By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – With just a few days left in the 2024 calendar year, now seems a good time to put together a wish list for Hawkeye athletics.

By wish list, I mean decisions or changes that should be made to help make Iowa athletics better, to make the viewing experience better for fans, and to do what’s right.

Here are my top five in no particular order:

1. Move the Iowa student section to courtside: This debate has been festering for years, but there is one sign of hope in that Iowa Athletic Director Beth Goetz is at least willing to consider moving the student section closer to courtside, whereas her predecessor, Gary Barta, would never even consider it.

Of course, this would be much easier said than done.

But Iowa has to do something to help bring the students back to men’s basketball games because the current setup certainly isn’t working.

The Iowa women’s basketball team figured out how to do it, which was having the greatest offensive player in the history of women’s college basketball lead Iowa to back-to-back NCAA runner-up finishes.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that if the Iowa men’s basketball team were to finish as the NCAA runner-up this season, student attendance would increase dramatically next season.

Iowa men’s basketball is also its own worst enemy in this case for consistently scheduling so many unappealing nonconference home games that are basically forgone conclusions from a competitive standpoint.

This brings us to my next wish.

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2. Start playing Drake and Northern Iowa again in men’s basketball: The argument against playing Drake and UNI is that there aren’t enough open spots in the nonconference schedule to include these two opponents every year.

Please.

The reason Iowa and Iowa State don’t play Drake and Northern Iowa on an annual basis in men’s basketball is because Iowa and Iowa State don’t want to risk losing in Des Moines or Cedar Falls every other year.

But if the women can make it work, then so should the men.

Iowa supposedly didn’t have room for Drake or UNI on its 2024 nonconference schedule, but somehow still found dates to play Texas A&M Commerce, Southern, South Dakota, Rider, USC Upstate, New Orleans and New Hampshire.

As a Drake graduate, I’ll admit to having some bias in this case.

But this seems a no-brainer to have the state’s four Division I men’s basketball teams play each other on annual basis.

Imagine the atmosphere inside the Knapp Center if the Iowa men were to face Drake in Des Moines.

Not only would it generate huge fans interest, it would also help to make both teams better in the long run.

Iowa and Iowa State used to play Drake and Northern Iowa at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, alternating opponents each year, but that setup didn’t last very long.

It would’ve made more sense to have had the four instate teams play a two-day tournament in Des Moines with the winners on day one meeting in the title game the next day.

But that argument never gained momentum, partly because there was concern about Iowa and Iowa State meeting twice in the same season.

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3. Stop playing November night football games: This should go without saying, but we now live in a sports world where television revenue has the final say on just about everything.

It apparently doesn’t matter if a game is played in lousy weather conditions if enough viewers watch it on television.

That’s where we are right now as the growing thirst for money seems to be justification for doing just about anything related to college sports.

The temperature was 20 degrees at the 6:38 p.m. start of Iowa’s regular season-finale against Nebraska at Kinnick Stadium with winds out the northwest at eight miles per hour.

And while, yes, it was also cold during the day on Nov. 29, it doesn’t take a trained meteorologist to know that it gets colder at night.

So, why make an already tough situation worse?

The desire to make money, that’s why.

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4. Put Sedrick Shaw in the Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame: From what I’ve been told, Iowa’s all-time leading rusher doesn’t meet the criteria for Hall of Fame consideration because he never earned All-America accolades.

If that truly is the case, then the process of picking inductees is too narrow and too short-sighted.

Shonn Greene was part of Iowa’s 2024 Hall of Fame class, and deservedly so, for what he accomplished in winning the 2008 Doak Walker Award as the nation’s top collegiate running back.

Greene was spectacular that season, setting the Iowa single-season rushing mark with 1,850 yards. He gained at least 100 yards in all 13 games that season, and he was largely responsible for Iowa winning six of its last seven games in 2008.

But that was the only season in which Greene led Iowa in rushing, whereas Shaw led Iowa in rushing as a sophomore, junior and senior, gaining at least 1,000 yards in all three seasons.

Shaw’s best season from a statistical standpoint was 1995 when as a junior he rushed for 1,477 yards and scored 15 touchdowns.

Hayden Fry called Shaw’s number a whopping 42 times against Michigan State in 1995 and Shaw delivered in a big way, gaining 250 yards in a 21-7 victory on the road.

Shaw was so good and durable as a Hawkeye that he kept Tavian Banks as a backup for three years.

UI officials should show some flexibility by bending the rules to let Sedrick Shaw get what he rightfully deserves.

The Austin, Texas native finished his Iowa career in 1996 with 4,150 rushing yards.

He is the only player in program history to surpass 4,000 career rushing yards.

Give this man his due.

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5. Add a ticket surcharge to help fund NIL: I’m not comfortable telling fans how to spend their money because they’re already being pulled in multiple directions from an expense standpoint.

But if Iowa is ever to become a serious player in the NIL arms race, it has to figure a way to raise more money.

Here’s an idea.

Add a surcharge to all season and single-game tickets in an effort to generate more revenue for players.

Tennessee announced in September a price hike from a 10-percent surcharge for football tickets starting in 2025 with most of the increase going specifically to help pay players.

The move comes as schools are looking for new models to make more money that will be shared with student-athletes in anticipation of a settlement of the House vs. NCAA antitrust lawsuit.

Tennessee officials refer to the surcharge as a talent fee because the money will go directly to the talent.

They hope to generate approximately $10 million annually with the ticket surcharge.

It’s time for Iowa to give this approach serious consideration.

Some fans might resent having to pay a ticket surcharge, but maybe that resentment would soften if the price of tickets didn’t increase on a regular basis.

Fans still would have to pay more, but the additional expense would go directly to NIL.

It’s something for Beth Goetz to at least consider as big-time college athletics becomes more of a play-for-pay model.

Of course, there would be a risk in adding a ticket surcharge in that it could drive some fans away.

The handling of the surcharge would also have to operate within the NIL rules, which means the money couldn’t come directly through the athletic department.

The Iowa Swarm Collective would likely have to oversee the operation, and my guess is Iowa Swarm CEO Bran Heinrichs would gladly do so.

NIL is here to stay and what some schools are willing to pay is outrageous, and in some cases, ridiculous.

Iowa either has to keep pace or will get left behind.