Teams
Forum List
Toggle sidebar

Your Best Johnny Orr Stories here.

Johnny would do promotional tours in the fall with the team. It became customary for him to introduce all new team players, and then would brag them up with his usual flair for overstatement. This helped increase season ticket sales and renewed hope for cyclone fans. We always needed something by the end of football season. One year he introduced a freshman recruit he was particularly fond of that had gone undefeated in his high school career. If I remember correctly it was Mark Baugh. Johnny embellished him with his usual flair. As he wound down his speal Johnny remarked, "Of course Mark will have to learn several new things at Iowa State. I suppose the first thing we will have to teach him is what it feels like to lose." Johnny was always great. RIP.
 
Kicked us out of the Iowa State tailgate at the bowl game in Shreveport because we bought our tickets to the tailgate second hand.
 
I only met him in person at the grocery store on West Lincoln Way, shortly after he was hired.

What I do want to share is the stunning amazement that day in 1980 when the Des Moines Reg had big bold headlines that we hired Orr. This was a total surprise and it was pretty tight lipped around town - there were not a lot of hints, or secrets on the radio who ISU was interviewing.

I attended ISU from 1975-1980 and no one today could even imagine the game experience at Hilton in that era. Attendance barely filled the lower marquee - probably averaged a little over 5,000. So In the spring of 1980 We just fired Lynn Nance, who had a minor scandal hurting our reputation, and Lute Olson really had things going at Iowa; things at ISU were kinda grim.

I was blown away when I opened the sports sec of the DSM to read we just hired Orr, who had the following credentials:
+ AP Coach of the Year
+ Big 10 Conf Championships - I think two.
+ 3-years removed from the Final 2 NCAA Championship game (Mich lost to Bobby Knight's Indy team).

This was a huge deal when we hired him.. Iowa fans were wetting their pants because we were paying Orr more than Lute - can you believe Johnny's first base salary was only about $45,000, but bonuses and perks had him over $100K - a big deal in 1980. Just ticket sales alone for the 1981 season quadrupled, and we essentially paid for Johnny's salary.

In 3-years after Johnny, attendance went from 5,000 to 14,000. And the Magic was born.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wesley and BBHMagic
When I was a student, had a tall boyfriend who took me somewhere nice, must have been Valentine's Day or something and it was somewhere downtown, thinking maybe Aunt Maude's. It was freezing and the guy dropped me at the door and went to park. I'm rocking my highest heels cause I was young and the boyfriend was tall. Coach Orr came out the door, held it open for me, and said, "Don't fall off those shoes, Coach." Was able to both laugh and blush.
 
Cydar said:
If Mack didn't get in trouble and if Mark Baugh would have stayed academically eligible ISU would have had a heck of a front court with Big Vic.
Click to expand...

Johnny also thought that he would have an outstanding team and scheduled a tough non-conference slate in the hopes of the program making a statement on the national level. Without the missing players, it was too much to handle. He said in an interview with Pete that he would not make that mistake again. He told Pete that the next year he would be playing "a bunch of teams that you never even heard of".
 
Per John Walters; Johnny used to call the old Walking Cy logo an "angry chicken."

The line - (from an old ISU vs. OU game with Justus Thigpen I believe) "Guard 'em up there by that angry chicken!"

ISU won the game.

Man, I'm still just shocked he's gone. Loved him! The father of Hilton Magic. RIP Johnny.
 
carvers4math said:
When I was a student, had a tall boyfriend who took me somewhere nice, must have been Valentine's Day or something and it was somewhere downtown, thinking maybe Aunt Maude's. It was freezing and the guy dropped me at the door and went to park. I'm rocking my highest heels cause I was young and the boyfriend was tall. Coach Orr came out the door, held it open for me, and said, "Don't fall off those shoes, Coach." Was able to both laugh and blush.
Click to expand...

lol. He literally called everybody "coach" didn't he?
 
I've posted these before, but...

He came to speak at a speech comm class I had. I don't remember what he started off talking about but he was pretty clearly unprepared and was just going to rely on his ability to riff to get him through his 20 minutes at the podium. He kind of ran out of material at one point and there was a pause. Then he says, "I love them Hawkeyes. I love them Hawkeyes, boy." Everybody was thinking, "What?!?!?" Johnny follows that with, "I love to beat the **** out of them!" And then bellows out that hilarious cackle. I was on the floor.

I also ran into him at an airport in South Carolina once. I said, "Coach?" You would have thought we were long lost buds. He talked to me for 10 minutes and called me coach at least 5 or 6 times. I'll never forget it. And I got to personally thank him for what he did for our basketball program...very thankful for that.
 
I'll have to dig up my picture from Johnny Orr Basketball camp, I was on the winning team for the junior high level kids that were there, after the awards ceremony, I managed to get a picture with him and my trophy. I think that is the only time I really got a chance to interact with him, but was always smiling and having fun, and was almost eager to take the pic with me!
 
Mr Janny said:
2002 Final Four in Atlanta. I was there for work with 2 other guys. Through some connections we got invited to this fancy charity brunch sponsored by ADIDAS. When we arrived, the maitre d noticed the Iowa State logo on my shirt and asked if we were from Iowa. We replied yes, and he said that there was another couple from Iowa in attendance, so he'd sit us by them. Imagine our surprise when the "other couple" turned out to be Johnny and his wife.

Over the course of the next 90 minutes, Johnny had us all in stitches with his stories. All kinds of topics, from basketball, to non sports stuff, to speculation on the number of lesbians in the ISU athletic department. I swear even I learned some curse words that I'd never heard before. It was a riot.

And the best part is he was doing it while speaker after speaker was addressing the crowd on behalf of this charity. At one point, one of the event organizers recognized Johnny, and asked him to say a few words off the cuff. He agreed, and once he got a hold of a microphone, basically dominated the room for much much longer than any of the other speakers. It was great.
Click to expand...
LOL, he was one of a kind.

He preceded the internet and 24 hour news. Recruiting coverage was probably about 5% of what it is today and I always remember losing guys to graduaton, grades, who knows what else ... and on media day, there would be 2 or 3 guys you never heard of and a number of them ended up being really good players (remember Doug Collins?). And of course, beatin Michigan in the 86 tourney.
 
One day after preschool, Alex and I went to a bookstore in Des Moines for Johnny Orr's book signing. When we got to the table Coach Orr said "Alex how are you doing?" Alex's eyes got huge. I didn't have the heart to tell him Coach Orr knew his name because he still had on his name tag from school.​
 
Mr. Benson from Benson Motors used to supply the coaches with the cars. He said Johnny wrecked 3 cars and each time he would have them towed to a differet dealer to fix them. Just so Mr. Benson did not know he wrecked his car. BWT all 3 accidents happened around 2 in the morning and Coach was drunk. The cops would always drive him home after the wreck. Times were different.
 
Dancing on the stage @ Shreveport to a disco band with about 30 other people at the double A ball park, and looked over next to me was johnny,dancing with a multi colored wig on his head!
 
One of my favorite quotes was from the year we recruited Hoiberg, Meyer & Beechum. Coach was asked about the talent in the state that year and replied something to the effect, 'there were five players in the state...we got 3...one went JuCo and one went to Iowa...which is about the same thing.'
 
  • Like
Reactions: MidwestZest
I'm young, so I never got to watch an Orr coached team, but about 10 years ago I went to a game with my dad. I was about 12 at the time. We got there super early, and as we were walking up to Hilton, Johnny and his wife were going up the stairs. My dad pointed out who it was and I was a little start struck. I ran and caught up with him and he was more than happy to shake my hand and sign a program and everything. As a little kid I was pumped and thought that was pretty awesome.
 
Johnny used to come into this restaurant I worked at with his wife probably once a month maybe. I got to wait on him and he was always so nice and full of funny jokes. I remember once he was in a day after Iowa state had lost pretty bad but I still was wearing an Iowa state shirt and he looked at me and said, "did you watch the game last night?" And I said "yeah I did coach, pretty ugly", and he was like "yeah it was bad but I'm sure it made that crappy college beer go down smoother right?" And I started laughing. He always called everyone coach too "can I get a refill? Thanks coach"
 
We were golfing a fund raiser at Harvester and Johnny was in the group behind us. With a bunch of hacks (like me) in the tourney things were backed up and Johnny would often be at the tee with us as we hit.

I have never golfed so terribly but had so much fun golfing in my life. Once he learned I could take some ribbing on bad shots, he was relentless in 'critiquing' my game. There is a par 3 three there overlooking the green and some water. He handed me 2 sleeves of balls and told me to keep hitting until I put on over the water. Finally made it with one ball left - has his autograph and is in my backpack wherever I go.

Godspeed Johnny, I hope the next generations of Cyclones have a hero like you to make this life a little brighter!
 
Sparkplug said:
One day after preschool, Alex and I went to a bookstore in Des Moines for Johnny Orr's book signing. When we got to the table Coach Orr said "Alex how are you doing?" Alex's eyes got huge. I didn't have the heart to tell him Coach Orr knew his name because he still had on his name tag from school.​
Click to expand...

So your son is the only one he didn't call Coach? HA!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Help Support Us

Become a patron
Top Bottom
Back