Iowa

The Making of Iowa State Hockey During five decades, Alan Murdoch played for, coached and managed the Iowa State Cyclone hockey team, making a life's work out of his personal resourcefulness and initiative. Iowa State grew into a premier program in non-scholarship hockey, and as the network of similar teams became increasingly formalized under the auspices of the American Collegiate Hockey Association - an organization to which Murdoch was an essential contributor - the Cyclones played at a national championship-level. The trophy for which they were vying: the Murdoch Cup. By the time he left the bench, Murdoch's teams had won more than 1,000 games against opponents from around the world. Sometimes funny, sometime emotional, Murdoch and author Tim Harwood explore the story of how winning became a way of life for Cyclone Hockey.

The state of Iowa is just as well known for prominent wrestlers as it is acres of corn and beans.

That gives Iowa the mighty distinction of feeding the world and defeating it on the mat. Men like Dan Gable, Tom Brands, Harold Nichols, Jim Miller, Nick Mitchell and Chuck Patten led Iowa colleges to forty-four of an astounding sixty-nine national team championships. In 1954, Simon Roberts of Davenport was the first African American to win a state wrestling title and later the first African American NCAA wrestling champion. Wrestler Norman Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize and is credited with preventing more than one billion deaths from starvation. Author Dan McCool details the long history of hard work and dedication from the fields to the mat.