By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The fall of 1958 was a special time for Iowa football fans thanks to arguably the greatest team in program history.

The 2018 season will mark the 60^th anniversary of the Iowa football team’s march to excellence under the legendary Forest Evashevski.

And sadly, time has taken a toll with Evashevski and some the star players from the 1958 team having passed away, including quarterback Randy Duncan and running back Bob Jeter.

I wasn’t even born when the 1958 squad made history, but heard so much about the team while growing up in Des Moines.

My mother adored Evashevski and warned my father that he had better behave or she’d leave him for "Evy," as she always called him.

Of course, she was only joking, considering my parents had been married for 67 years when my father died on March 11 at the age of 91.

I started paying attention to the Iowa football team in the mid-1970s, which left much to be desired from a timing standpoint.

Part of the reason I heard so much about the 1958 team is because there was little to talk about from a positive standpoint during the 1970s.

Another reason is because the 1958 squad truly was special and worth remembering. There was a mystique surrounding the 1958 team back then that still is present today according to some of the old-timers.

It is widely regarded as Evashevski’s best team at Iowa, which speaks volumes because Evashevski had two other teams at Iowa that finished with a better record than the 1958 squad.

That includes the 1956 squad that pounded Oregon State 35-19 in the Rose Bowl to cap a 9-1 season, while the other was the 1960 squad that finished 8-1 in Evashevski’s final season as head coach. The 1960 team didn’t make the Rose Bowl, but it whipped Notre Dame 28-0 in the season finale in South Bend, Ind.

The 1958 team finished 8-1-1 with all but one of its eight victories coming by at least 10 points, highlighted by the 38-12 beat-down over California in the Rose Bowl. Its two blemishers were a 13-13 tie against the Air Force Academy in week two and a 38-28 loss to Ohio State in the eighth game of the season in Iowa City.

The loss to the Air Force Academy looked bad when it happened because the Air Force Academy had only played two seasons of varsity football when it came to Iowa City on Oct. 4.

Iowa dropped from eighth to 17^th in the poll, but the loss also had a positive impact, according to Evashevski, because it lit a fire.

“If we had beaten the Air Force we never in the world would have won the Big Ten championship,” Evashevski said.

The loss would make more sense as the season progressed as Air Force won its next nine games and tied Texas Christian University in the Cotton Bowl to finish in the top 10 of the final poll and with a 9-0-2 record.

The media deserves part of the credit for the 1958 team being thought of so highly because the Football Writers Association of America awarded the team the Grantland Rice Trophy, which was presented annually from 1954 to 2013 to the college football team adjudged by the FWAA to be a national champion.

But the 1958 team also had tremendous star power, especially on offense where Duncan, Jeter and Willie Fleming formed a potent and dynamic three-headed monster for which most teams had no answer.

I’ve seen only a few old and grainy videos of Duncan and his cohorts shredding opponents, but have heard numerous stories and read lots of articles that documented their exploits.

Radio legend Bob Brooks was a wealth of information and knowledge about so many things Hawkeye-related and we had several conversations about the 1958 team in which he painted a clear and detailed picture.

Brooks once told me that Tavian Banks reminded him of Fleming, but that Fleming probably was a step or two faster and quicker.

Imagine somebody faster and quicker than Tavian Banks playing in the Big Ten 60 years ago. Hawkeye fans didn’t have to imagine it in the fall of 1958 because they saw it every Saturday afternoon thanks to Fleming.

Everything Fleming did as Hawkeye happened quickly, including his career, which only lasted for the 1958 season due reportedly to academic issues.

“Willie Fleming had everything as a Hawkeye except enough time,” said Brooks, who died in July 2016 at the age of 89. “Nobody stood a chance against Willie in open field.”

Fleming still is alive and reportedly lives in his home state of Michigan.

He and Jeter for one season formed an explosive one-two punch that compares favorably to any other running back combination at Iowa. That was never more evident than in the 1959 Rose Bowl when Jeter rushed for 194 yards on just nine carries, while Fleming gained 85 yards and scored two touchdowns on nine carries.

Jeter gained nearly half of his yards on a 81-yard touchdown gallop that expanded Iowa's lead to 32-6 in the thuird quarter.

The Hawkeyes smashed four Rose Bowl records, including rushing for 429 yards.

Jeter and Fleming were complemented perfectly by Duncan, who finished runner-up for the 1958 Heisman Trophy and was named Iowa's most valuable player.

It's also worth noting that the 1958 team stood out for reasons beyond  just its success on the playing field.

The fact that Fleming and Jeter both were black was no big deal to Hawkeye fans because the University of Iowa had been an active supporter of civil rights for years. And so had Evashevski.

But it was a big deal and a source of controversy in other parts of the country where many schools still had no blacks on their football team.

So the 1958 squad, in addition to being a force on the field, was also a force in the Civil Rights movement. Sports is often where racial barriers start to collapse and you could say the 1958 Iowa football team helped with that process.   

FryFest will honor the Iowa football team’s 1983 coaching staff under Hayden Fry, and deservedly so, because we’ll probably never see another staff like it and because it’s been 35 years.

There is also lots of buzz surrounding Kirk Ferentz as he enters his 20th season as the Iowa football coach. Ferentz will match Fry in coaching longevity at Iowa this season and will surpass him in all-time wins at Iowa with his next victory, which would be Ferentz's 144th at Iowa.

We often pay tribute to people and teams based on specific dates and numbers.

Part of the inspiration for this column was timing in that it’s been 60 years since the 1958 squad treated fans to a historical season.

But on the other hand, there is never a bad time to recognize excellence.