potential, potential new coaches already have either assistant coaching jobs or head coaching jobs somewhere else. The next guy I want to talk about, Jeff Horner, currently the head coach at Truman State, was also an assistant coach at the University of North Dakota, a D1 program as well,

and he was a point guard at Iowa from 2002 to 2006. He actually played with Matt Gatins, who's the next guy I want to talk about. Matt Gatins, he's a first year assistant coach at Drake. He was on their staff for, I believe, recruiting previously before that for about four years. One of the best players to ever go through this Iowa program, formerly worked on the Auburn staff, assisting with travel development, as well as scouting. He would be a great addition as well. But like I said, it's hard to get these guys to go away from the spots that they already

have, especially if they're head coaching jobs, to get a guy to go from head coaching down to assistant coaching. They've got to take a pay cut. They've got to move their family to Iowa City or wherever. Wouldn't necessarily be as hard for Gatins as he's already in Iowa working with Drake as well, but all these guys are long shots. Understand that. All of these guys are huge long shots for this position,

and Iowa may ultimately end up hiring from within, um, from within the program already. But I think any of these three guys would be great fits for this, uh, for this job. Um, especially Gaten's as well. Um, working as I mentioned, formerly on Auburn staff with travel development and scouting, I think he would be great, um, to help Iowa out with recruiting and scouting and all that sort of thing. But like I said, it's a long shot. It's hard to get these guys to leave programs that they're already well-developed into, especially a guy like Wyke, who's in his fourth year now at Minnesota Duluth as a head coach and coming off one of the best, if not the best, season that the program has ever had.

the one of the best, if not the best season that the program has ever had. So like I said, any of these guys would be great fits for this spot, but Iowa may ultimately end up hiring from within. It just kind of depends, you know, what, how these guys want to go, how Barta, you know, wants to go with it being AD and how McCaffrey wants to go with it being a head coach. Obviously, both of those guys are going to have very large opinions when it comes to the matter, but I think any of these three guys would be a great fit. And if it's none of those three guys, obviously I'll talk about whoever it is that they decide to hire. I'm sure that's probably going to come out in two or three days from now. But like I said, it's hard to tell so far, but hopefully Iowa can get a guy who's got some coaching experience in the past,

whether that's head coaching or assistant coaching, but all that's subjective still, so we'll just have to wait and see. Before we get into talking about the two future Iowa women's wrestlers picking up some hardware over this past weekend, I want to talk about built bar really quick. Now, imagine, imagine dipping your fingers into that tub of, you know, that, that tub of like funfetti, whatever it is, birthday cake frosting and opening your eyes and realizing that it was 150 calories and 16 grams of protein. And that is exactly what it's like to eat a birthday cake puff from built bar. And I just received my personal built, uh, excuse me, birthday cake puff from Built Bar. And I just received my personal birthday cake puffs, and I've never tried anything like this before. They're weird, they're interesting, but they are so, so good. They're available right now, and we can't promise that they'll be there tomorrow or

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they went to the USA Women's Nationals this past weekend. Both took home the gold. Reese Laramendi and Adwago Nwakukwu. I know I'm pronouncing that wrong. I'm doing my best shot here. I looked online. I could not find an interview where her name was said. So Adwago Nwakukwu. You can look that name up yourself and obviously you can tell me

if I'm wrong, but that was my best shot at it. They both competed for spots on the USA Wrestling's U20 women's freestyle team this past weekend in Texas. Laramendi herself went 6-0 over the weekend at the 65 kilogram weight class, which for those of you who don't know is 143 pounds. She went 4-0 to make the finals on Saturday and then went on to sweep her finals matches 2-0 against Alani Johnson. She won both of those matches, I believe, on a score of 10-0. Going into the weekend, she was considered the number 18 female wrestler in the country, and I guarantee that's going to go up after winning this tournament as well as going on to wrestle. And I believe it's Bulgaria in August. Um, she currently wrestles for

Wyoming seminary. There are a few girls at Wyoming seminary that will be coming to the university of Iowa for the inaugural season, uh, of the Iowa women's wrestling program. So she is just one of the few very, very talented females that is going to be coming to Iowa. Inwakukwu went five and one over the weekend, also winning her first four matches, going undefeated throughout the first few rounds in the semifinals, going into advance to the finals. She went two and one against Skylar Hetendorf at the 62 kilogram or 136 pound weight class. She recently also won an NAIA title for Iowa West Lions. So she's an extremely talented wrestler, not in high school like Lara Mendy is,

but she will be transferring to Iowa this next season. She will also be competing at the senior level world team trials later this month that I believe are being held at the Xtreme Arena in, excuse me, I'm having a brain fart here. I believe that is in Coralville. I could be wrong. It's somewhere over by Iowa City, but she will be competing there as well. And the Utah, the U 20, excuse me, world championship is set to take place in Bulgaria this August 15th through the 21st. So I'm excited to see that they are, you know, kind of taking their talents out of high school or in the, out of, um, NAI to go compete at the world level.

So both of them, I wish them the best of luck. They are both extremely, extremely talented wrestlers. And as I mentioned earlier, somebody please DM me on Twitter or on Facebook or on Instagram, whatever it is, and let me know how to pronounce her name. Adwago Nwakukwu is what I got out of it. Just looking at it. I tried to, like I said, I tried to look up interviews. I couldn't find anything where her name was mentioned. Um, and I even went as far as putting it into Google translate and that did not help me whatsoever. Um, so that's, that's the best I got in, in odd Wago in Wakuku. Um, so I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong. So please, if you know her or you know how to pronounce her name for sure, please let me know. If you are not sure, please do not let me know because I would like to get this right. I don't, uh, I don't like pronouncing names wrong. And I know that I've been getting DMs on Twitter

and on Facebook as well about, um, missed name pronunciations. I apologize for that. I am terrible with names. I'm terrible with remembering names. I'm terrible with name pronunciations. I've always been like that. I apologize. I know there's a few of you that are pretty upset with me right now for some name pronunciations I had in my last episode with some Iowa veterans on the football team. I apologize. I realize it's a big deal to get name pronunciations right, and I apologize. It's something that I'm very, very bad at, and it's something that I will get better at as time goes on. But like I said, both of these wrestlers will be competing, um, in August in Bulgaria at those world championships for USA wrestling. So congratulations to both of them, um, going a combined, I believe 10 and one, uh, going to combine 10 and one over the weekend. So

absolutely, or no, excuse me, not 10 and one, it would be 11 and one. Um, so congratulations to those two females and I wish them the best of luck in their freshman seasons. Uh, well, I guess for in Waukuka would probably be her sophomore season, whatever she decides to do with academics there. Um, I wish them the best of luck in their inaugural season with the Iowa women's wrestling program. Now, the third thing that I want to talk about today is Preston Reese, who is a new recruit for Iowa's football team. And before we get into that really quick, I want to talk about rock auto. You can save time. You can save so, so much money. If you use rock auto, why would you choose to spend 30, 50, or even a hundred percent more

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overall a great website. So you can head to rockauto.com right now and see all the parts available for your car or truck. Amazing selection, as I said, reliably low prices, and it has all of the parts your car will ever need. Once again, that is rockauto.com. Now, as I mentioned, Preston Reese, this one, fight me about it. All right. Preston Reese, his name is spelled rise. R I E S. This one, I went on YouTube. I scoured YouTube. I found different podcasts. I found different interviews. It is pronounced Reese and I'm 100% confident in that. I apologize, but I really wanted to make sure I got this name right. So it is Reese. It's spelled rise, but it's pronounced Reese. I apologize, but I really wanted to make sure I got this name right. So it is Reese.

It's spelled rise, but it's pronounced Reese. I got confirmation on that from a couple of people that went to high school with him. It is pronounced Reese. Granted, those confirmations came from comments on YouTube, but I found three of them that all said the same thing. So I'm going with it. He is now the fourth, by the way, he is from Monticello. So he is an in-state recruit. He's now the fourth 2024 in-state recruit that Iowa has picked up, uh, this off season. He joins the likes of offensive lineman, Cody Fox, who is a four-star recruit out of East Buchanan. Shout out to East Buchanan.

I've got quite a few friends over there, uh, from my high school wrestling days. They know who they are. I'm sure they're listening to this right now. Um, so shout out to Tate specifically over at East Buchanan. From my high school wrestling days, they know who they are. I'm sure they're listening to this right now. So shout out to Tate specifically over at East Buchanan. Linebacker Cam Buffington. He is a three-star out of Winfield Mount Union. And linebacker Derek Weiskopf, of course, who we have talked about extensively on this podcast, is a three-star recruit out of Williamsburg.

Along with the four in-state recruits that Iowa has in the class of 2024. Iowa has picked up an additional three in-state recruits in the class of 2023, all of which we have talked about a little bit on the podcast before, that being Alex Moda out of Marion, Ben Cooter out of Iowa City, and Maddox Johnson out of Norwalk. Now, along with these guys, I saw this a few days ago and I wanted to talk about it and I figured now would be the time to talk about it. Along with these guys, Iowa has their eyes on in-state recruit Caden Proctor. Now, I'm sure you've heard of this kid before. I had heard of him before, but I hadn't realized that there was this much hype surrounding him.

He's an offensive lineman currently at Southeast Polk in the class of 2023, and he's currently the number seven prospect in the nation, in the entire nation. Proctor is still undecided. Granted, he is undecided on where he's going to go after high school. I think he's narrowed his decision down to seven different schools, and Iowa is in that seven. So if Iowa can pick him up, he will be a big, big help after he gets some college experience

you know maybe maybe get that starting job in his sophomore junior season something like that I haven't been able to find tape on him yet I looked on 24-7 I couldn't find anything so if you guys have or know of any highlight tapes out there for Caden Proctor please send them to me Twitter Instagram Facebook whatever you want to, please send them to me, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever you want to do, please send them to me. I would like to see it, uh, because I haven't gotten the chance to see it yet, but he does seem like a very talented kid as well as Preston Reese as well. So I'm excited to see, uh, where these guys are going to go. Um, well, I guess Reese, we already know is going to Iowa. He's very, very talented. Um, I believe you can look them up on Twitter and see his announcement. I believe it was just a few pictures that he posted that just said committed.

So I'm excited to see, and I'm really excited to see where Caden Proctor decides to go. If he doesn't go to Iowa, I don't want him in the big 10. That's, I mean, it's, it's as simple as that. He's, he's got so much hype around him and I know I can't say a whole lot because I haven't seen his tape. So I don't know exactly how talented he is, he's got so much hype around him and I know I can't say a whole lot because I haven't seen his tape. So I don't know exactly how talented he is, you know, uh, but being the number seven prospect in the nation, I'm sure his tapes are pretty good. Um, so w I mean, without even seeing his tapes,

if he doesn't come to Iowa, I don't want him in the big 10 because he's going to be a problem. Um, you know, once he gets some experience under his belt and once he can kind of, uh, you know, grasp the whole, you know, D one college athlete sort of vibe that you have to have going into, you know, D1 athletics. If he doesn't come to Iowa, I don't want him in the Big Ten whatsoever. But regardless, Preston Reese is the newest commit. We talked about the two Iowa women's wrestlers. Well, future Iowa women's wrestlers in the inaugural season, Reese Laramendi and Adwago Nwakukwu, um, catching gold at the U20, uh, women's freestyle,

excuse me, qualifying for the U20 women's freestyle team this past weekend. Congratulations to them once again. And then we also talked about today, uh, Kirk Sparrow leaving Iowa, retiring as an assistant coach. He joins Billy Taylor in leaving the program. Taylor, once again, went to Elon for that head coaching job. So congratulations to Sparrow on his retirement. Hopefully he can enjoy it. I'm sure he will still be involved with Iowa athletics. I'm sure he'll go to the game.

Obviously, he won't have, um, any, um, any involvement within the program. Um, but regardless, once again, his retirement goes into effect on June 30th. So he still has some say, um, in the program until then. So that really is it for today's episode. Um, fairly, fairly shorter episode today. Not too bad. I think we're running about 22, 23 minutes right now. So thank you all for tuning into today's episode. Once again, you are welcome to hit me up on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook with your questions, comments, concerns. I have been getting granted a lot of constructive criticism, especially on the Facebook side of things, but I welcome that. I do read those. I do not respond to all of them just because I do not have time to, but just know if you are sending me things on Twitter, on Instagram, Facebook,

whatever it is, I am reading those. I am receiving those and I'm taking those into account. So I appreciate that. Once again, I'm still learning. I'm still very new to all this thing. I'm new to podcasts in general. I do not have very much experience with podcasts. I have more experience when it comes to live play-by-play. And personally, for me, that's a little bit easier. That's what I do up in Fort Dodge at college for a high school team up there. So I'm more familiar with that. I'm not super familiar with the whole finding stories to talk about and taking notes on

them and all that sort of thing. This is more of a scripted sort of thing versus play-by by play. So once again, I appreciate your guys' constructive criticism. Please give it, please continue to give it to me. Uh, I do read all of those comments. I read all of those DMS and I welcome them. Um, you can be as constructive. You can be as hard on me as you want. Um, or you can give me compliments. A lot of that constructive criticism does usually come with compliments. So I appreciate that. Um, but like I said, most of them just have to do with, um, with name pronunciations and stuff like that. And I'm, I promise I'm trying to get better at that. And I'm trying to, um, gain more knowledge about the Hawkeyes program. Um, granted I've said it

on the podcast before. I know way more about, um, professional football than I do college football in general. Um, before I started this podcast, I will admit I followed the NFL way more about professional football than I do college football in general. Before I started this podcast, I will admit I followed the NFL way more than I followed college football. But I do know a little bit when it comes to Iowa specifically and Big Ten college football. So once again, I appreciate all of the criticism, all of the compliments as well. Continue to give them to me. I will continue to read them.

I will probably respond to a few of them. I just don't have time to get to them all. There are several of them that I have not even read yet. So thank you for that. Thank you for tuning in today's episode as well. Make sure you go check out my Twitter, excuse me, my Twitter page. I believe it is right there. You can go check that out as well as the Locked on Iowa, Locked on Hawkeyes, excuse me, Twitter page,

which is at Locked on Iowa. And you can follow us on Instagram and on our Facebook page as well. So again, thank you all for tuning into today's episode and we will see you all tomorrow.