Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Kirk Speraw is gone...but why?

Episode Date: May 14, 2022

On today's episode I discuss the actual reasons Speraw has given for why he's retiring. We talked a few episodes ago about the fact that he's retiring in June but apparently there are more than in depth reasons than just that he was ready to be done.Iowa has two new football recruits that have an INSANE amount of versatility on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. While one has already made his commitment one has only received a scholarship offer. However, from what he says, it seems likely we'll see Iowa with another very talented recruit in the class of 2023 here in the next few weeks.The Iowa Women's Wrestling team has just picked up a new associate head coach in Gary Mayabb. Mayabb has decades of experience within the world of wrestling spanning across every level from pee wee's to Olympic caliber wrestlers. 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 Lockdown Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back, Hawkeye Nation, to another episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Wright Hillpiper, and before we get into things today, I want to thank you all for making the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast your very first listen every single day. You can find the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts at, and also on YouTube by searching Locked on Hawkeyes.

Now there are several topics that I want to talk about today. I'm going to talk about some recruiting for Iowa football. I'm going to talk about a little bit of basketball and then I'm going to talk about women's wrestling at the end of the episode as well. So lots and lots and lots of stuff to cover today. And the first thing that I want to get into is Kirk Sparrow. Now, I talked about this a couple days ago on the podcast about how he was retiring. I believe that goes into effect June 30th.

So he's still got a lot to do. He's still got camps and stuff to go through like that and recruiting to help out with. So his time is not quite done at Iowa yet. But I didn't really get a chance to kind of get into why he's retiring because obviously there's a reason behind it. So I just talked about, you know, the fact that he is retiring, what he did at Iowa and things like that. So today I'm going to talk about a little bit about why he is retiring in the first place. So I found an article that describes, um, sort of like the puts in, puts into a better words, the reason, uh, the reasons I guess why he, uh, decided to retire, found it on Hawk Central

by Chad Lester cow, uh, amazing article. You can go check that out. Uh, first of all, when Sparrow asked what, uh, excuse me, when asked about his decision to retire, he said, quote, there are a lot of factors. I'm not one to make snap decisions. Um, so the first reason is that, uh that that was given was that life moves really fast and there's not really a way to slow it down. Obviously, I mean, this wasn't a part of it, but obviously, you know, nobody's getting

any younger. You know what I mean? Nobody out there is getting any younger. He's got several kids, several grandkids, and I believe he has one on the way. He's got five grandkids and one grandkid on the way now. So time moves fast. And he, I'm sure he still has a lot of things that he would like to do. And he just felt like it, you know, it was his time to kind of jump off the horse and kind of, you know, move on with his life a little bit. Obviously, Iowa has been a major part of his life over the last 40 plus years of coaching. He's been with Iowa for a very, very long time as well.

So the second one, the second reason that was brought up was that college sports is changing a lot nowadays, especially talked about yesterday, the NIL deals, how they're going to continue to change and shape the world of college sports as a whole. I realized I was told that some of my information yesterday was inaccurate that had to do with NIL deals. So I apologize for that. There are several articles out there and several different things that you can look at about NIL deals if you'd like some more information about that. Once again, I do apologize that some of my information was inaccurate. I was informed of that today, so I do apologize. But most of yesterday was my opinion on the whole NIL situation

and the whole AD Gary Barta thing going on. So I apologize for that once again, that some of my information was inaccurate, but I'm trying my best here. So cut me a little bit of slack. I'm still new at this whole thing, but we're getting after it and I'm trying my best. So anyways, like I said, NIL deals, um, are going to continue to change the shape of college sports, um, how they are now, how they were before and how they are going to be. Um, and obviously the one-time, uh, transfer rule thing, it becomes hard to, um, it becomes hard to have a guaranteed roster all of the time. And Sparrow talked about that as well, is that with the whole one-time transfer rule thing, it's hard to have a guaranteed roster year in and year out. You know

what I mean? Because obviously any kid could transfer at any time for whatever reason it is. So it's, it's, it's hard to say, it's hard to say when you will have a guaranteed roster. Obviously there's kids that have, you know, no reason to go anywhere else. And that are, you know, prospering with Iowa, having really good athletic and academic careers in college. So there's no reason for them to go. So those guys are a little bit easier to tell. But, I mean, he's right. There's no guarantee.

There's no guaranteement of rosters nowadays in college sports. So it's hard to kind of do that. Sparrow said, quote, that's part of it. Sparrow said quote that's part of it and I think that's part of it in a lot of people's minds honestly with the transfer portal portal excuse me and NIL and everything that's coming with that which everyone can see excuse me which everyone can see because there's a new headline every so often it's like do I want to battle that I'm not sure I wanted to go down that path and I agree with Sparrow I mean it's it's it's to, it's hard to navigate the college world of sports as, as a coach, as a player. Um, but now with the whole NIL deal thing and the whole one-time transfer rule, it's become even, even harder to navigate the world of college

sports, uh, especially as a coach. Um, because obviously you don't know that your players are telling you everything all of the time. So it's hard to know, as I mentioned, it's hard to have a guaranteed roster for next year or for the next season. So it's hard to say that, you know, college sports is not changing every day because it is. It's changing every single day in little small ways. And sometimes, you know, with the NIL deal thing and the one-time transfer rule, it grows faster and faster as time moves on. Speaking of time moving on, the next thing that was brought up about it is the timing. Iowa has had a lot of good seasons, but in particular, Sparrow's first season where Iowa made it to the Final Four and this past season with the Big Ten Championship and obviously

making the NCAA tournament, which isn't as big of an accomplishment nowadays when you look at the grand scheme of things. But it is still, I mean, there's only 64 teams there, so it's still an accomplishment. But obviously Iowa being Big Ten champions this year kind of aided into that. As I mentioned, Iowa made it to the Final Four in Sparrow's first year of assistant coaching at Iowa under McCaffrey. Sparrow said, quote, it was pretty fortunate to get to start with Lute and beyond lucky to get a Final Four in my first year of coaching and to finish with a Big Ten championship

on the way out the door. It just seemed like a good time to do it. And he also said, it's time to go spend time with my grandkids. Now, McCaffrey, Coach McCaffrey knew about Sparrow's retirement about a month before it was actually announced. So he knew about Billy Taylor. He knew about Sparrow. So he knew he was going to have two open assistant coaching jobs coming up. So he filled Billy Taylor's position, obviously fairly fast with Eldridge. But I think he's going to take a little bit more time, uh, with Sparrow when it comes to replacing him, because it's going to be

hard to replace him. Several, several student athletes on this Iowa basketball team have nothing to say, but great things about this guy that he's a phenomenal coach on and off the court. He's a phenomenal person. So it's, it's definitely going to be hard to uh for mcafree and the rest of his coaching staff to find somebody who's going to be able to live up uh to you know the very very high standards that sparrow set as an assistant coach now to get into recruiting a little bit today before we talk about that really quick i want to talk about built bar and their new birthday cake puffs oh my gosh they are they are so good. Imagine dipping your finger into a tub of like birthday cake frosting, but it actually has 150 calories and 16 grams of protein.

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Puffs are covered in 100% real chocolate. That means that with Built, you can eat healthy and actually enjoy doing it. And they are made with a collagen protein, which your body absorbs more efficiently and provides tons of health benefits. So go to built.com and check out the birthday cake puffs now. And also right now we have a promo code going on. It is locked 15. So you can get 15% off your order at checkout. Once again, that code is locked 15 L O C K E D 1 5 for 15% off your order at built.com. Uh, as I mentioned, getting into recruiting a little bit for today's episode, two recruits that I want to talk about today. We're going to talk about them individually because one has just been offered by Iowa and the other one while also has

just Iowa actually committed the day after. So Zach Luttmer got an offer from Iowa yesterday on Thursday, committed today, this afternoon, so I figured I'd talk about it. I was going to talk about Luttmer and the offer yesterday on yesterday's podcast, but I ran out of time. I just didn't really get the chance to get into it. So, I mean, it doesn't really matter because he recruited, or excuse me, he committed anyway. So he is in the class of 2023, 6'1", 190-pound, three-star defensive backslash safety out of Central Lion.

He received an offer, obviously, as I mentioned, yesterday from Iowa and committed today. He had offers from South Dakota State, South Dakota, Iowa State, and Minnesota had showed interest as well, but had not offered him any sort of scholarship deal, that being, as I said, Iowa State and Minnesota, not Iowa Soda. He played quarterback as well as safety in high school. He was the starting quarterback for his varsity team. Last season, he had 80 completions for 1,016 yards and eight touchdowns, as well as being a quarterback, had 149 carries for 1,246 rushing yards,

22 rushing touchdowns, and three successful two-point conversions. So this kid's an absolute stud. On the defensive side of the ball as a safety, he had 46.5 tackles, 36 of those coming all by his lonesome in the open field, three tackles for loss, four interceptions, which carried over to 100 yards and a touchdown. Pick six for him as well. On special teams, he had seven punt returns for 151 yards all told. And he also punted the ball six times and averaged 36.8 yards per punt throughout his junior season. So this kid is absolutely versatile.

He is versatile in every sense of the word. I say versatile. I know it's versatile. He is versatile in every sense of the word. I say versatile. I know it's versatile, whatever. He's versatile in every single sense of the word. If you looked up versatile in the dictionary, you would see Luttmer right next to it. This kid can play offense. He can play defense. He's on special teams. He's absolutely amazing at all of those positions on the field. He did commit to Iowa as a safety, not as a quarterback, not as a punter, not as a punt returner, uh, whatever you want to call it. He, his primary position is defensive back and that safety spot. Uh, so that is where he was going.

That is where he will be playing for Iowa. He may play a little bit in that cash spot. Um, having a little more experience on the defensive side of the ball, um, with, um, you know, open field tackling and covering the run game as well as covering receivers. So he may play in that cash position. He may end up switching over to linebacker. Who knows? But I'm excited to see what he can do for Iowa. Obviously, he'll be on scout team probably his freshman, sophomore season, maybe into his junior season. It all depends on how his development comes. But I'm excited for this kid. Got the chance to watch his tape a little bit. He's a stud. He's really, really good. Got to see his dome highlights as well. Um, but I'm excited for this kid. Got the chance to watch his tape a little bit. He's, he's a stud. He's really, really good. Uh, got to see his dome highlights as well,

obviously playing for central line. Um, so he's not out here playing eight man football. He's, he's, he's playing, he's playing high level high school football in the state of Iowa. So he's, he's a really, really, really talented athlete. Um, and I'm glad to see that Iowa is continuing to get some amazing, amazing versatility into their depth chart as the next few seasons come up. So the next recruit that I want to talk about, Aiden Hall, who I mentioned earlier, has not committed to Iowa, but he has received an offer. He received an offer yesterday from Iowa in the class of 2023. Once again, six foot two pound three-star wide receiver running back defensive back out of Harland high school. He said, quote, I talked to coach Wallace earlier this morning,

and he told me they think I could play any of the linebacker positions. And I could also end up playing defensive back. They will find a spot for me somewhere on the field. Later on, I called coach Ferentz and he told me they were going to offer me. I was super excited and surprised because I grew up going to Hawkeye games and have been a fan since I was a kid. I'm going to go home later today and discuss this with my family and then decide what happens next. So if I'm being honest, I think that, you know, you can take that interpretation of that quote any way you want to, but I think that sometime in the next week, we'll probably see him, uh, committed to Iowa to play football. Um, and what I mean by that is seeing the, I grew up to, I grew up going to Hawkeye games and I've been a fan since I was a kid and the, uh, I'm going, I'm going to go home later today and

discuss this with my family and then decide, uh, what happens next. I think we're going to see him commit to Iowa. It may not be this next week. It may not be the week after, but I think that we are probably going to see him commit to Iowa. He will be a great defensive asset to this already stellar Iowa defense. Iowa continues to pick up some stellar, stellar defensive recruits, especially in the class of 2023, obviously, stellar defensive recruits, especially in the class of 2023, obviously, as I just got done talking about with Aiden Hall, as well as Luttmer. Iowa continues to get these great, great versatile athletes on the defensive side of the ball in these recruiting classes. I believe Iowa is ranked 15th in their recruiting class for next year. But I think that if Iowa continues to recruit kids like this, like Luttmer and Hall, I think that that's, that number is probably going to bump up a little bit. He also holds

offers from Army, Fordham, North Dakota State, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Northern Iowa, Western Illinois, and Illinois State. Last season as a junior, he had 777 rushing yards, 755 receiving yards, 24 combined total touchdowns between receiving and rushing. And on the defensive side of the ball, he had 29 point tackles and three receptions as well. So another extremely versatile kid that Iowa is picking up who has experience playing on the offense and defensive side of the ball, but obviously a primarily defensive player. He did put up some fairly decent stats on the offensive side of the ball, but obviously a primarily defensive player. He did put up some

fairly decent stats on the offensive side of the ball, as I mentioned, with 24 touchdowns, but it does sound like he is probably going to be at that linebacker cash safety position, defensive back position, wherever you want to say, just like Luttmer. So we'll just have to wait and see how that pans out, what position he'll end up playing when he comes in. But as I said, Iowa is doing a fantastic job of getting some really good depth when it comes to their defense in the next coming seasons. Because obviously Iowa wants to continue that extremely high standard that they've set for having amazing defensive units. So these recruits are very, very good assets to bring into the University of Iowa's football program. Before we get into the story of the day, it's not necessarily a formal story of the day, but it's a little bit about

Iowa's women's wrestling. I will continue to talk about that. I realize, I know that we don't talk about wrestling on this podcast and my uncle Andrew didn't talk about wrestling a whole lot on this podcast, but I am extremely passionate about wrestling on this podcast. And my uncle Andrew didn't talk about wrestling a whole lot on this podcast, but I am extremely passionate about wrestling, about college wrestling, uh, especially. So I like to talk about it.

And with Iowa's inaugural women's wrestling season coming up, I think it's very important to cover, um, all of the headlines that are coming out of that. Um, like recruits, new coaches, which is what we're going to talk about today.

Um, so if you don't like that content let me know but I like I enjoy covering it and I think it's important to keep everybody informed especially because it's the inaugural season for women's wrestling too and I am very passionate about wrestling so before we get into talking about Iowa's new coach I want to talk about bet online really quick our partners atOnline continue to be the number one source for all of your betting needs and sports info. You can find all of the latest odds, news, and sports developments, including this year's basketball playoffs, Major League Baseball scores, fights, and even next season's NFL futures. BetOnline is your

continued source for all of your sporting wagering information from live betting to playoffs to esports and more. Whatever you want to bet on, it's probably on that online. So head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more about the trends and action. Once again, bet online is where the game starts and that is betonline.com. Now, or excuse me, betonline.net, not betonline.com. Um So, as I mentioned, a new coach in Iowa women's wrestling is an assistant head coach, or an associate head coach, excuse me, not an assistant coach, not an assistant head coach, but an associate head coach.

His name is Gary Mayab. You may know who he is. If you don't, let me tell you. Carissa Chun announced today that Mayab will be joining the coaching staff. Mayab is a longtime USA wrestling coach, as well as a former high school wrestling coach, excuse me, down in Missouri, which we will get to talk about in just a minute. Mayab, or excuse me, Chun said, quote, about Mayab, I saw firsthand the work Gary did with USA Wrestling, and I'm excited to have the opportunity to work with and alongside him

in building this program. We worked in different programs at USA Wrestling, but I got to see all the work he put in. Sorry, my eyes are really dry for some reason. For all of you watching on YouTube, I keep itching my eyes. My eyes are really, really dry. Anyways, but I got to see all the work he put into building Men's greco in the u.s uh gary in the u.s excuse me gary is a hard worker unites people and is well connected he has trained the development age groups all the way to senior level athletes for decades so he knows how to relate to different athletes during the interview process it was clear that our values aligned in how we wanted to build this program. Gary has high integrity and will serve our student athletes well.

Now, Gary was the manager for the USA Wrestling's Greco-Roman program from 2017 to 2022, and he worked in day-to-day operations as well as overseeing the development for the U20, U17, and U-15 age groups. He is also a former member of the USA Olympic team training staff for the USA Olympic wrestling team. And the stats that I'm about to share with you, they're not, I mean, they're not really stats. They're more like accolades or awards, whatever you want to call it, but they are pretty outstanding. He led two Missouri high schools to a combined seven state team championship championships. Granted one had six and the other one had one, but still we'll count them. We'll

count them both. Uh, he coached 44 individual state champions in the state of Missouri, 130 individual state medalists, which I, if you don't know much about high school wrestling in general, that's an insane number for one coach to have coached 44 state champions and 130 individual medalists. At my former high school, we had, I believe, maybe one or two state qualifiers in wrestling this past year. Granted, we're a little bit smaller of a school. Don't have the development that other schools have, but still 44. It's, I mean, obviously that it's an insane, it's an insane number. If he coached for 44 years of high school wrestling, that's one a year. And that's still fairly impressive. He was the USA wrestling's regional development, developmental coach of the year. He was named the junior national Greco Roman coach of the year,

the cadet national Greco Roman coach of the year. Um, so he has several, several accol year. He was named the junior national Greco-Roman coach of the year, the cadet national Greco-Roman coach of the year. Um, so he has several, several accolades. He has years and years, decades, decades of experience, uh, within wrestling, um, at all levels, all the way from, you know, super, super young kids, elementary kids, all the way up into these guys who are going to the Olympics and wrestling, you know, quote unquote, professionally, if you want to call it that. Um, excuse me, may I've said, quote, the university of Iowa is a special place for wrestling. I'm excited for the opportunity to work with coach Chun and the history making women who have committed to growing our sport. Uh, once again, I will continue to talk about women's wrestling headlines because I'm very passionate about

wrestling. I will continue to talk about men's wrestling headlines as well. Um, and just so you know, as of now, um, when, you know, when we get into wrestling season, this come, uh, come this winter, when Iowa women's wrestling starts back up, I will be referring to women's wrestling as Iowa's women's wrestling team and men's wrestling as Iowa's men's wrestling team. It will no longer be the Iowa wrestling team and Iowa women's wrestling team. Trying to be a little more inclusive here. All about inclusivity here at Lockdown Hawkeyes and in general. So I just wanted to put that disclaimer out there that I'm going to be more inclusive with that.

So as we talked about today, kind of give you a recap of everything we talked about today. Talked about Sparrow and his reasons for retirement. We didn't get a chance a couple days ago to talk about a lot of the reasons why he decided to retire, but just talked about the fact that he did. So today we talked a little bit about why he decided to retire. We talked about Zach Luttmer committing to Iowa just one day after catching a scholarship offer from Ferentz. Aiden Hall, who is being recruited by Iowa, received an offer yesterday. And I personally believe he will be committed to Iowa either this

coming week or the week after. We'll just have to wait and see for the headlines. And then obviously we talked about Gary Mayab becoming the new associate head coach for the Iowa women's wrestling team, that groundbreaking inaugural team, um, that we are going to get to see this upcoming winter. I wish them all the best of success, um, in their endeavors, uh, realizing maybe a little bit shorter of an episode today. I'm sure those of you watching YouTube on YouTube just saw me switch from my notes back to my stream deck, but that is okay because I have to take

notes. I can't do this all out of my head. That's just not how it works. But anyway, I want to thank you all for tuning into today's episode. We will see you all back on Monday. I believe I will be with LaShawn on Monday. The only reason I didn't have LaShawn on today is just because I had so much stuff to cover in today's episode. And you guys know just as well as I do, when we get LaShawn on here, me and him get into it, we get into talking and we have, you know, 45 to 50 minute long episodes. So I wanted to save that for Monday. And obviously, or excuse me, not obviously, but I think that next week we are going to have LaShawn on a few more days than just Monday and Friday, obviously.

Did not have him on this Friday, so we're going to try to get him mixed in more days throughout the week, obviously, so that you guys can hear what he has to say about football. And maybe we'll get into a little bit of other things, maybe some recruiting and things like that. We can talk about new football recruits for Iowa we'll probably talk about the guys that I talked about today as well so once again thank you all for tuning in to today's episode and I will see you all on Monday