Hawkeye sports sphere has lost too many of its citizens recently

There have been too many reminders of our mortality and vulnerability lately in our little Iowa sports world.

My fellow sports media friends and I have had a hard time coming to terms with the recent loss of one of our own, Steve Batterson of the Quad City Times.

Last Saturday, Prime Time League founder and former Iowa City Regina high basketball coach Randy Larson died after health struggles the last couple years.

Also Saturday, former Iowa offensive lineman Cody Ince died unexpectedly at his home near Grantsburg, Wis.

Ince was 23, Batterson 61, Larson 67. Too young, all of them.

Ince played in 29 games for the Hawkeyes. He started four of them for the 2021 Big Ten West champions, made the dean’s list. He had to give up football in 2022 because of injuries.

He was a hunter who once bagged a 300-pound bear. Though he didn’t weigh too much less than 300 pounds himself as a college player, he could dunk a basketball.

Ince’s fiancee also returned home to Grantsburg after college. Olivia Tucker played softball at Bemidji State and is a fourth-grade teacher at Grantsburg Middle School. She and Ince had a Labrador named Hawk.

Former Hawkeye teammates Jack Heflin, Landan Paulsen and Levi Paulsen will be honorary pallbearers for Ince. They were to be groomsmen at his wedding, scheduled for next May.

Memorials are being forwarded to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital.

Larson and Batterson were friends to so many people in this area.

Larson seemed to be doing something 24 hours a day. Who is a practicing attorney and a hands-on restaurateur at the same time?

On top of that, he was the head boys’ basketball coach at Regina High School for seven years, and ran the summertime Prime Time League for its history, from 1987 to 2018.

The PTL and the women’s Game Time League were honest-to-goodness phenomena in terms of duration and fan interest. Players from Iowa, Northern Iowa, and assorted colleges and high schools gathered in the summertime for competition and sharpening their games.

Before the first games of each season, Randy gave a talk to the players insisting on the importance of team play and respecting the volunteer coaches.

The PTL was a great vehicle for Hawkeye basketball. It brought the players up close and personal to the many fans who attended the games, got the public a little more interested in the coming seasons.

Other college coaches reached out to Randy when they wanted summer leagues to start in their towns. When Bruce Pearl coached Tennessee, he had assistant Steve Forbes meet with Randy in Iowa City. The Rocky Top League was launched in Knoxville with success.

Randy’s love of basketball was deep and true. After women’s and men’s Hawkeye players had graduated, he named menu items after them at his Monica’s restaurant in Coralville.

Diners there could count on good food and service. Larson made his employees work, but also paid them better than part-time restaurant workers made elsewhere in town.

Batterson, from Washington, Iowa, worked for the Times’ sports department since 1985. It was his life and his love, and it showed in his work.

Often was the day Batts would drive from Davenport to Iowa City to cover a day basketball game and go back home to report on a high school game that night. Whether major-college or high school sports or minor league baseball, he covered everything with diligence and care.

Batts was quiet, decent and professional, but his friends also knew him for his great sense of humor and merry giggle.

Last February, I stopped at a Wendy’s in Dubuque on the way to an Iowa-Wisconsin basketball game in Madison. There he was, with a grin on his face when he saw me. The last time we dined together was in a Dallas arena a couple hours before Iowa played in the women’s basketball national-title game.

He had driven to Dallas. Whatever it took to make it affordable for the Times and get the job done, he did it.

Enjoy every sandwich and every minute, Warren Zevon once said. It may have been the wisest advice ever given.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com