Despite Problems, Farmers Rallying Behind Hawkeyes

When you come from Iowa, where news travels slowly but tends to linger upon arrival, the story of Dale Burr is hard to wash clean from a memory, even for a football player who might be forgiven for having his mind on other things.

Mike Haight is a starting offensive tackle for the University of Iowa. In four days, he’ll line up against the UCLA Bruins in a pretty big deal called the Rose Bowl.

Thursday, though, Haight reflected on trouble back in his home state. Farm trouble. Lots of it. Back there, luck is running as cold as the weather. In the past three years, thousands of farms have been foreclosed. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear that, in Iowa, it was 1932.

Which brings us back to Dale Burr, a farmer in Lone Tree who apparently was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore. He owed the bank more than a half-million dollars and there was talk of him having to sell his land. One morning, about three weeks ago, Burr went on a methodical shooting spree, killing, in order, his wife, a bank president, a neighbor and himself.

“He just went berserk,” Haight said. “That’s pretty sad. But I tend to see how people lose their cool. Everything they have is crumbling in on them.”

Which brings us back to Iowa football, and what it inspires in those who are down and out.

Despite living out the worst financial crisis since the Depression, Hawkeye fans open their hearts and their pocketbooks for their team. It’s estimated that the school will raise about $3.5 million in funds for the athletic program this year. The Hawkeyes sell out every home game at 66,000-seat Kinnick Stadium. It’s estimated that between 25,000 to 30,000 Iowans will be in town for the Rose Bowl game. More than 14,000 ticket requests have been denied.

“I don’t know where they find the money,” Iowa Coach Hayden Fry said. “But we have sellouts each game. We probably have the largest crowd in the country to follow us to out-of-town games and that will be true here at the Rose Bowl. It’s really incredible the way the fans follow us.”

Haight isn’t so surprised, though. It’s no secret that, in troubled times, Iowans have turned to football. It’s their way of easing the pain.

“The fact that we’re doing so well, maybe it keeps their minds off their world crumbling in on them,” Haight said.

Haight and the Iowa players are trying to do something in return. Since the Ohio State game on Nov. 2, Hawkeye players have been wearing emblems on their helmets bearing the letters, ANF. It stands for America Needs Farmers.

“Coach Fry came up with the idea,” Haight said. “He said that the whole state of Iowa was full of farmers and they all come to watch us. In that area, we’re the big thing. Why couldn’t we do something for them in return?”

The campaign, though, didn’t get off to the greatest start. The ANF stickers made their debut against Ohio State, which dealt Iowa its only loss of the season.

“Maybe it wasn’t such good luck,” Haight said. “But the game was on national television and I don’t know how much publicity it got.”

Haight, whose brother, Dave, is a defensive lineman for the Hawkeyes, is one of several players who are Iowa natives. He grew up in Dyersville, a small farming town of less than 5,000 people. Haight’s father transports milk to local dairies. Mike Haight said he can sense the despair on every return visit to Dyersville.

“They’re feeling the bite right now,” Haight said. “A few years back, right in my area, there was this factory that made farm equipment. I bet they laid-off 5,000 people in the area. The whole eastern side of Iowa is in a depression. Nobody has any money.”

Haight and the Hawkeyes are hoping the ANF stickers will increase public awareness.

“You never know,” Haight said. “Maybe the President will be watching. Stranger things have happened. Maybe this is a way to get that message across to people in the United States.”

Iowa Notes The Hawkeyes completed their first practice in California Friday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. “We got a lot of work done,” Fry said. “It’s probably the first decent workout we’ve had.” . . . Fry and the Hawkeyes seem right at home in the hills of Walnut. When someone asked how Fry would ready his team for UCLA, he turned around and gazed at some cows grazing in the hills above the practice field. “I work on my cow bells,” Fry said. “Do you know what a cow bell is? You see those cows up there? You watch, after awhile a farmer will throw his hay out at a certain time. The No. 1 cow is smarter than the rest of them. He’ll start toward it and all the rest will follow him. So what I do is get me a cow bell at each position and I work with him and he in turn works on the rest of the group.” . . . Fry had a response for those writing that it was outside distractions that hurt his team in the 1982 Rose Bowl loss to the University of Washington. “Nobody had anything negative to write about us this year other than the fact that we missed a meal at Lawry’s. That’s got to be the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Not one time did we ever say those (distractions) were the reason we lost a ball game, as some people have written. We lost to a fine University of Washington football team. They whipped our butts. It had nothing to do with Lawry’s or Bob Hope or anyone else.” . . . The Hawkeyes will again work out this morning at Mt. SAC. All practices are closed to the public and media.