McCaffery makes official to Iowa

Over the years, Patrick McCaffery has been a part of many official visits at Iowa.

During the football season when prospects would make their official visits to Iowa City, the McCaffery’s would host a team dinner at their home on Friday evening and as you would expect, Patrick McCaffery would be in attendance.

The recruits would have a meal, spend time with the coaches and players, and then eventually, they head off to a local hotel to stay for the evening.

This past weekend, Patrick McCaffery was not just the coach’s son enjoying a meal at home. He was an official visitor, so instead of going to his room for the night after the dinner had ended, he was off to the Marriott hotel in Coralville.

“It was a little different for me. We had the meal and then I went and packed my bags and went to the hotel for the night with the other guys who were visiting,” he said.

While most of the weekend was essentially what Patrick McCaffery experiences nearly every weekend when Iowa plays a home football game, he did get one new experience on the visit and that was learning more about the academic side of the University of Iowa.

“I’ve never done the academic meetings, so I went over there with the rest of the guys on the visit and met with everyone over there. They just completed a renovation over there and it looks really nice.”

Patrick McCaffery met with teachers in the journalism and communications field during his visit and his goal at this point would be to following in the footsteps of his uncle Jack McCaffery, who is a sportswriter in the Philadelphia area.

Beyond the academic side of the visit, Patrick McCaffery’s role this past weekend was that of a recruiter. With five star forward Trayce Jackson-Davis and three star point guard Joe Toussaint on campus, he was working to get both players to join him in the commitment column for the Hawkeyes.

“Ever since Joe (Toussaint) got an offer, I’ve been reaching out to him,” he said. “I pretty much knew that he was going to commit on the visit based on what he told me. It was nice to spend time in-person with him and I would guess we will be roommates next year.”

With Toussaint in the fold, they turned their attention to Jackson-Davis and trying to get him to get more comfortable with the idea of being a Hawkeye. McCaffery has known Jackson-Davis since the 8th grade, competing against him in AAU event and uses a soft sell approach all weekend.

“We really didn’t push him to commit to Iowa. Basically, I just tried to get to know him better and spend time with him.”

McCaffery believes the low key approach worked well and he thinks the Hawkeyes are still in the hunt.

“I got a good vibe from him and he really enjoyed being around the guys on the team,” he said. “I know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t be taking these visits if he knew where he was going. If he was set on going to Indiana, he wouldn’t have wasted the time of the coaches by making official visits.”

There was one moment on the visit that really hit home with McCaffery that he would soon be a Hawkeye and that was putting on an Iowa jersey for the first time during the official visit. Every coach lets official visitors try on a jersey and McCaffery did just that.

He also is grappling with the idea that once he gets to Iowa, he’s going to have to change his jersey number. McCaffery has worn #22 all his life, but at Iowa, that number is retired. Bill Seaberg, who was a member of Iowa’s fabulous five in the 50’s, also wore #22 and that jersey was retired many years ago.

“I have to find a new number next year,” he said. “I’m not sure what number I am going to pick. I have to start looking into that at some point.”