Before he was fired, then-Iowa men’s basketball head coach Fran McCaffery and his wife reportedly were playing the blame game with the local media.
And one target had it the worst.
The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman, a former Iowa beat writer, said McCaffery and his wife, Margaret, zeroed in on longtime Iowa play-by-play voice Gary Dolphin of the Learfield/IMG College sports radio network.
“Gary Dolphin had it the worst,” Dochterman said on the “Legends and Listeners” podcast, as transcribed by Awful Announcing. “[McCaffery] tried to force him out twice.”
Dochterman’s story goes that Margaret screamed at Dolphin for asking a player about a losing streak.
“Margaret came unglued, F-bombed him, screamed at him to the point where the leadership of both Iowa and Learfield had to be called in,” Dochterman said. “She would scream at them when she’s there, ‘I don’t need to be babysat!’ – and this is to keep the coach’s wife from yelling at the ‘Voice of the Hawkeyes.’”
McCaffery is now the head coach at the University of Pennsylvania.
He posted a 297-207 record with seven NCAA Tournament appearances at Iowa from 2010-25.
The McCafferys feuds with Iowa media were highlighted earlier this week by WHO-TV sportscaster Keith Murphy, who recounted an ugly story from when he was hosting a Coaches Vs. Cancer charity event during a time after McCaffery and Iowa quietly hid a contract extension.
McCaffery allegedly insisted that Murphy stop being asked to emcee the event if his participation was requested.
“So at Coaches Vs. Cancer, you were up there and, as memory serves, Margaret McCaffery is heckling you from the audience?” co-host Andy Fales said to Murphy during the “Murph and Andy” show.
McCaffery came to the stage and didn’t shake Murphy’s hand.
“They avoided me,” Murphy said. “And the whole point of that commentary wasn’t that he shouldn’t get a contract or anything. It was just that if you think enough of your coach to give him more years and more money, think enough of your fans to share this good news with them…
“And then Margaret took the stage and said, ‘Thank you for welcoming me, unlike our emcee here who wants my husband fired.’ I didn’t say anything like that. I didn’t say he needed to be fired or anything.”
As Fales sees it, McCaffery “was going to remove himself from the cancer benefit because the emcee had stung his thin skin.”
The McCafferys are parents to Connor McCaffery, a former Iowa basketball player who is most famous for being WNBA star Caitlin Clark’s boyfriend.
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