Message Forum

A little more about Mike Connelly . . . If I counted right, there are stiill 17 Urbandale individual and team records attributed to Mike standing for 1965-68, after more than 50 years. With all the great athletes that have come since, that's hard to believe. You can find basketball records here: https://www.j-hawks.com/hof/Records/Records_by_Sport/Boys_Basketball

11/07/22 03:13 PM

#189

Well deserved.

Congratulations Mike?

Well done James.

11/07/22 05:47 PM

#190

Congratulations Mike Connely!

Your entry into the UHS Athletic Hall of Fame is well deserved.

Way to go Jim for your advocacy on Mike's behalf.

Thank you William Watts for helping get this done.

Sincerely,

Anthony N. Woloch

UHS Class of 1972

11/07/22 05:48 PM

#191

correction: William R. Watson

11/07/22 06:32 PM

#192

I don't know if you saw my last comment, but I said a person who is responsible for 17 personal and team records that are still standing after more than 50 years ought to be in the Hall of Fame.

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Olson <andrew.olson@j-hawks.com>
To: william.watson@j-hawks.com
Cc: jandjatthelake@aol.com
Sent: Mon, Nov 7, 2022 2:56 pm
Subject: Re: Mike Connelly Should Be in The Urbandale Hall of Fame

I have added Mike onto the Hall of Fame listing (link deleted) I see there are a few others that we have missed as well. I'll work to get those updated yet today or possibly tomorrow.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'm sorry he was not included originally.

Andrew Olson

Stadium Manager, Urbandale Community School District

7111 Aurora Avenue, Urbandale, IA 50322

Direct: (515) 457-6937 | Office: (515) 457-6945 | Fax: 515-457-

11/08/22 10:15 AM

#193

Thank you, Jim Beasley and Tim Lyons for thinking of me. It is very much appreciated. As they say, better late than never!!! Thanks again!

Mike

11/08/22 06:46 PM

#194

Where's my hundred bucks.

11/09/22 10:45 AM

#195

In the mail?

11/10/22 11:27 AM

#196

Missouri or Florida?

As to my original thought about your not being in the Hall of Fame, "I can't believe that someone who still holds 17 individual and team records after more than 50 years is not in the Hall of Fame", actually that is correct. Well. not correct as in that's how it oughta be, but as in that's how it is.

A person has to be on a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd All-State team in order to be in the Hall of Fame.

I guess that means that 9 letters, two All-Conference honors, one All-District honor and one Conference Medalist doesn't cut it. So, I'll just take my ball and go home.

Anymore, I can't play basketball, football, or baseball, but I still play golf, so Burgett was wrong about my not doing Track in the Spring.

11/11/22 11:54 AM

#197

Jim-Coach Burgertt was right, you were faster than a ring tailed cooter! The Bluejay golf team was fortunate to get you!!!

11/12/22 10:29 AM

#198

Coach never said I was fast; he said I had good hands. A couple years later Johnny Majors said "Beasley, you're not fast enough for my team." He was correct.

Scott Springer was our best golfer, and took us to State his Senior year; Rich Custer was our Senior year. Not going out for Track was the only thing Rich did that Coach did not like.

The golf team was a lot of fun. One meet Vance Cook and I missed the ride to Woodside, way over on 2nd Ave north of I-80, so he and I went on my Yamaha 80, carrying our bags. We were really stupid.

12/25/22 10:01 AM

#199

Update on our Florida house and Hurricane Ian:

We were at our Missouri house on Table Rock Lake when Ian went through our Florida area on September 28. When utilities got reconnected, I headed back down on October 21, with lots of equipment to clean up our property. I made in 15 miles in Missouri, hit a deer, and totaled our SUV.

It took from then until the first of December to get the insurance settlement-ish, get a replacement vehicle (200 miles away in Tulsa), get the title sent to us in Florida, and get it registered, December 22.

The good news is that when I got back to our Missouri house on October 21, the phone rang, and a church group from Peachtree City, GA, wanted to know if we still needed our property cleaned up. After service that Sunday morning they showed up with chainsaws, a mini excavator, and a crew of workers, and did in 2 or 3 hours what I could not have. They facetimed us around the property before and after.

When we got here last week, our house was the onlyn one on the block that had all the debris hauled away.

Our Snowbird friends came down before us and fixed a few things that still needed fixing, and I'm still working on them. It's still a mess down here, and a lot of what used to be here is gone all around us.

12/26/22 10:25 AM

#200

Thank goodness for good people doing good works for you Jim in your time of need.

12/26/22 02:32 PM

#201

That's a lot to go through Jim, hopefully it's all in the past and you can look forward to a Happy New Year!!!

12/30/22 01:08 PM

#202

80° and I am feeling better!

12/30/22 01:14 PM

#203

If I have not mentioned it already, Mike is still the second leading career rebounder in Class 3A:

Class 3A

Art Sathoff Iowa Falls 1984 488

Mike Connelly Urbandale 1968 457

He also had 31 rebounds in a game in 1968. A friend of mine, Lloyd Thornburg of Pleasantville, had 32 in 1966.

01/17/23 09:53 AM

#204

Piecing some things together, here is where Scott Springer played in the Iowa Masters in 1966, and I caddied for him:

Iowa Masters History
1966 Tournament

T10 Springer, Scott Urbandale
74/74/75: 223

03/07/23 08:03 AM

#205

I'm sorry I can't find the post, but for whoever mentioned the Weston WannaB Inn on Manasota Key/Englewood Beach, it has been closed since Hurricane Ian, September 28, 2022, more than five months now. They have been doing bajillions of dollars of work on the place, and we just noticed their new sign says Manasota Key Resort.

There's still a lot of recovery to be done in SW FL, mostly Fort Myers Beach to Venice. Englewood was hit very hard, and dozerns of structures are gone. I was "watching" from afar, on Windy.com, and the wind speed at our house was 140 mph. Our wind was from the north, the "dirty" side, so although we did not get storm surge, everything is leaning to the south. If you do not know where you were going, it is hard to get around because so many street signs, traffic signs, and street lights are still down.

FEMA trailers are just recently getting deployed, and most of them are still in storage lots. FEMA has put some victims in resorts.

Fort Myers Beach will never be the same. I first visited in 1976, and decided I would live here some day. Five years from now it will be "mid-rise", corporate resorts, another playground for the well-to-do. It has been a place for the common-folks.

Now we're having the worst Red Tide ever, so beach-going and boating are out.

04/07/23 05:59 PM

#206

Rebounding Leaders
Game
31 -- Mike Connelly, Urbandale (v. ????, 1968)

Season
457 -- Mike Connelly, Urbandale (1968)

Career
844 -- Mike Connelly, Urbandale (1965-68)

05/14/23 11:46 AM

#207