I have as much respect for Mike Hlas of the Cedar Rapids Gazette as I do any media member I have ever met.  For that matter, as a person, too.  I just like the guy and think his sense of humor is underestimated, and his wit can be cutting at times, yet spot on.  He is a thinking man’s columnist in my opinion, but I don’t say that to label myself a thinking man.

Hlas just published a column at his blog that will appear in the Sunday Gazette.  You can tell from reading it that he was not wholly comfortable with writing it, and he even went so far as to spell that out at the beginning of the story.  If the gist of the piece can be summed up by pulling on line from it (and it can’t, you should really read it), this is the one I would pull out:  “But unless Barta is willing to risk even more erosion of his basketball team’s fan base, there doesn’t seem to be any way around him changing coaches.”

I recall one of several conversations I had with longtime Iowa City Press-Citizen columnist Al Grady before his passing.  There wasn’t a bigger fan of the Hawkeyes in the media than Al, and some people have compared my writing style to his..folksly, I have been told.  I don’t know that I have been paid a bigger comment than that, professionally, yet I can hardly accept that as anywhere near be accurate given the regard I had, and have, for Al Grady.

He told me that the toughest thing he ever had to do was to write a column calling for the firing of former Iowa football coach Jerry Burns.  Those two had a relationship that was pretty strong.  But Al said he had to do it, because it’s what he believed.

I didn’t like saying some of the things I said on the radio Wednesday or Friday.  I haven’t enjoyed writing some of the things I have written this year and especially most recently, because I think Todd Lickliter is a decent man.  However, there are a lot of decent men that have lost their jobs the last two years that were not millionaires when they were let go and certainly didn’t have a golden parachute to help create a very soft landing.

It’s not easy saying these things, and you can tell that Hlas struggled with what he wrote.  But I think he was incredibly respectful in his article while summing up what I believe much of the fanbase is feeling…it’s time for a change, and there seems little doubt that one is going to take place very soon.

Tags: Iowa basketball