1933

Summer
A report in the University of Iowa News Bulletin alerted alumni that ticket prices were being reduced by the Board in Control of Athletics. “Federal amusement tax included, reserved seats for each of the two major home games will be $1.50. The general admission price of $1.00 will be charged for the Bradley Tech game…. The year book admitting the holder to every home football and basketball game will sell for $5.00.”

In the same story, it was announced that “the Iowa State contest of Nov. 4…marks the renewal of football relations after a 13-year lapse.” Iowa would win that game. Final score: 27-7.

1933
Even the media were defending Iowa after a year when more commotion erupted about athletes’ eligibility—this time on the Hawkeye basketball team. Writing for the Minneapolis Journal, sportswriter-columnist Dick Cullum asserted that “Iowa is not getting a fair break! Either the conference has got into the habit of persecuting the Hawkeyes of Hawkeye officials are too timid or contrite.

“In any event, Iowa is getting much the worse of it for, in spite of the fact that it is as clean in its athletic administration as the average in the league and always was less defiant on the rules than some of the worst offenders, it has been the butt of more than its share of disciplinary action.”

Coach Solem filed his own charges about the way things were run at Iowa. “There is discrimination used in the employment of students,” he claimed. “Athletes cannot find jobs!”

Apparently the academic community was bending over backwards not to give athletes an unfair advantage—only the compensation for past mistakes was too extreme. The North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools investigated Solem’s charges and found that athletes as a group were indeed being discriminated against in Iowa City.

In spite of the hubbub surrounding athletics, the Hawkeyes ended the season in the upper division of the Big Ten—for the first time in four years.

Iowa vs Nebraska 11/25/1933 L(6-7)

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