Speraw, McCausland Recognized By IHSAA

Former Hawkeye Hoopers Selected to Iowa High School Hall of Fame

Iowa assistant coach Kirk Speraw (left) looks onto the court during a game against Wisconsin on Jan. 27, 2020 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Former University of Iowa men’s basketball student-athlete Kent McCausland and former Hawkeye player and assistant coach Kirk Speraw have been selected to the Iowa High School Athletics Association Hall of Fame.

The honorees were nominated through their schools, recommended by the Hall of Fame committee, and approved by the Board of Control.

McCausland, who was a four-year letterwinner from 1996-99, led Iowa to three NCAA Tournament appearances, including a spot in the Sweet 16 in 1999. He was one of three players named as Iowa’s Most Valuable Players during the 1999 season.

The guard was one of the best shooters in school history. He holds the single game school record (100 percent, 5-for-5), single season (52.2 percent, 70-of-134) and career (45.3 percent, 214-of-472) 3-point field goal percentage records. He also has the sixth-most 3-point field goals (214) in program history.

Speraw, who played at Iowa from 1975-79, was a two-year letterwinner and served as an assistant coach under Fran McCaffery from 2010-22.

Speraw helped the program win a Big Ten regular season title as a player during the 1978-79 season when the team went 20-8 overall and 13-5 in Big Ten play. He was also on the bench as a graduate assistant under Lute Olson on Iowa’s 1980 Final Four team.

During the 2021-22 season, Speraw’s final season as an assistant, the Hawkeyes won 26 games and finished in a three-way tie for fourth place in the league standings. Iowa won four games in four days as the No. 5 seed to win the 2022 Big Ten Tournament.

During his tenure as an assistant, Speraw helped the Hawkeyes qualify for six NCAA Tournaments and three NIT appearances.

Below are the bios from the IHSAA:

KENT McCAUSLAND, Waterloo, West – McCausland was an elite prep shooter who led West to the Class 4A state tournament in 1994, its most recent appearance. He averaged 17 points, five rebounds and five assists per game as a senior, earning all-state honors on top of two MVC all-conference awards. The son of Linda and Mac McCausland, who served as the voice of the Iowa Hawkeyes in the 1980s and 1990s, he shined on an AAU roster featuring Klay Edwards, Raef LaFrentz, and Ryan Bowen. McCausland went on to become a three-year starter at Iowa and led the NCAA in 3-point percentage in 1998-99 at 52.2 percent. In 1999, he was the leading scorer for a Sweet 16 squad and is the program’s all-time leader in 3-point shooting percentage. McCausland works as a partner at PDCM Insurance in Waterloo, where he also serves on boards for the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Cedar Valley, the national University of Iowa I-Club, and the Iowa Chapter of the American Cancer Society. McCausland and his wife Traci and have two sons, Jay and Casey.

KIRK SPERAW, Sioux City, North – A four-sport star with the Stars, Speraw played quarterback in football, was an all-state baseball player, a Drake Relays runner, and shone brightest for North’s basketball team under coach Tom Goodman. He was an all-state guard in North’s first ever state tournament appearance in 1975, averaging 19 points, five rebounds and four steals a game. He rose higher in Des Moines, scoring 26 points per game and was named captain of the All-Tournament Team as the Stars finished third in Class 3A at 23-1. Speraw played at Iowa from 1975 to 1979 and was named “most inspirational player” of the 1979 co-Big Ten championship team. He dove into coaching with an award-winning career that spanned more than 40 years, including stops at the University of Denver, Florida Southern, Pensacola Junior College, the University of Florida, head coach at the University of Central Florida – including four NCAA tournament appearances as the school’s wins record from 1994-2010 – and then as an assistant coach at Iowa. Speraw and his wife Tracy live in Coralville and have four adult children: Drew, Brooke, Dustin, and Bailey.