The opening of TCF Bank Stadium this summer will be remembered for 100 years or more. In my lifetime the new football facility ranks near the top on a short list of extraordinary Gopher news.
Nothing surpasses the 1960 achievement of Minnesota’s last national championship. When the Gophers played in back-to-back Rose bowls in 1961 and 1962, college football hysteria peaked in this town. The Gophers split those two games, losing to Washington in 1961 but winning a revenge game the next year by beating and thoroughly dominating UCLA.
The 1967 season was the school’s last as Big Ten champs. Then the most excitement in the program came 15 years later when the Gophers moved off campus into the Metrodome. The facility put the Gophers in the newest stadium in the Big Ten Conference and placed spectators in a weather protected environment (not to mention plastic seats with backs instead of the wooden planks in Memorial Stadium).
In 1984, master coach and pitch man Lou Holtz took over as head coach. Holtz created so much excitement and improvement in the program during his two years he still has Gophers fans wondering what kind of 10-year run Minnesota might have experienced if he had stayed here instead of leaving for Notre Dame.
The earlier part of this decade showcased a running game ranking among the better ones in college football history. Characterized by both total rushing yards and spectacular runs, the Gopher teams that included center and Outland Trophy winner Greg Eslinger and running backs Marion Barber III and Laurence Maroney provided hold-your-breath shows on Saturdays.
Last week I made another entry in the best memories file after touring TCF Bank Stadium. I hadn’t been inside the now all but completed stadium for about a year. Many times during the last 12 months, though, I admired the gorgeous brick exterior and welcoming archway entrances with the names of Minnesota’s counties.
Once inside, you hardly know where to look and what to admire next. The planners (HOK Architects and U officials) have built a nearly $300 million stadium that seems like it should cost even more. The grand designs like the stadium’s sightlines and intimacy are mission accomplished, but so, too, are the details.