Rob Jeter, Favorite To Become Iowa State's Next Basketball Coach, Is the Son Of Bob Jeter -- Standout Back On Iowa's Best Football Team Ever In 1958

A man who is the likely favorite to become Iowa State’s next head basketball coach is the son of a guy who played on the best team in the 116-year football history at the University of Iowa, and was named the most valuable player in the Hawkeyes’ 1959 Rose Bowl victory.

The coach who has the inside track on the job, if he wants it, is Rob Jeter [right], whose Wisconsin-Milwaukee team finished the season with a 22-9 record after losing to Florida, 82-60, today in a second-round NCAA tournament game at Jacksonville, Fla.

His father is Bob Jeter [left], who played for Forest Evashevski’s powerful Iowa football teams. Bob lettered in 1957, 1958 and 1959 and was a standout on the 1958 squad that is regarded as the best in school history.

Evashevski’s '58 Hawkeyes won the Big Ten championship, went 8-1-1 overall, walloped California, 38-12, in the Rose Bowl, and were named the national champions by the Football Writers Association of America and awarded the Grantland Rice Trophy as the No. 1 team by Look magazine.

Jeter ran for 194 yards in only nine carries in the Rose Bowl victory. He dashed for an 81-yard touchdown, which was a Rose Bowl record, and set another Rose Bowl mark with his 21.6-yard rushing average.

In those days, Iowa actually won Rose Bowl games. Evashevski’s 1956 and 1958 teams were successful at Pasadena, but the Hawkeyes lost there in 1982, 1986 and 1991.

Bob Jeter was a first-team all-Big Ten player in 1959 and was chosen in the second round of the 1960 National Football League draft by the Green Bay Packers. He played in two Super Bowls and is in the Packers' Hall of Fame.

Rob Jeter, 36, credits his dad and mother for much of his success.

“My dad and my mom always set high standards for us,” he said on the Wisconsin-Milwaukee athletic website.

Jamie Pollard, the Iowa State athletic director, who pulled the plug on Wayne Morgan as the Cyclones’ basketball coach, got to know Rob Jeter when both were at the University of Wisconsin.

Jeter worked under Bo Ryan for 10 of his 11 years as an assistant coach. He was on Ryan’s staff at Wisconsin for four years. Pollard was deputy athletic director at Wisconsin before coming to Iowa State last year.

“Coach Ryan, who I played for and coached with, always had high standards,” Jeter said. “I have always had high standards for myself personally. Every time I step onto the court I want to win. Every time I wake up in the morning, I want to be better than I was yesterday.”

Rob Jeter was born on May 15, 1969 in Pittsburgh, Pa. He grew up in Chicago.

He’s been a part of 10 conference championships, including eight as a coach. As a player at Wisconsin-Platteville, his teams went 102-16 in four seasons. I his his 11 years as an assistant, his teams were 245-85.

Jeter is in his first season at Wisconsin-Milwaukee after succeeding Bruce Pearl, a former Iowa assistant coach who is in his first year at Tennessee. Pearl's Volunteers lost to Wichita State today in the NCAA tournament at Greensboro, N.C.

Jeter’s veteran team beat Oklahoma of the Big 12 Conference, 82-74, two days ago in an NCAA first round game.

The Sooners handed Morgan’s Cyclones one of the most frustrating losses in what became some horribly frustrating final weeks of the season –- something that helped get Morgan and his assistant coaches fired.

On Feb. 18, 19th-ranked Oklahoma got three free throws from Michael Neal with 8.4 seconds remaining for an 83-82 victory over Iowa State at Norman, Okla. Neal wound up scoring 29 points.

It was the Cyclones’ fourth straight loss, and they went on to drop seven of their final nine games.

Morgan and his staff and players seemed clueless as the season wound down, and now guards Curtis Stinson and Will Blalock say they’re going to try their luck in the NBA draft.

It’s a dumb decision by both players, but that’s not the first dumb decision lately in the Iowa State basketball scenario.

Morgan made plenty of them.