We are reminded constantly there is stuff in life you just can’t plan for. This fall I thought about breaking the piggy bank to pay for a trip to the 2020 Rose Bowl. Instead I am shelling out a couple grand for a root canal.
To make me feel better I am offering memories and observations about the Minnesota Vikings past and present because the NFL is celebrating its 100th season this fall. The Vikings organized as an expansion franchise in 1960 and their first NFL season was in 1961. As a schoolboy I witnessed the beginning years both from the stadium stands and the TV screen.
Lordy, the league was different back then including at the box office. The Vikings first took the field August 5, 1961 in a preseason game in Sioux Falls, South Dakota before an announced crowd of 4,954.
Honest.
Neither the Vikings nor the NFL was that big of a deal in 1961. Lead owner Max Winter once told me team marketers held a promotional event in St. Paul to sell tickets, and hardly anyone (maybe zero) made a purchase.
Before buying into the Vikings, Winter was owner of the five-time world champion Minneapolis Lakers. He was known for saying that if there is an attractive event the public wants to see fans will show up in large numbers even if the doors open at midnight.
It took awhile for Minnesota to completely warm to the Vikings. The first rosters were filled with castaways from established NFL clubs. Sprinkled into the talent pool were a few players new to the league, including a 1961 rookie quarterback named Francis Asbury Tarkenton. What a pro debut he made in front of me and 32,325 other fans at Metropolitan Stadium in Minnesota’s first regular season game September 17, 1961. Fran came off the bench to replace starter George Shaw and led the Vikings to a stunning 37-13 win over the legendary Chicago Bears franchise.
To this day the Houdini-like Tarkenton remains my all-time favorite Viking. Most of us had never seen a scrambling quarterback anything like the Georgia native and son of a preacher man. He could extend plays so long your mom had time to leave the room, go in the kitchen and flip the pancakes on the griddle.
Tarkenton not only drove opposing coaches like Vince Lombardi nuts with his scrambling escapades, he made his coach bonkers, too. Norm Van Brocklin had been one of the NFL’s great quarterbacks as a pocket passer, and he led the Philadelphia Eagles to an NFL title in 1960. With no prior coaching experience, he was made the Vikings first head coach. Van Brocklin was rigid and set in his ways, while Tarkenton might draw up a play in the dirt. The two clashed for several years while the Vikings played entertaining but losing football.
As a journalist I started covering the Vikings in the 1970s. I remember one particular encounter with head coach Bud Grant. Bud had his way of drawing lines with players and journalists. He could be intimidating. “Are you going to offer your hand every time we meet?” Grant once asked me.
The “Iceman” caught me off guard. I don’t think I was scared, more annoyed is how I recall things. I am not sure I remember shaking hands with Grant since that time, but don’t misunderstand. I like Bud and he has interviewed with me over the years including a scoop he offered not long ago about a frightening airplane landing he experienced.
Bud’s teams of the 1970s were the only ones in team history to reach the Super Bowl, playing four times in the big game and losing every one. They were a talented and tough bunch. They also had characters capable of mischief.
Former Viking Doug Kingsriter told me about a prank before the 1975 Super Bowl involving his team and the Steelers. Sportscaster Howard Cosell was interviewing Takenton at the Vikings hotel when Wally Hilgenberg and Alan Page interrupted by dosing Cosell with water.
Kingsriter wasn’t involved, but observed the shenanigans. “They hit Cosell square (with the water),” Kingsriter said. “When I say square they knocked his toupee off, not totally off, but it was off to the side. He quick grabbed it and put it back on before he turned around. They got him in the back, in the head, and really soaked him.”
Cosell spotted an amused Page, but not Hilgenberg who had run away. Known for his arrogance, Cosell was angry and vowed revenge on Page. He got it in an odd way, and with a scoop. The next fall the Vikings and Bears were playing on national TV but Page was sidelined. Cosell told his ABC Monday night viewers that Page wasn’t playing because he had hemorrhoids.
I flirted with being interviewed by the Vikings in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Max Winter liked me and I let it be known to general manager Mike Lynn I was interested in the team’s PR job. Lynn was kind of a different cat and I recall him calling me at home on a Sunday morning and saying something like, “What’s happening, Shama?”
Lynn was a slick operator and thought highly of himself. By chance I once encountered him at the MSP airport. He was wearing a blazer similar to those worn by Northwest Airlines personnel. An airline customer, an older lady, thought Lynn was an NW employee and asked for assistance. Probably a humbling experience for the Vikings executive.
There have always been plenty of egos dressed in purple. To this day I can hear former owner Red McCombs bellowing, “Purple Pride, Purple Pride, Purple Pride!” I figure old Red learned the line from his car dealership days in Texas where he might have implored the public to: “Buy my cars, buy my cars, buy my cars!”
What a cast of Purple characters from 1961 through today! I remember being around Randy Moss from his early days with the team. You didn’t stand in his path when he was exiting the locker room. What was the sometimes food critic and downtown traffic cop favorite so angry about?
Approaching interviews with some Vikings players over the years has been interesting. Not to say, though, there aren’t guys who appreciate and understand the role of journalists, even if most of them protect information like Coca Cola guards its secret formula.
Certain players I avoid, while others I welcome a conversation with. A favorites list from the last 20 years includes Matt Birk, Kirk Cousins, Kyle Rudolph, Ryan Longwell, Terence Newman, Harrison Smith and Adam Thielen, plus assistant coaches Dean Dalton and George Stewart, and college scout Scott Studwell.
Thielen has missed several games with an injured hamstring. I can commiserate in my own way. Earlier this fall I shared with him my back pain misery including painful spasms I was experiencing. As we talked, I could tell he had a genuine interest in my ordeal. Thielen is authentic and that characteristic will stay in my memory longer than any play he will ever make on the field.
Thielen won’t play against the Detroit Lions at U.S. Bank Stadium today. The 8-4 Vikings probably won’t need him to win. Minnesota is 75-39-2 all-time against the Lions and defeated 3-8-1 Detroit earlier this season. There will be a full house of about 66,000 fans chanting Skol in perhaps the nation’s best stadium, while fully expecting another win from the Vikings who are among the NFL’s better teams. Yes, things are different for this franchise than in 1961.