Mike Hlas to Hawk Fanatic readers: “Let’s have some fun”

By Mike Hlas

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – For those that don’t know me, I’m Mike Hlas. I used to be the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s sports activities columnist since March 1987. That month occurs to be the final time an Iowa males’s basketball group performed In an NCAA event regional remaining.

It was in Seattle, and I used to be there to cowl it. I’ve lined virtually the entire Hawkeyes’ NCAA tourney video games since then, and plenty of different UI athletics occasions besides. Rose Bowls, a half-dozen Outback Bowls, NCAA wrestling tournaments, and the 1996 Olympics when Tom Brands received a wrestling gold medal.

Arguably, the perfect and largest assignments I had in all that point have been in 2023 and 2024, the Hawkeyes’ marches to and appearances within the NCAA girls’s basketball national-championship recreation. Indelible recollections, to place it mildly.

The Gazette was independently and regionally owned in my complete Gazette profession. I used to be extraordinarily fortunate. Luck at all times appears to have an expiration date, although. Three hours after Adams MultiMedia introduced it had purchased the Gazette final November, I used to be advised I wasn’t being retained.

In the phrases of the thinker Tony Soprano, whaddya gonna do?

The very first thing I did was begin contributing to the Iowa Writers Collaborative (mikehlas.substack.com), a terrific group of journalists and essayists who’re their very own bosses. They, underneath the management of founder Julie Gammack, principally have shaped an excellent Iowa digital newspaper. I’m writing sports activities and different issues there, and those that have subscribed to me there’ll proceed to get authentic materials.

I’ve been thrilled with the preliminary response to that, and now I’m supplementing it by changing into a contributing author to Hawk Fanatic. I’m neither a Hawk nor a fanatic, however I don’t suppose you’d really need both. If Iowa is doing one thing badly or fallacious, I say so. If it’s doing one thing terrific, superb, or simply plain good, I say so. How Ben McCollum’s males’s basketball group waved off three straight losses and dominated Indiana in Bloomington Saturday was within the “terrific” class.

How Tom Brands’ wrestling group misplaced 32-3 at dwelling to Penn State Friday was not.

Besides staying busy and maintaining a toe within the native main school sports activities water (which was frozen strong in Eastern Iowa this weekend), I just like the type of web site Pat Harty is operating right here. One factor I haven’t missed concerning the Gazette was getting gripes from folks about its website. I dismissed the paywall complaints. I heard concerning the advertisements embedded within the tales that aggravated readers. Whaddya gonna do?

Happily, these issues aren’t points right here. Hawk Fanatic is supported by advertisements on the house web page and by the generosity of donors. You don’t should subscribe. You come right here, click on, learn, and aren’t topic to intrusive commercials within the textual content although the location is free. Seems like deal to me.

I’ll have my first piece of Hawkeyes-related copy right here quickly, perhaps a glance again at Tuesday’s Rutgers-Iowa males’s basketball recreation, or a glance forward at Thursday’s Iowa-Maryland girls’s basketball recreation, or ideas concerning the switch portal assortment Kirk Ferentz has assembled. There’s by no means a scarcity of fabric.

I’ve at all times stated these things is meant to be enjoyable. So let’s have some