Former Iowa head coach, the legendary Hayden Fry died on Tuesday at the age of 90 after battling cancer.
Fry is best known for his 20 years as the head coach at Iowa where he took the Hawkeyes from being a Big Ten doormat to 14 bowl games including three appearances in the Rose Bowl. Iowa has been back to Pasadena just once since his career ended following the 1998 season.
Rest in peace Coach Hayden Fry. You will be forever missed.
Coach Fry passed away Tuesday, Dec. 17. He was 90 years old. pic.twitter.com/USN66D7Pfu
— Hawkeye Football (@HawkeyeFootball) December 18, 2019
Notre Dame and Iowa haven’t met on the gridiron since October of 1968 so Fry never went head-to-head coaching against Notre Dame while with Iowa.
What you’ll hear many discuss when Fry is remembered is his flat-out ridiculous coaching tree.
When you take a look you find the names of Bob, Mark and Mike Stoops, Bill Snyder, Kirk Ferentz and Bret Bielema along with plenty of others.
You’ll also find a pair of former Notre Dame defensive coordinators that led Notre Dame to their two most-recent national championship game appearances.
Before getting to Notre Dame as part of Lou Holtz’s staff in 1987, Barry Alvarez was linebackers coach at Iowa for Fry from 1979-86, joining Fry’s staff after a brief but successful run as a head high school coach in Iowa.
Fry is said to have been upset when Alvarez left Iowa to work with Holtz but was even more enraged when Alvarez eventually took the Wisconsin job in 1990 and hired away a couple of Fry’s most valued assistants.
The other name you’ll see on Fry’s coaching tree that will be especially familiar for Notre Dame fans is that of Bob Diaco.
Diaco played for Fry from 1992-95, earning a spot on the All Big Ten second-team as a linebacker in 1995. He also got his start in coaching as a grad-assistant under Fry in 1996 and ’97.
“Bob Diaco is one of the all-time great leaders I’ve had in 47 years of coaching” Fry said of Diaco in 2013.
Fry died Tuesday at the age of 90.
His career ended with a record of 232-178-6 with stops at SMU and North Texas (State) before landing at Iowa. Fry was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.