Panthers who became Cyclones

AMES — Iowa State University fields a football team for the 130th year in a row against Southeast Missouri on Sept. 3.

There have been seven athletes that were at one time Creston or Creston/O-M Panthers that played for the Cyclones.

Redshirt senior center Trevor Downing, who stands tall at 6′5″ and 304 pounds, is the most recent representative from Creston to don the cardinal and gold, and occasionally black and white.

Downing, a member the all-Big 12 coaches first team last season, will appear in his 30th game against the Redhawks for the season opener.

Prior to Downing, Panther Trey Benson appeared on the 2014 and 2015 rosters.

Benson scored 74 points with the Panthers’ basketball team in the 2013-2014 season, and had a senior year best performance of 10 points and seven rebounds against Clarinda in a 76-60 win on Feb. 14, 2014.

Collin Bevins, who is the current head football coach at Clarinda, redshirted in 2012. Bevins was listed as a starting defensive tackle during spring camp in 2013, but left in June 2013.

Bevins transferred to Northwest Missouri State where he became a two time all-American as well as two time national champion those same years, 2015 and 2016, with the Bearcat program.

Bevins finished his collegiate career as the Bearcats career leader in sacks (34) and tackles for loss (58.5) and was picked up by the Arizona Cardinals as a UDFA. Bevins spent some time in Cleveland in 2018 when the Browns scooped him up to a reserve/future contract.

Orient-Macksburg’s Matt Kuhns appeared in game programs from 1989 and 1990 and won a letter in 1990.

As a member of the 1990 team, Kuhns and his Cyclone teammates knocked off No. 16 Oklahoma, 33-31, Iowa State’s first victory over the Sooners since 1961 and at that time, fourth time since 1928.

One of Kuhns’ linebacker teammates, Mike Malloy from Essex, has high praise for his fellow southwest Iowa teammate.

“For someone who’s lived on the same farm his whole life, Matt Kuhns has a lot of hometowns: Orient, Creston, Greenfield, Hebron, at last count, with a couple of cameos from Ames and Indianola,” Malloy said. “There were very few guys from the 712 area code on the Iowa State football team in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s, so I paid attention when Matt Kuhns showed up in the linebacker meeting room in 1989. Like me and so many others, he was there without an invitation, or, more accurately, at his own invitation, someone whose appetite for audacity was greater than his objective judgment. A baseline of athletic skills, physical attributes, and determination were the table stakes for a walk-on, but the whole card was toughness.”

In a similar way to Downing being known as “Farm strong” by Creston coaches, Kuhns was similar in that regard.

“Kuhns could hold his own in the weight room, especially after a year or two of higher competition, but he also had what I think of as farm strength, the ability to use one’s body to move and manipulate others in unusual ways, that comes from having lifted idiotically heavy objects and thrown hay bales on a regular basis,” Malloy said. “To summarize, he was a tough guy who tried hard, and collected the Scout Team player of the week numerous times. That was a highly sought-after accolade for young guys, particularly walk-ons, and that Scout Team is where we got our chance to impress the coaching staff.”

Kuhns made his way from being a walk-on, to seeing playing time in special teams situations, to playing on the defense.

“After being buried in the high-single-digits in the middle linebacker room for a couple of years, Matt got himself on to the field in some special teams situations and eventually scored what I think of as an “internal recruitment,” where one coach plucks you from another’s room,” Malloy said. “It’s like a waiver wire, and generally you don’t get pulled into another coach’s room unless he thinks you can play. In Matt’s case, it was to the outside linebackers room of Jon Fabris, who was tough as nails but gave a lot of guys their first real chance. Matt ended up playing some real defense in goal line situations that year, and nobody was happier for him than me.”

Kuhns eventually left the Cyclone program to head about an hour south of Ames, Indianola.

He would return to Ames, however.

“It turns out Matt did have a plan, though,” Malloy said. “Seeing that he had probably topped out where he was going at Iowa State, and having proven to himself and whoever else needed to hear it that he had made the team and played real downs in the Big Eight, he transferred for a single semester to Simpson, where he could be an every-down linebacker for a season, after which he transferred back to Iowa State to graduate.”

Malloy and Kuhns share a lot of similarities, and, 32 seasons later, Malloy reflects fondly of his time spent with Kuhns donning the cardinal and gold and then Simpson’s shades of red and gold.

“Demographically and athletically, Matt and I were pretty similar, and as SWI dudes we watched out for each other and had a lot of fun,” Malloy said. “I always admired his move to Simpson, but I would have loved for him to stick around Ames and continue to be a great teammate. He may be lost in Hebron now, but he made all those hometowns of his proud with his days at ISU.”

The next person with Cyclone ties was a member of Creston’s state championship winning boys basketball team in 1939.

George L. Harville (March 18, 1922 - Oct. 14, 2005) won his only letter in football at Iowa State College in 1942, but he was also on the roster in 1941.

Harville was also a member of the Cyclones’ men’s basketball team and had heroics in the Cyclones’ 44-43 win at Kansas State on Feb. 9, 1942.

Per the Manhattan Mercury “George Harville, Cyclone forward, who had previously missed two free-throws dropped one in the last 20 seconds of play. That was the margin that won the game.”

In Iowa State’s 20-13 win over the Kansas Jayhawks in 1942, Harville who was a left end, had further heroics against a sunflower state school which led to two touchdowns.

Per the recap from the Des Moines Register, “On the first Iowa State touchdown march,when the going was the toughest, Harville reached up and snared a heave from Lohry with nothing but his left arm. The pass was good for 10 yards to the Kansas 5-yard stripe... ...Harville’s second catch was essential to the winning Iowa State touchdown.”

According to Harville’s obituary, he earned a degree in engineering and “served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II as a P-51 pilot in the Pacific.”

Following the war, Harville worked as a mechanical engineer, and lived in Lakeland, Florida, and Pasadena, Maryland. He retired from W.R. Grace and lived in Lachine, Quebec, Canada, for an unknown period of time before dying in Keene, New Hampshire.

Frank R. Hood (c. 1899 - Sept. 30, 1995) was a member of the Cyclones in 1933 and 1934, and, like Harville, also played on the basketball team at ISC.

Also like Harville, Hood was a left end. He the opening touchdown in the Cyclones’ 13-0 victory over the Missouri Tigers in 1934.

Hood graduated with a journalism degree from Iowa State.

Per his obituary “worked for the Kansas City Star newspaper while also serving as an assistant football coach at Rockhurst College. e served on the Rockhurst faculty on a full-time basis from 1938 to 1941, working as a head football, basketball and baseball coach. He also was a coach of the College All Stars in their 1940 preseason game with the National Football League champions. He was a sports editor with the Associated Press in Kansas City before entering the Navy in 1942. He served in the Atlantic and Pacific during World War II.”

Following the war Hood “He joined the VA as a field representative in St. Louis in 1946, transferred to Washington in 1951 as the VA’s assistant public relations director, then became its director in 1958. He was a charter member of the Senior Executive Service.”

He died of a heart attack at his home.

The final person on this list is William H. Parsons who was born in Creston in May 24, 1874.

His father, Abraham H., “where he was employed in the boiler-shops of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad for three years. He next engaged in the coal and wood business in that city (Creston) for nine years.”

The Parsons moved to Columbus Junction in May 1884.

William graduated from Columbus Junction in 1891, and in fall 1891, he went to Salt Lake City Utah, where he attended an academy.

In 1892 and 1893, he spent those years “in grocery” per the 1896 souvenir program for the Grinnell game. In spring 1894, Parsons enrolled at Iowa State College and was a member of their football teams in 1895 and 1896.

Parsons also lettered in 1896.

Parsons played in Iowa State’s two games at Butte Athletic Club in 1895 and 1896 in Butte, Montana.

Area schools that had athletes went on to Iowa State football:

Clair Ethington, Lenox, 1940-41, 1946; Carroll Preston, Lenox, 1944; Larry Switzer, Clarke, 1962-1963; Jon Lambi, Greenfield, 1964-1966; Shamus McDonough, Corning 1978-1982, won letters 1979-1982; Wade Boehm, Nodaway Valley, 2002-2003; Wade Boehm, Seth Nerness, Murray, 2015-2016.