Audience enjoys Hawkeye stories from Chuck Long

     Former Iowa Hawkeye football quarterback Chuck Long kept the full attention of about 40 people in attendance at a dinner and book signing event May 14 in the Durgin Pavilion at Camp Courageous of Monticello.

     The event, organized and sponsored by the Monticello Lions, featured a meal, a speech by Long, and a session in which he posed for photos and signed autographs in copies of the book: “Destined for Greatness: The Story of Chuck Long and the Resurgence of Iowa Football,” which was authored by Aaron Putze.

     Long kept the audience entertained with stories of how he became a Hawkeye, his early struggles with the team, and some of its greatest moments.

     The biggest one, which Long said plays a prominent role in the book, involved the Hawkeyes’ 12-10 upset of top-ranked Michigan in 1985, leading to a Big Ten championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl for Iowa.

     Long told the story of how Iowa coach Hayden Fry liked to try to get inside the head of Michigan coach Bo Schembechler.

     Before the game Fry, the story goes, sent an inexperienced long snapper over near the Michigan sideline to practice some snaps. The snaps bounced every which way, until Schembechler finally asked Fry, “You’re not going to have this long snapper snap to your punter today, are you?”

     And Fry replied: “We don’t plan on punting today, Coach,” and turned and walked away.

     Long said that despite playing in the NFL with the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams, and coaching for 18 years, including a head coaching position at San Diego State, nothing topped the win over Michigan.

     He also told of how was not heavily recruited, until Iowa assistant coach Bill Snyder contacted him to say the Hawkeyes were interested.

     The Iowa coaching staff eventually offered him a scholarship, which came to the surprise of Long’s father, who asked, “Son, have they seen you play?”

     Long speaks fondly of Fry, who led the Hawkeyes to success after 20 losing seasons in a row. In a 1985 game against Michigan State, Fry called for Long to run a bootleg play on the final play, with the game on the line, and didn’t tell the rest of the team.

     “We had never run that play,” Long said. “Never called it, never talked about it.”

     Fry told him, “Charlie, we’re going to run the 47 popout. Don’t hand the ball off. Don’t tell anybody, but put it on your right hip, go around the right side and score a touchdown.”

     “That’s exactly what happened,” Long recalled. “Anybody in this room could have scored that touchdown. I could not believe it. How did he know?”

     He talked of how Fry is currently number one in the nation as far as having former assistant coaches become prominent head coaches. He also mentioned current coach Kirk Ferentz, for whom Long was an assistant, and marveled at the success Iowa has had with just two head coaches in the past 40 years.

     Long, 56, is CEO and executive director of the Iowa Sports Foundation, the organization that runs the Iowa Games, the Senior Games and the Live Healthy Iowa Challenge. He is also an analyst for the Big Ten Network.