What Happened to Hawkeye Legend Roy Marble?

B.J. Armstrong, Ed Horton, and Roy Marble are basketball gods in the state of Iowa. 

During their time on the courts at Carver Hawkeye Arena, these three basketball legends not only terrorized college basketball, they also destroyed the Iowa record books.

Their reign of terror over basketball included a trip to the Elite Eight during the 1986-87 season and a trip to the Sweet Sixteen in the 1987–88 season.   

B.J. Armstrong was a ninja point guard who orchestrated the Iowa offensive scheme with an insane ability to find open players and make assists.  He also had near-flawless free-throw shooting skills.
 
Ed Horton was a rebounding machine who dominated the glass in the Big Ten.  There has never been a missed basketball that Horton couldn't rebound. 

Roy Marble was an all-around player who could do it all on both sides of the ball.  He was about as complete of a basketball player as they come.

All three players were drafted in the 1989 NBA Draft.

While all three will forever be legends in the state of Iowa, it was Roy Marble who left the biggest impact on the Iowa basketball program and the player that seemingly had the most potential to succeed at the professional level.

Thanks to the recruiting of the infamous George Raveling, Marble, a McDonald's All-American and the runner-up for Michigan's 1984 Mr. Basketball, decided to play his college basketball for the University of Iowa.  And he didn't wait long before making an impact.

In 1985, Marble won Big Ten Freshman of the Year.

From there, Marble went on to have arguably the best Hawkeye basketball career on record.  He is still the all-time leading scorer at the Iowa with 2,116 points. 

He holds a number of other records, too.  He is first all-time in games played with 134, first in games started with 131, first in field goals, first in field goal percentage, and first in steals.

It was no surprise when Marble went on to be drafted as the 23rd overall pick by the Atlanta Hawks in 1989.  It seemed that he was on top of the world.

Unfortunately, things aren't always as they seem.

Roy Marble ran into troubles early on in his career.  He was suspended by league officials during his rookie season in 1990 for violating the league's substance abuse policy, helping to cut short his professional playing career.

This was apparently just the start of his legal troubles.  A quick look at the Iowa Courts online Search shows several results returned stemming back to the 1990s.  Drunk driving and drug-related offenses are common entries in the search results.

In June 2006, Marble was charged with and pleaded guilty to drunken driving (second offense and driving while barred) habitual offender in Linn County.

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