The Daily Iowan WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2024
THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA COMMUNITY SINCE 1868
DAILYIOWAN.COM
Carly Schrum | The Daily Iowan
Nebraska gymnast James Friedman huddles with teammates during a men’s gymnastics meet between Nebraska, Greenville, and Army in Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln, Neb., on Feb. 17. The Cornhuskers won the meet with a score of 412.90. Friedman was a gymnast for Iowa before the program was cut after the 2020-21 season.
SERIES: SPORTS CUT SHORT
GYMNASTS STILL HOLDING ON Athletes reflect after four years since their sport was cut at the University of Iowa.
Matt McGowan Sports Reporter
matt-mcgowan@uiowa.edu
What was an unusual phone push notification became an odd meeting at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, which in a matter of minutes became the official death knell of four University of Iowa varsity sports. Four years after former athletics director Gary Barta announced the University of Iowa was cutting four UI varsity sports, The Daily Iowan searched for the student-athletes whose NCAA careers were forced to move elsewhere or were stopped altogether. This story is the first of a four-part series documenting the lives of some of these athletes since that point, in which DI sports reporter Matt McGowan explores what the future of their careers looked like, and how the UI has fared since cutting these sports. In the heat of the COVID campus shutdown, student-athletes and coaches of Hawkeye men’s gymnastics, tennis, and both men’s and women’s swimming and diving received word on Aug. 21, 2020, of an urgent meeting at the practice
INSIDE Teacher pay bump could combat rising shortage Iowa legislators advance bills increasing teacher pay; educators question if it’s enough. EPI | 5A
Inside IC’s ‘Big Queer Dating Show’ Last year, the Big Queer Dating Show at PS1 was a hit in both the older and younger LGBTQ+ communities of Iowa City. This year’s event was even bigger. 80 HOURS | 1C
ONLINE • See in-depth coverage of the Hawkeyes’ senior night and Iowa vs. Ohio State women’s basketball game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on March 1 at dailyiowan.com. • Listen to the latest
episodes of The Daily Iowan’s two podcasts, Above the Fold and Press Box Banter, where reporters cover the latest news and talk sports at dailyiowan.com.
gyms inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena later that day. Ten days prior, the Big Ten and PAC-12 conferences postponed all of their fall sports, including football, to the spring season. Meanwhile, the three other Power Five conferences affirmed football would occur that fall. In-person classes were set to start on Aug. 24, 2020, but many athletes had been training on campus in advance. For Zac Tiderman, then a first-year gymnast in the Black and Gold, the lack of athletic department officials in the room for the first few minutes cast a net of unease for the then-masked-up athletes, leaving them warily glancing at one another. “‘Something’s not right here,’” he recalled thinking. The intense silence was broken when Tiderman then-athletics director Gary Barta entered the room. Barta announced he had good news and bad news: all four sports would compete during the 2020-21 season. The bad news quickly followed: after the season ended, those sports would cease to exist at Iowa.
Barta detailed how student-athletes who still wanted to play at the NCAA level were encouraged to transfer, and those who stayed at the university would still have their scholarships honored through graduation. After providing the news, Barta then left the room, leaving representatives of the athBarta letics department to field questions. “It was just sad, I mean everyone was crying,” Tiderman said. “Hopes and dreams were crushed in a matter of minutes, and you were just left there to deal with it.” In a press release later that day, Barta and then-UI President Bruce Harreld explained the sports were cut primarily to save money, as the pair projected lost revenue of up to $100 million and a $60-75 million deficit that fiscal year because of the postponed fall season. On Sept. 16, 2020, the Big Ten announced it would play football, starting as soon as Oct. 23, but without fans in attendance. Barta said at an
GYMNAST | 2B
A new level of health for ROTC
UI students are teaching cadets about getting fit based on research. Shreya Reddy News Reporter
shreya-s-reddy@uiowa.edu
For Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadet and second-year University of Iowa student Kaylynn Lambert, being a woman in the ROTC can be challenging when it comes to meeting height and weight standards. However, a new collaboration that began in the fall of 2023 between the ROTC program at the university and the university’s Health and Human Physiology department has helped Lambert navigate this challenge by performing a series of body composition tests to measure and meet physical fitness requirements. Body composition tests help determine what a person’s total body mass is made up of, Lucas Carr, associate professor in the Health and Human Physiology department at the university, said. The collaboration includes Carr and his students in the Health and Human Physiology department performing body composition tests for ROTC cadets. This has been beneficial for both groups and continues to help cadets understand their bodies on a holistic level. The test measures how much of the body is made up of fat mass, lean mass, muscle tissue,
ROTC | 6A
Ayrton Breckenridge | The Daily Iowan
University of Iowa Army ROTC Cadets complete hand release push-ups during an Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) at the Iowa Army National Guard Readiness Center in Iowa City on April 27, 2022. The test consisted of deadlift, standing power throw, hand release push-ups, sprint drag carry, plank and a two-mile run.
IC residents protest conservative speaker Protesters raised $770 for reproductive freedom during the YAF event. Vince Everett Ellison talked DEI legislation and abortion rights.
Liam Halawith Politics Editor
liam-halawith@uiowa.edu
Roxy Ekberg Politics Reporter
roxy-ekberg@uiowa.edu
As Iowa lawmakers consider legislation to codify the Iowa Board of Regents’ efforts to reduce the number of diversity, equity, and inclusion offices in Iowa’s public universities, anti-DEI speaker Vince Everett Ellison upheld the policies to the conservative student group Young Ameri-
cans for Freedom on Monday night. Supporters and protesters packed a small event room in the Iowa Memorial Union Monday night to hear Ellison speak on DEI and abortion issues. The student organization expected a crowd of about 80 attendees. Peaceful protesters played “Bigot Bingo” during the speech. Listed on the card were a plethora of conservative talking points that Ellison might cover. The organizer of the bingo game donated $5 for every bingo to a local women’s health clinic that was not disclosed. Ellison is a self-proclaimed author, speaker, and “challenger,” and is a member of Project 21,
an initiative of Black conservatives. He is a former Democrat and was born on a cotton plantation in Tennessee, where his parents were sharecroppers, according to the Young Americans Foundation website. He said DEI harms Black students by admitting students not based on their skills but instead based on their race. He said Black students should be considered for admission and given accolades based on their skill and dedication, not because of their status as a minority. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that
SPEAKER | 6A