Families of former black Iowa football players are organizing and want answers to questions about what they say were racial injustices they experienced while with the program. Marc Morehouse of the Cedar Rapids Gazette first reported on the group Thursday.

Robert T. Green, CEO of the Virginia based sports management advisory group Pre-Postgame, spoke with the Gazette. On Sunday, he released a Facebook video with more details about the group’s complaints, particularly against head coach Kirk Ferenz, his son, Brian Ferentz, the offensive coordinator, and strength coach Chris Doyle.

Green announced that the families of former Hawkeyes Akrum Wadley, Reggie Spearman, Maurice Fleming, Malik Rucker and Marcel Joly were in the group. Green said on the video that the group was reaching out to other ex-Iowa players. He said some of the athletes haven’t spoken out for fear of public backlash.

“There are more people and more stories and more situations that will come out,” Green said in the video.

Green ran down a list of allegations against the program from these players. One of the charges came from former linebacker Reggie Spearman, who suffered a knee injury during his true sophomore season of 2014. Spearman ended up transferring, first to Illinois State and then Grand Valley State.

Spearman could be heard telling the story on Green’s video from Sunday.

“Halfway into the (’14) season, I suffered a really bad knee injury to the point where at practice I couldn’t even stand on my own two feet. I was fighting through it. I wanted to be there for my teammates. Later that season, we had a bye week and there is where things changed. The coaches had loved me. I was on the leadership committee. Everything was going great,” Spearman said.

In October of ’14, Spearman was suspended for one game after being charged with OWI. That happened during the bye week.

Spearman said he was pulled over by police while driving his moped. He said told the officers he was not drunk. He was handcuffed.

“At this point, I’m terrified. I wasn’t even intoxicated,” he said.

Police took him to the station. Spearman chose to have his urine tested instead of a breathalyzer. He said that’s when he found out the urine test would not come back until three or fours months later.

Spearman recalled being brought into Kirk Ferentz’s office the following morning.

“They stripped me of all of my accomplishments and roles on the team,” said Spearman, who had been on the player leadership committee. “They treated me like shit after that. On game days, they had me in the basement folding shirts.”

Green said Spearman was required to fold 700 shirts on game days and was told he couldn’t leave until they were done.

“It was very clear after that that the head coach did not want me on the team,” Spearman said. “I kept telling him I was falsely accused and that when the test comes back everything is going to be OK. The charge would be dropped, which it has. I have that on file. Come to find out two months later, I was way under the limit. I should have never been in custody at all.”

After the season, Spearman said that he came back for weight training when he was called into Kirk Ferentz’s office.

“He rips me. He calls me a liar. He called me names that I never thought a guy I committed to for four years would ever call me. It was disgusting. Made me cry. I had to call my parents I was so emotionally distraught. My dad came down just to talk to me I was so sad,” Spearman said.

On the list of players in this group asking for answers from Iowa football, Fleming, Wadley and Joly graduated from the university. Fleming played his final season at West Virginia as a grad transfer.

These allegations come in the wake of more than 50 former Hawkeyes alleging racial bias and mistreatment within the program. Kirk Ferentz held a press conference Friday.

HN reached out to Iowa sports information director Steve Roe, who provided this statement from the university:

Coach Ferentz will not be commenting on individual, unverified accusations posted on social media out of respect for the independent review process and for those who have shared their stories with him personally. Coach Ferentz has spent the past week listening and talking with a number of current and former players who talked about their experiences and their desire to help shape the future of the Hawkeye football program.

It appears as though there are some individuals not related to the program who may be trying to exploit this difficult time and undermine our efforts to make real constructive changes.

Coach Ferentz believes that meaningful change takes time and a thorough examination is already underway. He remains committed to creating a more inclusive culture for all of his players now and in the years to come.

Jeff Moe had his most-newsworthy week in his Indiana home state since he tormented the Indiana Hoosiers as a University of Iowa basketball player.

Moe, an Indianapolis strip club owner and real estate developer, was arrested Monday morning in Indianapolis. He is accused of attacking Marion County/Indianapolis City County Council member Jeff Miller during a public meeting of the Alcoholic Beverage Board of Marion County.

Police say Moe grabbed miller by the throat, and slammed his head against a wall. Moe said he didn’t grab Miller’s neck. He was charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors.

“I grabbed his shirt and shook him,” was what Moe said he did when he was interviewed Wednesday on Indianapolis’ Fox Sports 975 radio station.

“I shook him for five or six seconds.”

Investigators found scratch marks and redness along Miller’s neck, according to court documents. The documents state Moe pushed Miller against a marble wall, and Miller’s head struck the wall twice. Miller was examined by medics on the scene, and released.

Moe spent the rest of Monday in jail before posting a $7,500 surety bond. He faces charges of criminal confinement, strangulation, battery resulting in bodily harm and disorderly conduct.

Moe was at the meeting to support Indianapolis business Liquor Barn, saying Miller was trying to steal the liquor license for its Meridian Street location. Miller testified against the renewal of the liquor license of Moe’s Indianapolis business, Lenny’s Gentlemen’s Club.

“I went down (to the meeting) to say we live in America. Mr. Miller, quit stealing people’s liquor licenses.”

Moe played at Iowa from 1984-88, scoring 1,248 points. He had 24 points and five assists as a senior in the Hawkeyes’ 104-86 win over UNLV in the second round of the NCAA tournament’s West Regional, a small bit of revenge for Iowa’s loss to the Runnin’ Rebels in the West final the year before.

Moe was recruited out of Indianapolis to Iowa by then-coach George Raveling and flourished under Tom Davis. Moe averaged 11.1 and 12.9 points per game in his junior and senior seasons with Davis as coach. He had some of his biggest games against Indiana.

“It was so long ago,” said Moe, 51. “I did like playing against Indiana. I had two decent games with 25 points and maybe 18. Thirty-five years (30, actually) later, people will tell me ‘Man, you lit us up for 45 points every time.’

“But the one game in ’87 when we broke 100, that was pretty special.”

That was Iowa’s 101-88 win over the then-No. 3 Hoosiers in Iowa City. It was the first time in 466 games a Bob Knight-coached team had allowed 100 points.

“I liked Bobby Knight growing up,” Moe said. “Obviously, his form of discipline did not last past the year 2000. Society has changed.”

In his radio interview, Moe was unapologetic. “I didn’t hurt (Miller).

“If he apologizes for … fraudulently trying to steal my liquor license, I’ll gladly apologize for ruffling his feathers.”

In an unrelated matter, last November Miller was charged with three counts of child-molestation. His pretrial hearing is later this month.

Moe’s club, meanwhile, has “been Lenny’s for 45 years,” Moe told Fox Radio show Query & Schultz. “Ninety-five percent of my work is in commercial real estate.”

Moe said the strip club “sort of fell in my lap” in 2012 as he was purchasing real estate in the area.

He called his Marion County Sheriff’s Office mug shot “horrible.”

“I’ve got to start working out. Owning a strip club, I spend an hour, and hour-and-a-half there. Usually I’ll run into somebody and have a couple beers. Yeah, it’s time I hit the gym.”

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@thegazette.com