Author: David Shama

David Shama is a former sports editor and columnist with local publications. His writing and reporting experiences include covering the Minnesota Vikings, Minnesota Twins, Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Gophers. Shama’s career experiences also include sports marketing. He is the former Marketing Director of the Minnesota North Stars of the NHL. He is also the former Marketing Director of the United States Tennis Association’s Northern Section. A native of Minneapolis, Shama has been part of the community his entire life. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where he majored in journalism. He also has a Master’s degree in education from the University of St. Thomas. He was a member of the Governor’s NBA’s Task Force to help create interest in bringing pro basketball to town in the 1980s.

Leber: Need More from Vikings Defense

Posted on December 12, 2019December 12, 2019 by David Shama

A Thursday notes column starting with candid quotes from Ben Leber, the former Vikings linebacker who offers expert analysis during games on the team’s radio network.

Minnesota is 9-4 with intentions of winning its last three regular season games and advancing to the playoffs. With quarterback Kirk Cousins and others either meeting or exceeding expectations on offense, Leber is most concerned about the defense. “I just think they got to start generating more difference-making plays,” Leber said.

Leber wants the defense to force more turnovers and even turn those mistakes by opponents into points. Minnesota hasn’t been consistent enough with that this year and in the recent past, per Leber.

The defense is yielding 19.2 points per game, with only six of 31 other NFL teams doing better. The Vikings have given up only five rushing touchdowns but allowed 22 passing. Leber has a concern with the defensive secondary, not the line or other defenders.

The Vikings have to stop playing what he calls “safe” pass defense. “They need to go out there and take control of the pass defense and get their hands on the football,” Leber said. “Then it’s up to the offense to score some points off the turnovers.”

A focal point in the secondary remains cornerback Xavier Rhodes who is paid like an All-Pro but has been inconsistent this season and last. His misjudgments have placed him in hot water with head coach Mike Zimmer. As of late, Rhodes has sometimes been subbed out during games.

In the locker room yesterday Rhodes told reporters he doesn’t know how much he will play in Sunday’s game in Los Angeles against the Chargers. “I just gotta make plays when I’m in games,” he said. “That’s my mindset.”

Leber thinks the 29-year-old Rhodes can still play at a high level as the schedule closes but isn’t sure he will. “He has the ability to do it,” Leber said. “I’m guessing that taking some reps off of him (during games) will help him play a little bit faster.”

Rhodes has contended with an ankle injury this fall. He doesn’t expect the ankle will keep him out Sunday. “The ankle is pretty good,” he said. “It’s getting better day to day.”

Since week five of the NFL season Cousin has an NFL best 120.0 passer rating and he’s thrown a league high 21 touchdown passes. The nine-year veteran’s passing is in sharp contrast to what he has done in much of his pro career including a disappointing first season with the Vikings in 2018.

Former Vikings defensive lineman Bob Lurtsema, a close observer of the team, praises the work of the coaches including assistant head coach Gary Kubiak who was added to the staff during the last offseason. Lurtsema believes a change in philosophy has caused a Cousins turnaround, with the offense adjusted to prioritize the quarterback’s strengths. Lurtsema said he’s never seen the 31-year-old Cousins play so relaxed.

“I must give the coaches a lot of credit because they are coaching to the strength of the player and a lot of coaches coach to the strength of their system,” Lurtsema told Sports Headliners. “They are giving Cousins the flexibility to play to his strengths. “

Lurtsema also praised Vikings defensive end Danielle Hunter for not only his physical skills but saying “his work ethic is second to none.” Hunter’s long arms enable the 25-year-old to keep blockers at a distance. “He plays the game smartly but more importantly he’s got a motor on him,” Lurtsema said.

Hunter was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week yesterday for his performance last Sunday against the Lions in Minnesota’s 20-7 win. He had three sacks and seven total tackles. He is the youngest player to reach 50 career sacks since 1982, when the individual sack became an official statistic.

Chargers special teams coordinator and assistant head coach George Stewart was the Vikings wide receivers coach from 2007-2016.

Regis Eller, son of legendary former Vikings defensive end Carl Eller, is assistant director of pro scouting for the Chargers.

Steve and Dorothy Erban’s Stillwater-based Creative Charters has sold out two Boeing airplanes for the Outback Bowl in Tampa and is looking at adding another plane based on demand.

No word from sources yet on which, if any, senior Gophers football players may sit out the Outback Bowl game against Auburn to protect their health and professional prospects. Linebacker Blake Cashman skipped Minnesota’s Quick Lane Bowl game last year.

Not many coaches can put on their resumes the achievement of taking teams to January bowl games prior to turning 40 years old. Among those who can is Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck who has Minnesota in the January 1 Outback Bowl and three years ago led Western Michigan to the Cotton Bowl.

ESPN.com’s ranking this week, of the 150 greatest college football coaches ever, listed former Gopher player Bud Wilkinson No. 6 for the dynasty he built at Oklahoma. The Minneapolis native was listed after Paul Bear Bryant and Nick Saban, both from Alabama, Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne, Nebraska’s Tom Osborne and Grambling’s Eddie Robinson.

An ESPN panel of media, administrators, and former coaches and players, ranked St. John’s coach John Gagliardi No. 16, with Lou Holtz (multiple schools including Minnesota and Notre Dame) No. 23, Fritz Crisler (Minnesota, Princeton and Michigan) No 42. Former Gopher player Biggie Munn, who gained coaching fame at Michigan State, ranked No. 47, and Minneapolis native Sid Gillman (Miami of Ohio and Cincinnati) No. 54.

Bernie Bierman (multiple schools including Minnesota) was ranked No. 65. He won five national championships at Minnesota and his ranking is too low. Henry Williams, for whom Williams Arena is named, is No. 106 based on his coaching career at Army and Minnesota. Left off the list was former Gophers coach Murray Warmath, who had a career record at Minnesota of 87-78-7, but won a national championship and had two co-Big Ten title teams. He was also a pioneer in his commitment to using black players in big time college football.

Jashon Cornell, the Minnesota native from Cretin-Derham Hall and fifth-year Ohio State defensive tackle, was named Big Ten honorable mention last week in voting from league coaches.

ESPN’s Sunday night baseball schedule for the first half of next season not only didn’t include the AL Central champion Minnesota Twins but also passed on the World Series champion Washington Nationals.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli got engaged to girl friend Allie Genoa this fall at Yosemite National Park.

Although seven schools in the 10-member men’s Western Conference Hockey Association plan to form a new league to start play in two years, it’s possible the WCHA may reorganize with new teams, perhaps including St. Thomas if the Tommies are successful in gaining approval of Division I status in athletics.

Illinois remains a possibility to some day join the Big Ten in hockey.

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U Basketball Tickets Hold Steady

Posted on December 10, 2019December 10, 2019 by David Shama

As of last week, the University of Minnesota reported 6,738 public season tickets had been sold for men’s basketball. That total for the 2019-2020 home schedule compares with 6,647 sold last season, according to information provided to Sports Headliners.

Minnesota finished with a 9-11 regular season record last winter but had an entertaining team that won two games in the Big Ten Tournament and later advanced to the NCAA Tournament where the Gophers upset higher seeded Louisville. Amir Coffey, Minnesota’s best player down the stretch, opted to turn professional in the spring rather than return for his senior year. His decision lessened optimism for this season and almost certainly negatively impacted new season ticket sales.

With Coffey the Gophers would have been projected as an upper division or perhaps title contender in preseason Big Ten media forecasts. The U renewed almost 93 percent of its season tickets, and sold 565 new public season tickets.

U marketers have been proactive in pricing and packaging including offering Mini Plan tickets. Season ticket prices start at $340, while six-game Mini Plans begin at $70. A total of 1,914 Mini Plan tickets have been sold. The Gophers will play 17 home games, with 10 of them against Big Ten opponents.

The student season tickets total as of last week was 1,335 compared to 1,457 for 2018-2019.

Interest in Gophers basketball has sharply declined from what it was in the 1980s and 1990s when packed houses were common and season ticket totals were thousands higher than today. The best season attendance average Minnesota had in the last four seasons was 12,133 for the 2014-2015 schedule. The Gophers averaged 11,850 last season and the two seasons before had averages of 10,309 and 10,791. Williams Arena seating capacity is 14,625.

The Gophers play their first Big Ten home game next Sunday against No. 3 ranked Ohio State, one of the early season surprises in a league that can make a case for being the best in the nation. Based on information from the U last week, the Michigan State game at Williams Arena January 26 has the best presale with a total of 9,826 tickets committed.

The Gophers are 0-1 in the Big Ten after last night’s loss at Iowa and have a 4-5 overall record. Their 72-52 Iowa loss was an embarrassing performance highlighted by not hustling on transition defense, poor shooting by Minnesota’s three starting guards (made three of 29 field goals) and turnovers (center Daniel Otruru had at least five travelling violations and eight total turnovers). A popular preseason prediction for the Gophers before the season was a 10th place Big Ten finish and right now it looks accurate.

After last night’s Big Ten season opener, Minnesota head coach Richard Pitino has a 40-71 record in league games. Pitino is in his seventh season at Minnesota.

3rd Anniversary Herbie’s On The Park

Three years ago this month Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold opened a restaurant in the historic Minnesota Club, at 317 Washington Street in St. Paul. “The motivation” was to provide hockey fans and others attending events at adjacent Xcel Energy Center a convenient and appealing place to stop by for food and beverages.

What is the financial bottom line at Herbie’s On The Park? “We don’t lose money,” Leipold told Sports Headliners. “We make a little bit every year.”

There is nearby competition from places like Pazzaluna and the St. Paul Grill but the restaurant named after legendary coach and St. Paul native Herb Brooks has a built- in customer base and hockey niche. Brooks, who coached the hockey Gophers to three national championships and the 1980 U.S. Olympic team’s Miracle on Ice, died in 2003 but his brother Dave Brooks owns the building that overlooks Rice Park and provides offices to the Wild. A Herb Brooks statue is near the restaurant’s front door.

Leipold said the food is outstanding, and the ambiance “is just so fantastic,” partly because of the building’s history and warm tavern feeling. What are his beverage and entrée favorites?

“I love Uncle Nearest, it’s a great whiskey,” Leipold said. “The pork chop is tremendous, and the squid ink pasta is one of the best pastas I’ve ever had.”

The Wild recently announced five-game flex packs are now available for purchase for the remainder of the 2019-20 season. Fans can purchase tickets in the upper, lower and club levels starting at $64 per game for any five remaining home games.

Starting with a game at Xcel Energy Center tonight against the Anaheim Ducks, the Wild has its first three-game homestand of the season this week. The Edmonton Oilers visit on Thursday with the Philadelphia Flyers in town Saturday.

Minnesota has a seven game homestand January 16-February 6. That ties the record for second longest in franchise history.

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Vikings Tales to Soothe a Pain

Posted on December 8, 2019December 8, 2019 by David Shama

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.

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