Gary Barta and Kirk Ferentz Find a Time Capsule

Gary Barta's office, in an empty Carver Hawkeye Arena

  Secretary!
  Yes sir?
  Call Kirk Ferentz and get him over here immediately.  I have something to show him.
  Yes sir.  Also, can I please have Thursday off?  I think I might get picked in the NBA Draft.
  Absolutely.

Half an hour later

  Kirk Ferentz is here.  Should I send him in?
  Right away.
  Did you know that kid is out there refreshing ESPN.com every fifteen seconds to check his draft stock?
  I don't care.  I didn't call you to talk about my secretary's inevitable run in Mexican professional basketball.
  Well, I'm about to land our fourteenth scholarship punter.  I'm thisclose to assembling Punter Voltron and you interrupted me.  So there had better be a good reason why you called me.
  The guys working on the new golf facility uncovered this old chest filled with stuff.
  What, like bullion?
  Yeah, bullion.  The fucking thing is filled with soup cubes.
  It's a time capsule from 1900.  It's filled with all these artifacts and pictures and stuff.  And it included this picture, which I thought you might find interesting.

  Wait, is that...
  Yep.  According to the writing on the back, that's your great-grandfather, Dirk Ferentz, and my great-grandfather, Bartholomew Barta, circa 1900.
  Dirk, of course, was a recent German immigrant and head coach of Iowa's Western Conference champion Hooverball team...
  ...Hooverball wasn't invented until 1930...
  ...and Bart Barta was Iowa's recreation director at the time.
  ...Actually, Iowa won the Big Ten football championship in 1900...
  I bet those were the days, right?  No press, no fundraising, no golf coaches being wooed by Southern schools, no facilities to maintain.  Hell, no football.
  ...Iowa was 7-0-1 that year in football...
   Just intramurals.  Not a care in the world...
  /looks off into distance, enters daydream

  /taps on tin can tied to a string leading out the door
Ferentz?  Ferentz!  Ferentz, come quick!  I need you!
  What is it, Bartholomew?
Do you understand the joke?  It's like that ole chap Alexander G. Bell and his assistant Watson!
  Oh Holy Ghost, Bartholomew.  Is that why you requested my presence?  For juvenile humor on a wire?  I have very important business to attend to.  We play Grinnell College this sabbath day.
  Come now, dear Dirk.  Let us put our cares aside and have fun at the expense of that old chap Jamie Pollard Sr.
  I know, old friend!  We shall send him a telegram as that renowned leader of the gridiron Pop Warner, he who left those dastardly Cyclones for the savages of Oklahoma in 1898!  Pollard will be funderburked into believing Warner desires a return, and we shall all have a laugh when he learns otherwise!
  But Bartholomew, I am quite busy.  My Irishman assistant coach wants to attempt a formation known as the Double Wing, wherein our backs will impersonate live chickens during the scrimmage in order to deceive the opp...
  Ames Iowa STOP
  Attention Jamie Pollard Senior STOP
  This telegram hails from Carlisle Oklahoma penned by your old chap Pop Warner STOP
  Life has been hard here in the former Indian Territories STOP
  The dust rolls through the plains like an Iowa State quarterback in motion STOP
  Oh how I wish I were back in your presence friend of mine STOP
  Please take me back to the quiet comfort of Ames sir STOP
  I simply cannot go on without you Jamesies STOP
  I say, old chaps, are you penning another razzing of Messr. Pollard?
  Why, Dirk, if it isn't our old chap Hank Hankins, coacher of the golfers!  What brings you to these modest offices, old friend?  I hope good news and good tidings!
  I'm afraid not, Bartholomew.  As you well know, our mashers of the mashie have excelled as of recent times, nearly winning the conference title.
  Yes, and proud we are of you and your golfers.
  Well, our modest successes have not gone unnoticed, and I have been offered a position in Georgia, coaching golfers in a clime where the players can practice throughout the four seasons.  I'm a native of this fair state, and I appreciate greatly the opportunity to work for this fine institution of learning, but it is a tempting offer these Georgians have made.
  On the same token, dearest Bartholomew, the stresses of coaching our successful gridders has made it difficult, nigh impossible, for me to partake on a holiday away from the city.  I desire and shall greatly appreciate any efforts made within your grand powers to secure me some sort of flying contraption with which I may transport myself abroad for eighty to eighty-five hours per year.
  I'm glad you, dear Hank, and you, dearest Dirk, have brought these items to my attention.  Be assured your friend and confidant Bartholomew has already -- dare I say -- read your minds and has solutions for your problems.
  First, for you Hankins, I present the answer to your climate dilemma.  I present the Bloodpunch Weather Control Machine 2000!

  With this machine, you can make the Iowa climate bow to your every desire.  Your peggers can peg every day regardless of season or precipitation!  Your team of Alistair Mackenzies will be unstoppable!
  And as for you, Messr. Ferentz, I wholeheartedly agree that a personal flying machine is necessary.  Therefore, our scientists and students have developed the following prototype.

  As you can see, both you and I can fly freely throughout the skies, not as a zeppelin does but rather like a swan.  Or a bat with a horn, in your case, Dirk.
  And best of all, the devices are all paid for with a generous donation from none other than Rockefeller Vanderbilt, the old copper magnate and vagabond!
  So, my dearest chaps, with your fears assuaged and your wants given, what say you sign these lifetime contracts?
  Well, I see no reason to ever leave Iowa!
  As do I.  With my signature and seal, I give you my word.  Never again will my eye wander.
  Wonderful!  Now, how's about we send another telegram?
  I am quite busy preparing for those Grinnell Tigers, Bartholomew.
  And I with my newest links prodigy, Pete Pakistan.
 
  Oh, fine.  Dearest Hankins, find a bottle of fine spirits and we shall compose this telegram.
  Tell those old Bugeaters from Nebraska that they can join our conference if they transfer all their programs of study to Lincoln, that godforsaken dust cloud.
  As if we would ever allow such a disreputable institution into our fine coalition of  intercollegiate cooperation and athletics.
  Methinks life in 1900 is swell.  Swell, indeed.  In truest fact, old Bartholomew might well SIR
  I was saying, BarthSIR
  Sir, I'm sorry to wake you, but Pat Harty is outside.  He's asking if you know why Sean Keeler was fired while he still has a job.
 

  Because the modern world is a dumb place, that's why.

Meanwhile, in Ames, circa 1900

  Dearest Pop STOP
  You have no idea how your most recent cable touched my heart STOP
  I will send a train at once to collect you and your family and...
  /picks up newspaper

 

  /is inconsolable