CNA sports team transition begins next week

Ben Frotscher

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I was listening to some audio of Tom Brands’ news conference from Iowa wrestling media day this week, and some of the things he said seemed to coincide with some observations I had about sportswriter Ben Frotscher as he begins his next set of challenges at the Newton Daily News on Monday. Of course, Ben is a Cyclone fan, so to be proper I should focus on ISU coach Cael Sanderson instead. But, I’ll go with what I heard from Iowa City for the sake of this exposition. Brands, who could seemingly motivate a Brazilian sloth to climb a mountain, talked about the inner drive to excel that has been a trademark of national champions at Iowa. “They do what the coaches tell you to do, and them more,” Brands said, referring to the likes of Royce Alger, Barry Davis and now Brent Metcalf. (You can throw Tom and Terry Brands in that mix, by the way.) “Our champions have always worked independently,” Brands said, “figuring out how to balance academics and two or three workouts in a day. In their mind, they’ve never done enough. There’s always something to work on.” It was that kind of pride that fueled the program that won nine straight titles in the late 1970s and 1980s, and what seems to be part of its revival now under Brands, a Dan Gable disciple. (It’s also encouraging that another product of that program, Mario Galanakis, will be helping instill those lessons in Creston/O-M kids as a new assistant to Panther coach Darrell Frain.) In that line of thinking, we’re losing some of those qualities from our newsroom as Ben departs this weekend. He’s come a long ways from his days of joining us while finishing his degree at Simpson College less than three years ago. At that time, former sports editor Mike Falco shifted to news as assistant managing editor, I moved back to the sports editor chair, and the newspaper’s leadership made a commitment to enhance the sports product by having a second full-time sports position. With nine schools and an active community college, it was a good way to reach out better to our athletic community by having a two-person team produce the daily sports section. Losing Falco’s energy and creativity from the sports staff was a blow, but he grew as a journalist and then gained admission to a competitive graduate school in New York. Ben came in and did a fantastic job of filling the role we envisioned, and more. There are so many ways in which Ben reached beyond the required duties, as described by Brands. Without any prompting, he started charting conference standings in various sports. That is not an easy task. Through a variety of sources, such as state athletic association Web sites, Quikstats Iowa, the Des Moines Register and Omaha World-Herald, he doggedly kept up records in the Hawkeye 10, Pride of Iowa, Rolling Hills and Bluegrass conferences. That allowed us both to use those records as a resource for articles throughout the season. Also, this time of year I really grew to appreciate his efforts as he helped organize the mailings to area coaches as we gathered information for preseason guides in the paper, as well as setting appointments for team photographs. He never complained about “clerical” duties such as stuffing envelopes and addressing them. In the process he gathered valuable contact data for coaches, who in some cases can’t always be reached at the school in which they coach. During the season, our coverage of sports in surrounding towns has grown because of the tireless efforts by Ben on the mornings after games in gathering faxes and e-mails to write those area round-ups. During most shifts, I was able to concentrate mostly on Creston stories and the page layout mix with Associated Press state and national stories while Ben gave attention to the array of games around the area the night before. By getting out to area schools so often, Ben made a lot of friends in those places, and he’s heard from many of them this week. It was fun to see him received so well by these coaches and parents who appreciated our efforts so much. He also did a great job in town with certain sports beats at CHS and Southwestern Community College. We each had our specialties, and it seemed to mesh well. He was a golf nut and a former cross country runner, which really helped boost those sports with knowledgeable coverage. For all of those reasons and more, he will be missed around here. But it was rewarding to play a role in launching a promising career. I may have been the old grouch seated next to him, but when I looked back 25 years and saw myself in that role of learning the ropes, I tried to give him opportunities to branch out and challenge himself. It was a good run. Hopefully he’ll find his way back to the southern tier of counties once in a while and visit. Or, check him out at the Iowa Speedway. I’m sure he’ll appreciate a friendly face.