Author: David Shama

All those Brad Childress bashers out there should still be happy about the dismissal of the Vikings coach last fall.  The social media crowd and stadium drunks got a coach fired less than 11 months after his team was within a play of the Super Bowl.

The Vikings may or may not win legislative approval for a new stadium this spring, but take comfort in knowing that the politicians, nationally and locally, can be counted on to put their interests aside and do the right thing for the public.  (Don’t hurt yourself laughing!)

Perhaps by carelessly mentioning the IRS and politicians I have added to your misery index.  A long time pal who lives in another frozen, snow covered state may have the ultimate cure:

A reckless diet.

He’s partying with Milk Duds.  Multiple times a day he uses the famous candy as the center piece of a diet that could also include eggs, pancakes, hash browns, burgers, pizza and Pepsi.  Wikipedia, by the way, describes Milk Duds as a product “historically enrobed with milk chocolate and currently enrobed with a confectionery coating.”  That’s nice enrobing.

No mention of fruits and vegetables by my friend.  If we can’t grow them for long periods of time why should we eat them?

So feel better by eating what you want and improve that attitude as spring (promise) approaches.  Joe Mauer is signed long term.  The Vikings haven’t backed up the moving vans to Winter Park.  The University of Iowa was listed No.2 by Sports Illustrated in a story about college football programs with the most players having police records while the Gophers didn’t even crack the top 25.

Things could be worse.  Gas costs less than $4.00 a gallon.  Your insurance plan probably pays for mental health coverage.  The ice will be off the lakes (at least the local ones) in time for the fishing opener.

Just like the teams tell us in their advertising, email and publicity messages: life is good…even in winter.

Tubby Smith’s four-year Big Ten regular season coaching record is 32-40 following yesterday’s 66-63 loss to Penn State at Williams Arena.

After 8-10 and consecutive 9-9 records at Minnesota, Smith produced a 6-12 mark this season.  The totals don’t include Big Ten Tournament games where Smith is 5-3.

The Gophers, who begin play in the tournament on Thursday afternoon against Northwestern in Indianapolis, finished in ninth place in the conference standings.  Minnesota was a top 25 ranked team until the Gophers ran out of point guards in January and then lost nine of its last 10 games.

Without Devoe Joseph who transferred to Oregon and Al Nolen who broke his right foot, the Gophers often stumbled in the closing minutes of games and lost.  The late season collapse left coaches, players and fans frustrated.

Assistant coach Saul Smith told Sports Headliners a couple years ago that the coaching staff came to Minnesota to compete for Big Ten titles.  So far the Gophers haven’t been able to go beyond .500 results.

When asked about the program competing for Big Ten championships in July of 2008, Saul Smith talked about NCAA titles, too.  “We feel like that’s our goal is to compete nationally and win national titles and to compete (for) Big Ten titles.  We’re going to be all right. …”

Saul’s dad won a national championship at Kentucky in 1998 and for six out of his first eight seasons there never lost more than four regular season Southeastern Conference games.  During Smith’s last two seasons at Kentucky, prior to taking the Gophers job, his record was 18-14 in SEC games.

Handicapped as they were at point guard, this year’s Gophers should not have stumbled so badly; they had the talent to produce a better record in the Big Ten than 6-12.  In December the team inspired hopes of not only playing in the NCAA tournament, but also winning a couple of games.  Instead this season has stirred doubts about the program, perhaps even in Smith himself.

Does Smith believe he can win here and does he want to continue at Minnesota?  Months ago he was offered a contract extension but he still has not accepted it.  If he was holding back from signing in hopes of leveraging support for a new practice facility that task seems more difficult now.  Such a disappointing season could easily take the glow off a sales pitch to a lead donor for the facility that will likely cost at least $15 million.

Past winters have included rumors that other schools were courting Smith.  This one continues the trend that Smith will go some place else and there’s been speculation it could be Georgia Tech.

Trevor Mbakwe on teammate Blake Hoffarber whose clutch shooting almost rallied the Gophers to a win against Penn State yesterday: “He’s a fighter.  He’s a warrior.”

There’s been talk the Big Ten Conference will use a nine game league football schedule in 2015 but the change will not take place until 2017 because of nonconference commitments.  Until then the 12 member schools will each continue with eight conference games and four nonconference.

The move to the unbalanced schedule will mean some teams each year have five conference road games while others have four.  That’s no different than the Pac-10 did last year.  The change to additional Big Ten games will be welcomed by fans who more often than not receive increased value in watching league games rather than nonconference.

During a couple of seasons in the near future, Big Ten schedules are expected to include not one, but two byes for each conference team.  That will be a conference first in modern Big Ten history.

Former Gophers basketball coach Dan Monson’s Long Beach State team won the Big West Conference with a 14-2 regular season record.

If the Twins’ starting rotation doesn’t perform as an effective group, there’s no blaming youth.  Among the six most likely pitchers to become the five regular starters, no one is younger than 26.  Carl Pavano is 35, Scott Baker and Nick Blackburn are both 29, Brian Duensing, 28, Francisco Liriano, 27, and Kevin Slowey, 26.

John Gordon said on Friday’s Twins radio broadcast that new middle infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka apologized in the dugout during the game to Slowey for an error.  Gordon’s broadcast partner Dan Gladden noted that such unexpected courtesy is common for Japanese players.

The Twins played Tampa Bay in games on Friday and Saturday, winning both games.  Gordon reported that the Rays’ roster is minus “18 players” from last season.