The USC Trojans drifted through most of the 1950s. The program which had been so powerful from the late 1920s through World War II had fallen on hard times. It needed a coach who could restore lost glories and make up for lost time. John McKay became that man, beginning his tenure as USC head coach in 1960 and — in two short years — bringing the Trojans a national championship. USC remained formidable and successful for the next decade and a half under McKay, who then handed off the program to a superb successor, John Robinson. USC football had been healed and improved.
Who is that kind of figure for Iowa football? There can be only one answer: Hayden Fry. Iowa football thrived in the late 1950s but then fell on very hard times in the 1960s and 1970s. Fry had toiled in relative obscurity at SMU and North Texas. His arrival in Iowa City in 1979 elicited questions more than a sense that Iowa had found its restorative genius.
Yet, in two years — the same as the McKay timeline at USC from 1960 to 1962 — Fry made Iowa a big-time winner. In 1981, he had the Hawkeyes in the Rose Bowl as Big Ten champions.
Learn more about the life, career and legacy of Iowa legend Hayden Fry in our USC Big Ten Tour summer podcast series. Hawkeyes Wire editor Josh Helmer is our guest.
Listen to the show below:
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