Iowa's Radio News Network
The UNI basketball team is headed to St. Louis after a rally in Cedar Falls and coach Ben Jacobson has a new contract. Athletic director Troy Dannen addressed the crowd of about 2,000 who were on hand. He announced that Jacobson has been given a 10-year contract extension to keep Jacobson at U.N.I. with an annual salary of $450,000.
By Elwin Huffman KOEL Oelwein
Expectations will be high for the Iowa football team next season,. The Hawkeyes have a number of key players back from last years team that finished 11-2 and beat Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz says they know they have some “very good” players back and preseason rankings are based on experience level, your success level and the name of your school. But he says those things don’t have much to do with how they play on the field, and they have a lot of work to do to replace players.
The Hawkeyes open spring practice this week and Ferentz hopes his team does not buy into the pre-season hype. He says the polls are usually not real accurate. Ferentz says while the Hawks have 20 wins in the last two seasons, many of them have been close.
He says their margin of error is typically pretty slim and the players have to understand that, and he says the teams that understand that tend to do the best. Ferentz says the program is getting used to dealing with expectations, as last year the expectations were high and they have had “a decent record.”
Ferentz says when you match the close loses with the close wins, you see how thin the margin is for success. Iowa will open next season at home on September fourth against Eastern Illinois.
There is plenty of optimism in the Iowa State football program as the Cyclones open spring practice. ISU finished 7-6 in Paul Rhoads first season at the helm and capped it off with a victory over Minnesota in the Insight Bowl. Rhoads says the win sends you into the offseason with a lot of positive feeling and a good outlook. He says the players have attacked the offseason workouts and are ready to get practice going again.
A number of of starters return from last season but Rhoads says there are some holes to fill, especially on defense. He says they lost five at the lineback spot that started or played a lot and he says the people who will fill in are young. Quarterback Austen Arnaud returns for his senior season to lead an experienced offense that Rhoads feels will be more consistent and put up bigger numbers.
Rhoads says they’ve talked about a lot of statistical things that are not good enough, including the 20 points per game. Spring drills conclude with an intrasquad game on April 17th.
Legislators have begun to discuss the future of greyhound racing in Iowa, but they’re discovering a rocky road lies ahead as even a proposed study of the issue prompts a quarrel.
Three state senators sat down today with representatives of the casino industry and greyhound breeders to talk about a bill that would close the two greyhound tracks in Council Bluffs and Dubuque. Senator Pam Jochum of Dubuque says with just a few days left in the 2010 session, lawmakers won’t pass that bill, but they may direct the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission to study the issue.
“Some kind of a study is probably more in order to sort through all of this conflicting information,” Jochum says.
Jochum and two other senators met with a lobbyist for Harrah’s casino in Council Bluffs which is connected to the Bluffs Run race track, plus two western Iowa greyhound breeders and two lobbyists for the Iowa Greyhound Association. Jim Carney, a lobbyist for Harrah’s, told the senators greyhound racing is a dying industry. Carney also accused greyhound breeders in Iowa of giving varying accounts of the industry’s economic impact.
“I don’t know what the truth of the matter is,” Carney said.
Carney held up charts showing wagering on dog racing in Iowa has declined by 94 percent and he said many of the “purses” or cash prizes paid to the owners of top dogs who race at the two tracks go to out-of-state owners.
“Now they can try to blame this on Harrah’s,” Carney said. “They can try to blame it on anyone they want, but what is happening is all across American is people are going away from dogs.”
Don Avenson, a lobbyist representing the Iowa Greyhound Breeders Association, shot back on the accusation that purse prizes were benefitting out-of-state dog owners.
“It is peanuts compared to what goes out of state to Harrah’s,” Avenson said. “They have taken hundreds of millions of dollars of our people’s money to Las Vegas.”
Lobbyist Tom Cope also spoke on behalf of the greyhound breeders. “The number of jobs related to this industry has increased significantly over the last six years, by 50 percent,” Cope told the three senators, “so I think one of the fundamental questions is not just what’s happening nationally to this industry, but what’s happening in the state of Iowa.”
Senator Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City suggested the two sides should negotiate. ”I hear the concern about jobs. I am very concerned about that and the investments that people have made,” Bolkcom said. “And maybe the task is to send folks away with the task of what a proposal would even begin to look like to transition ourselves out of dog racing in Iowa.”
The Iowa House, meanwhile, has voted against the idea of a casino-financed study of the state’s greyhound industry. Representative Clel Baulder of Greenfield sees a conspiracy that he contends involves not only the casinos, but the Humane Society. ”I think this is a ploy to get rid of dog racing in Iowa,” Baudler said during House debate.
Baudler was among those who voted against the idea of letting the two casinos in Council Bluffs and Dubuque which have adjacent greyhound tracks finance a study. The study would determine the “viability of pari-mutuel dog racetracks in the state” according to the wording of the proposal presented in the House.
“Let’s keep the dogs running. They’re bred and born to run,” Baudler said. “We have 147 greyhound kennels that rely on this income. Let’s not put them out of business.”
Representative Rick Olson of Des Moines argued that it makes no sense to have the two casinos that hope to close their greyhound tracks pay for the study. “It’s kind of like having the fox guard the henhouse to finance the very study that they want to be utilized to eliminate greyhound racing in the state of Iowa,” Olson said.
Supporters of the casino-financed study said it “made sense” to find funding for the study outside of state government, but they lost that argument when 50 members of the House voted against the idea and only 32 voted for it. The House may revisit the issue when House members resume debate on a wide-ranging bill that includes a call for an Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission study of greyhound racing.
A bill named for a football coach who was shot to death last summer by a former player is now law.
Governor Chet Culver signed the Ed Thomas Bill into law this morning at the Iowa Hall of Pride in Des Moines. Both Democrats and Republicans in the Iowa Legislature supported the measure.
“If it weren’t for Coach Thomas, his leadership and the great admiration and respect all of us in the state and across the country have for him and his family, this wouldn’t have happened,” Culver said. “This is really the least that we can do.” The law will require hospitals to notify law enforcement when they release someone who’s been hospitalized for a mental evaluation if that person has criminal charges filed against them or a pending arrest warrant.
The Iowa Court of Appeals says a Taylor County man convicted of kidnapping and sexual abuse can have his request for a new trial reviewed. Eric Houk was found guilty by a jury of first-degree kidnapping, and three counts of third-degree sexual abuse, after kidnapping an 18-year-old girl from the parking lot of the store where she worked and raping her several times.
He was also convicted of arson for setting the girl’s car on fire. Houk filed a motion for a new trial, but the district court found the jury’s guilty verdicts were supported by substantial evidence and denied Houk’s request. The Iowa Supreme Court says Houk should get a review as the district court overruled the motion, citing the evidence was “substantial,” but made no reference to the “weight of the evidence.”
The Supreme Court says the district court must review the request for a new trial based on the “weight of the evidence” and if it denies the request again, his life sentence will stand.
The Plymouth County Sheriff is asking for help to stop a shooting spree west of Le Mars along Highway Three. Authorities first got reports of bullets lodged in house siding in early February. The shooting reports in a 13-mile area have increased in the last 10-15 days. Sheriff Mike Van Otterloo says he’s concerned that someone will be seriously injured or killed
“These bullet rounds have been located and found inside the residences,” the sheriff says. “They’re not only penetrating the windows, the siding– there’s been a vehicle that’s been involved. But, they’re going through those windows and they are lodging inside the residence itself,” Van Otterloo explains, “One of the instances that we’ve had is that a gentlemen sits in a particular lounge chair each evening and one of the those rounds went within six inches of him. He wasn’t sitting in it at the time but could have been.”
The dozen rural houses have been shot at between around midnight and six in the morning. Deputy sheriff Craig Bartolozzi says D.C.I. analysis indicates the .22 caliber rounds were fired from a pistol or long rifle. “They’re just targeting large windows,” Bartolozzi says, “it doesn’t seem to be that they’re targeting bedroom windows or anything like that. It’s big bay windows and things. So I think probably there intent right now is just to do the damage or criminal mischief.”
Van Otterloo asks anyone who has seen anything suspicious such as a slow moving vehicle on Highway Three to call the sheriff’s office immediately. “Whatever they determine to be suspicious,” Van Otterloo says. “Anything that’s out of the ordinary from what they normally see on their travels on Highway Three. Get us a license plate number is probably the most important, identifying the vehicle, the color, the make, model if you can. If not a plate number is very important. If you can’t get a plate number, just the description is fine. Call us
immediately, don’t wait until the next day.”
Information may also be reported to Crime Stoppers at 712-548-4968. Residents who live along Highway Three west of Le Mars have been told to stay away from windows, especially late at night.
By Joanne Glamm, KLEM, Le Mars
O.KayHenderson.com