April 2016 – Page 2 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Authority Lines Drawn for Wolves Leaders

Posted on April 22, 2016April 22, 2016 by David Shama

Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor expects new hires Tom Thibodeau and Scott Layden to agree on decisions “95 percent” of the time.

Taylor signed Thibodeau, his new coach and president of basketball operations, and Layden, the franchise’s new general manager, to five-year contracts on Wednesday. Thibodeau has more than 25 years of NBA coaching experience and Layden has been with league teams since 1981 in coaching and front office work. Taylor said the two men like and respect one another, making it possible for them to mostly work in agreement.

But what happens with decisions when Thibodeau and Layden don’t agree?

Taylor told Sports Headliners in an interview yesterday there are defined areas of authority. He wouldn’t identify all of those areas but mentioned free agents and the NBA Draft as examples where Thibodeau and Layden know who has the final word.

Taylor said Layden might want to sign a certain free agent but if the coach doesn’t want him that won’t go further. Thibodeau has the final word on what personnel will comprise his roster. Layden will run the NBA Draft for the Wolves. Taylor also mentioned analytics as another area of authority for Layden who most recently has been assistant general manager for the Spurs.

Glen Taylor (photo courtesy of Minnesota Timberwolves).

Few problems are anticipated by Taylor who by coincidence signed Thibodeau and Layden on the owner’s 75th birthday. “They’re two seasoned guys who are going to work off of each other and (they) know that both of them sometimes may have to comprise a little bit, but they aren’t going to move ahead unless they resolve the issue,” said Taylor who expressed clear confidence they will.

Thibodeau made a reputation for winning games as head coach of the Bulls for five seasons, never missing the playoffs. His .647 winning percentage ranks seventh in NBA history (minimum 200 games).

Known for his attention to detail and demanding ways including on defense, Thibodeau will sometimes use his starters for long stretches. Taylor asked Thibodeau about the reputation that his regulars play too many minutes. The coach suggested the Wolves’ owner talk to guys who have played for him. “The way he said it, he would be confident they aren’t going to be critical of him,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s representatives did speak to players who said Thibodeau worked them hard and was demanding but the owner isn’t worried about his Wolves playing too many minutes. “Not after a long discussion with him on it, I am not concerned about it,” Taylor said.

Thibodeau and Layden spent hours interviewing with Taylor by telephone and in person. The interviews with the two were separate. “I just think that I can trust these two guys now to make the decisions that need to be made,” Taylor said. “I don’t think they’re going to rely on me. …”

Major financial decisions about salaries will be an area where Thibodeau and Layden come to Taylor. The three have talked salary cap but Taylor didn’t elaborate on his willingness to exceed the NBA maximum, indicating various details enter into such decisions and the timing of them. It seems likely, though, if Taylor is convinced extra money will bring the franchise closer to its first ever NBA title he will green-light Thibodeau and Layden.

Taylor said his new hires were his first choice when he looked for staffing to leading his basketball department. “I was very fortunate,” he said.

Worth Noting

The late Flip Saunders, who was Taylor’s coach and president of basketball operations, owned a small percentage of the team. Taylor asked Saunders’ widow, if she wanted to sell but Debbie answered the family wants to keep its ownership.

Watch the first period tonight with extra interest when the Wild, trailing 3-1 in its best of seven playoff series, plays the Stars in Dallas. “See if Dallas comes out swinging (focused), scores a couple of goals and takes the life out of the Wild,” a hockey industry source told Sports Headliners.

The Wild has just eight goals in four games and the team’s lack of offense was problematic during the regular season too. One issue, the source said, is lack of chemistry between the older and younger players. The club also doesn’t have a leader, with no one stepping forward to claim that role, he said.

The Stars can gain much valued playoff rest if they close out the series tonight and wait a few days for their second round games. That’s a real incentive but no more than what the Wild is playing for—a chance to stay alive in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and force a Game 6 in St. Paul Sunday.

Vikings defensive tackle Shariff Floyd will autograph memorabilia for $15 and $25 tomorrow (Saturday) from 1 to 2 p.m. at Southtown Shopping Center in Bloomington. His appearance is part of the two-day Saturday-Sunday Triple Crown Sports Collectibles Southtown Show. Show hours tomorrow are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Gophers, Twins, Vikings and Saints will all be playing home games the night of September 1. In three Minneapolis stadiums—within at the most six miles of each other—the Gophers have their opening nonconference game, the Twins face Central Division rival Chicago and the Vikings play their first ever preseason game in U.S. Bank Stadium. In St. Paul the Saints will host Winnipeg. More than 130,000 fans likely will be watching the four games.

Scheduling conflicts are routine in this overcrowded sports market. Last week, for example, the Timberwolves had a season-ending game in Target Center while a block away the Twins were playing their second home game of the year.

The Twins have opened on the road six of the last eight years but don’t look for that trend to change much in the future. The club doesn’t want to risk multiple postponements in Minneapolis because of bad weather in late March and during the first few days of April.

The Twins, now 5-11, lost their first nine games of the season, including six straight on the road. After yesterday’s loss to the Brewers in Milwaukee, Minnesota’s road record is 1-7.

While the Twins have struggled to find offensive production from their catchers since moving Joe Mauer to first base in 2014, Wilson Ramos is off to a fast start this spring with the Nationals. Ramos, who the Twins traded to the Nationals in 2010, is hitting .314. Last year he hit only .229 but had 15 home runs and a career high 68 RBI. The Twins figure to see Ramos this weekend during a three-game series at Washington that starts tonight.

The April 18 issue of Sports Illustrated includes former Gopher Eric Decker, Minneapolis native Larry Fitzgerald Jr., Burnsville native Lindsey Vonn and the Timberwolves Andrew Wiggins on its first ever Fashionable 50 list. Victor Cruz of the New York Giants ranks No. 1 among stylishly dressed athletes. Decker, Fitzgerald, Vonn and Wiggins didn’t make the top 10 listings but are included alphabetically among 40 other “sartorial icons.”

National Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron, who twice won the Kentucky Derby, will host a Casino Night Fundraiser Tuesday, April 26 at Canterbury Park to benefit the Leg Up Fund. The fund provides emergency financial assistance to jockeys injured while riding at the Shakopee racetrack.

Casino Night will be from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in Canterbury’s Triple Crown Club. Admission is $35 in advance, or $45 at the door, and includes a presentation by McCarron, dinner, soda, and 3,000 in chips. A $100 per-person VIP Meet and Greet event from 6 to 7 p.m. includes appetizers, open bar, and 6,000 in chips. Tickets can be purchased by calling (952) 445-7224.

Canterbury Park Hall of Famer and former WCCO Radio personality Dark Star, who died in 2012, would have been 70 Wednesday.

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Gopher AD List May Include Hawkeye

Posted on April 20, 2016April 20, 2016 by David Shama

A lot of names are being mentioned as candidates to become the Gophers’ next athletics director but one drawing minimal speculation is Gene Taylor, the No. 2 leader in the Iowa Hawkeyes Athletic Department.

Taylor was athletics director at North Dakota State for 13 years prior to joining the Hawkeyes in 2014. Taylor, 58, helped put in place the Bison football program that is working on a run of five consecutive FCS national championships.

Taylor has an extensive background in athletics administration dating back to his first job at the United States Naval Academy. His career commitment to female and male athletes, involvement with funding to improve facilities, success with football, and his understanding of this geographic region should resonate with Turnkey Search, the firm retained by the University of Minnesota to identify and vet candidates.

Multiple sources report Turnkey is interviewing candidates this week in the Midwest and East. One source told Sports Headliners over a dozen candidates will be interviewed in the first round of talks. Eventually Turnkey will vet those who the firm believes are the best candidates and bring those names to a 16-person search committee of volunteers headed by co-chairs Katrice Albert and Perry Leo. Albert is the University’s vice president for equity and diversity. Leo is professor of aerospace engineering and the U faculty athletics representative.

Recommendations by the committee will go to University president Eric Kaler. After Kaler’s disastrous hire of Norwood Teague in 2013, the president’s reputation and perhaps legacy is in play with a decision on the next AD who is expected to be on the job by July 1.

No candidate has probably been more open about his interest than former Gophers linebacker and Wall Street whiz Pete Najarian. The 52-year-old Minneapolis native and TV personality appears ready to start a new life leading the Gophers athletics department.

Najarian spent last weekend in Lincoln, Nebraska where daughter Alexis is on the University of Nebraska track team. He also visited with Cornhuskers legend Tom Osborne to learn more about running an athletics department. Before retiring, Osborne won national championships in football and was the school’s athletics director.

Najarian raves about Osborne’s wisdom and inclusive, caring approach with people. The two have known each other since the early 1980s when Osborne tried to recruit Najarian to become a Cornhusker. Najarian said Osborne was one of the few coaches who still showed interest in him as a person after he committed to the Gophers.

Najarian, former Gophers All-American defensive end Bob Stein, and WCHA commissioner and St. Paul native Bill Robertson are names with Minnesota roots who have been mentioned with the AD opening. Many Gophers boosters favor candidates who have local relationships and understand the culture here. Najarian, Stein and Robertson have ties to the Minneapolis-St. Paul business community—an asset critics assert has been underutilized by the Gophers.

Although he hasn’t lived in Minnesota for years, Blake James attended Coon Rapids High School and Minnesota State-Mankato. Now the athletic director at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, James will no doubt at least cross the minds of Turnkey executives, even if he has no interest in coming to Dinkytown.

Another no-brainer for Turnkey is Northern Illinois athletics director Sean Frazier. Highly praised by Sports Headliners sources, he is a favorite to be on a list of finalists. Frazier is African-American as is McKinley Boston, who was the Gophers’ AD in the 1990s. Boston has mentored Frazier who has worked as a top assistant to Wisconsin athletics director Barry Alvarez. Frazier and Kaler know each other.

Sources tell Sports Headliners the best athletic director in the country could be Northwestern’s Jim Phillips who supposedly has turned down other jobs including Michigan to stay in Evanston. If Minnesota and Turnkey leaders wanted to take a “nothing is impossible” approach, they could access a private jet and fly to Evanston with an offer to make Phillips the best paid AD in the country—and bring along a briefcase stuffed with articles about the quality of life in Minnesota.

Not a bad thought considering the potential revenue an athletic director could affect at Minnesota, where both winning and income aren’t what they should be.

Worth Noting

The Wild, who appear to be building momentum, shouldn’t lack for confidence going into tonight’s Game Four against the Stars at Xcel Energy Center. Wild players seemed unsure in Game 1 of their Stanley Cup Playoff Series in Dallas, losing 4-0. Then a close loss in Game 2 in Texas was followed by the Wild’s 5-3 win on Monday night in St. Paul.

The Wild entered the series having faltered at the close of the regular season and facing the Stars without Zach Parise, Minnesota’s best player. The Stars were among the NHL’s better teams during the season while featuring a productive offense. But the Wild has slowed down Dallas and found its own playmakers including Erik Haula, who has impressed with a line that includes Jason Pominville and Nino Niederreiter.

The Stars want to force Wild turnovers tonight and turn those into scoring opportunities. If that works, there will be more pressure on Wild goalie Devan Dubynk. Goalie, though, is a position where the Wild should be better than the Stars.

In the series so far the storyline for the Wild is the team gets better each game. Can the script continue tonight?

The International Champions Cup match between Chelsea and A.C. Milan will be played on real grass at U.S. Bank Stadium. Vikings and amateur baseball games will be played on artificial turf but the August 3 soccer event, the first sports activity in the new covered stadium, will use sod.

St. Thomas football coach Glenn Caruso told Sports Headliners Gopher transfer Jacques Perra, who will be a sophomore next fall, is a leading candidate for the starting quarterback job. Tommies’ spring practices started earlier this month and continue into May.

A source emailed yesterday that the Timberwolves are talking to former NBA guard and Warriors coach Mark Jackson about their coaching vacancy.

Condolences to family and friends of Bill Light who passed away last Friday after struggling with pancreatic cancer. Bill was a great high school football player at Hopkins and an All-Big Ten linebacker for the Gophers in 1970-71. He was also team captain in 1971. He was inducted into the “M” Club’s Hall of Fame in 2014, and once owned Billy’s Lighthouse restaurant in Long Lake.

Vashti Cunningham, daughter of former Vikings quarterback Randall Cunningham, is a senior at Gorman High School in Las Vegas. Ed Graney, writing Saturday for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, reported in an online story that Vashti, who turned professional in March, will next month be the first American women’s high jumper in 20 years to be featured on the cover of Track & Field News.

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Could Izzo be Next Wolves Coach?

Posted on April 18, 2016April 18, 2016 by David Shama

A sports industry source told Sports Headliners Tom Izzo has been contacted about the vacancy created last week with the dismissal of Timberwolves interim head coach Sam Mitchell. Izzo, 61, is one of college basketball’s icons because he has coached Michigan State to a Big Ten record 19-straight NCAA Tournaments including seven Final Fours and a national title.

Izzo came to Michigan State as a part-time assistant coach in 1983. He has been MSU’s head coach since the 1995-1996 season and earlier this month was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. NBA teams, including the Cavaliers and Pistons, have reportedly flirted with hiring him previously.

Flip Saunders (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Timberwolves).

It’s believed the Wolves were also one of those teams two years ago. The late Flip Saunders, as the franchise’s president of basketball operations, was looking for a coach to succeed Rick Adelman in the spring of 2014. Saunders and Izzo were buddies, and it’s possible Izzo may have been offered the Wolves job. Ultimately Saunders made himself coach and continued in that role and as the franchise’s basketball boss until his death last fall.

Jim Dutcher coached Saunders with the Gophers. He said Saunders and Izzo became close friends years ago. “He (Izzo) read scripture at Flip’s memorial service,” Dutcher remembered.

Izzo is a highly likeable personality and is known for having a big heart. A native of Iron Mountain, Michigan who attended college at Northern Michigan, Izzo has loved mentoring young players and shown unusual loyalty by staying so many years at MSU. Would he want a new career challenge at this stage of his life?

Maybe he would be drawn to Minneapolis by his relationship with Saunders. The opportunity to continue the work of his friend in changing the Wolves from a joke franchise to a place among the NBA’s elite could be rewarding for Izzo.

The Wolves’ coaching job is attractive, too, because of a young and talented nucleus of players that Saunders assembled. Led by forward Andrew Wiggins, last year’s NBA Rookie of the Year, and center Karl-Anthony Towns, a lock to win the same award this year, the Wolves have a roster that still needs more playing experience. That roster also needs a few personnel changes and superior coaching to move toward division, conference and—possibly one day—Minneapolis’s first NBA championship since the Lakers won it all in 1954.

Indications are Wolves owner Glen Taylor is ready to spend significant money to hire a power coach. The source referred to in the opening paragraph said three other well-known names have already been contacted about the vacancy—Scott Brooks, Dave Joerger and Tom Thibodeau.

Brooks and Thibodeau have ties to the late Bill Musselman, the Wolves first coach. Brooks played for Musselman in the early 1990s while Thibodeau was an assistant during that period. Brooks was head coach of the Thunder until last year and successfully helped develop a young roster in Oklahoma City. Thibodeau was dismissed as the Bulls’ head coach last year after wowing the NBA with his defensive tutoring—a skill set that has to be on the to-do list of Wolves players. Joerger, currently the Grizzlies head coach, is a Minnesota native and it’s believed Saunders and Taylor were interested in hiring him two years ago.

The Wolves leadership is influx. General manager Milt Newton, who held that title under Saunders, now has more basketball personnel power but Taylor told Sports Headliners a couple weeks ago his GM is being evaluated too. A source said the Wolves are open to a structure like they had when Saunders carried the titles of both coach and president of basketball operations.

Perhaps Taylor decided awhile ago to fire Mitchell. In his interview with Sports Headliners, Taylor offered few words of praise about Mitchell who had been an assistant under Saunders.

The Wolves are receiving assistance on their coaching and front office review from search firm Korn Ferry.

Worth Noting

Ron Gardenhire has been hired as a special assistant to general manager Terry Ryan. The Twins made the announcement this afternoon that Gardenhire, who managed the team before being replaced by Paul Moltior after the 2014 season, will be a roving instructor and evaluator in the club’s minor league system.

Three sources told Sports Headliners Gary Trent Jr., the highly recruited Apple Valley High School shooting guard, is considering a prep school in 2016-2017. He has apparently visited at least two prep schools and one of them might be national basketball power Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada.

Trent, who is finishing his junior year at Apple Valley, may want to compete against better and stronger players in practice by playing for a prep school. Already considered a potential NBA prospect, Trent is physically strong and has superior strength compared to Eagle teammates.

“I feel a guess is he is headed out (from Apple Valley),” said a source who knows Trent.

Trent, who averaged 26.4 points per game last season, hasn’t selected a college but Ohio State or Duke could be his final choice, the source said.

Former Cooper High School star Rashad Vaughn transferred to Findlay for his senior year and then played one college season at UNLV. Vaughn, a shooting guard, was a first round pick in last year’s NBA Draft. Playing for the Bucks in 70 games this season, he averaged only 3.1 points while making 29.5 percent of his field goal attempts.

Casey O'Brien (photo courtesy of Abe Booker III, Stratman Photography). — Casey O’Brien (photo courtesy of Abe Booker III, Stratman Photography).

There were many recipients last night at the Minnesota Football Honors event at the Hilton Minneapolis but only one person received a standing ovation from the audience. Casey O’Brien, who twice has dramatically recovered from cancer, received the Courage Award at the event organized by the Minnesota Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.

The Cretin-Derham Hall junior has taken inspiration from football and hopes to be a co-captain and holder on the Raiders team next season. The Raiders new coach will be former Viking Brooks Bollinger who played collegiately at Wisconsin. Asked by emcee Frank Vascellaro for confirmation about Bollinger’s Badger roots, O’Brien quipped, “Sadly.”

At the event the Vikings announced the following 2015 award winners: Community Man of the Year Chad Greenway; Rookie of the Year Stefon Diggs; Offensive Player of the Year Adrian Peterson; Defensive Player of the Year Linval Joseph; and Special lTeams Player of the Year Adam Thielen. All of the players were present to accept awards except Peterson who was out of the country on a Starkey Hearing Foundation mission.

For a complete list of those honored last night, including scholar-athlete winners, see the March 16 Sports Headliners.

The Wild learns tonight whether home ice can help make a series out of Minnesota’s first round matchup with the Stars. In franchise history the Wild is 12-14 in Stanley Cup Playoff games at Xcel Energy Center including 7-4 the last two postseasons. The Wild trails Dallas 2-0 in the series and it looks like Minnesota will play again without injured leaders Zach Parise and Thomas Vanek.

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