Yikes!

Norwester · September 18, 2006

Fry feared assassin in fall of '82

By RANDY PETERSON

REGISTER STAFF WRITER

September 13, 2006

Iowa football fans must have wondered if something was out of the ordinary when coach Hayden Fry walked onto the field at Nebraska in 1982 wearing black pants.

Something indeed was different that week and a week later when Fry wore a bulletproof vest during the Iowa State-Iowa game in Iowa City.

Fry feared for his life.

"The Nebraska game - it was the first time in my life I'd ever seen him in anything other than white pants on the sidelines for a game," said Dan McCarney, a former Fry assistant and current Iowa State coach. "I asked him what the deal was, and Hayden said that he was wearing black pants so he could blend in on the sidelines because someone was trying to kill him."

Fry led the Hawkeyes to the Rose Bowl and a winning record for the first time in 20 years in 1981. He made the death threat public for the first time in a telephone interview last week.

"My bodyguard at the time got word that someone had me on a list of people that he wanted killed," Fry said from his home in Mesquite, Nev. He retired from coaching in 1998. "The guy was afraid I was going to someday be the governor.

"He knew I was from Texas, and for some reason, he didn't want a Texan to be the governor of the state of Iowa."

Fry reverted to his traditional white coaching pants, but wore the vest for three or four games during his fourth season at Iowa in 1982, according to Gary Hughes, a former Johnson County sheriff and Fry's former sideline bodyguard.

"I recall him wearing it during the Iowa State game," Hughes said.

Only a few people knew of the threat and the vest.

"We tried to keep it a secret because we thought publicity might set the guy off," Fry said. "The authorities were searching for him."

Neither Fry nor Hughes would name the individual they both say is now dead, although both confirmed it to be a man from Iowa.

Officials from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service said they were not immediately certain whether additional documentation of the threat existed.

"This person had a message from Satan," said Hughes, who is also retired. "Someone in the FBI brought the threat to me, and we proceeded from there. It was a credible threat, so we felt it best that Hayden wear the vest until the guy was captured."

Hughes said the man later was institutionalized.

"He died a few years back," Hughes said.

This year's annual Hawkeye-Cyclone game is Saturday in Iowa City, but Fry will be in Madison, Wis., watching the San Diego State-Wisconsin matchup. That game involves two of his former players who are now head coaches - Chuck Long at San Diego State and Bret Bielema at Wisconsin.

McCarney, meanwhile, will be in Iowa City coaching against another former Fry assistant, Kirk Ferentz.

"I'm not certain Kirk knew about it right away," McCarney said of Ferentz, who was on Fry's staff in 1982, "but I could tell from the quivering in Hayden's voice when he told us, that it was a very serious threat."