Author: David Shama

After Brad Childress was fired last week as Vikings coach, it might be precedent setting for a major city like Minneapolis to have both its NFL and major college head coaching jobs open at the same time.  Childress and Brewster are friends and it won’t be surprising if the two spend time together in Florida where Brewster has been running the beaches of Naples.

St. Paul’s Gene Harrington was the NFL’s first conditioning coach, filling that role for Green Bay’s Vince Lombardi in 1965.  Harrington celebrated his 82^nd birthday last week.  He covers local teams including the Vikings for two national radio networks.

When the Vikings play at Detroit in their last regular season game on Sunday, January 2, the two teams could be competing to avoid last place in the NFC North.  The Vikings are 4-7 after yesterday’s win over Washington.  The Lions are 2-9.

Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett seemed like a good fit for the Gophers’ job in 2007 before Tubby Smith was hired.  Bennett, the son of former Wisconsin coach Dick Bennett, was making national headlines as Washington State’s coach.  Now Bennett coaches the Virginia team (3-3) that plays the Gophers tonight as part of the ACC/Big Ten challenge at Williams Arena.  Among the losses is a 106-63 game against nationally-ranked Washington.

Trent Lockett, who played for Hopkins, is now a sophomore at Arizona Sate where as of last week he was leading the Sun Devils in scoring at over 20 points per game. He averaged 6.7 last season.  He had a career high 24 points last week versus Weber State.

Rick Stelmaszek, among the Twins coaches recently signed to contracts through 2012, is the longest tenured coach in major league baseball having been Minnesota’s bullpen coach since 1981.

The Twins’ interest in Japanese infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka is indicative of the franchise’s scouting for international players.  The Twins are in a 30 day negotiating period to reach a contract agreement with the speedy Nishioka.  In recent years the franchise has signed players from the Dominican Republic, Germany and Australia.

St. Paul Saints president Mike Veeck will talk about a possible new ballpark for his franchise at a luncheon starting at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday at Mancini’s Char House & Lounge.  The event is sponsored by the Minnesota Minutemen with more information available at www.minnesotaminutemen.com.

Nick Schultz purchased hats for his Wild teammates and other team personnel who are growing moustaches as part of the “Movember” promotion.  The red and white hats have the Wild logo and a large black moustache with the words “Wild Mo Bros” written across the top.  “Movember” is a moustache growing charity effort during November to create awareness about prostate cancer.

Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi told Sports Headliners earlier this week he’s satisfied with the candidate possibilities for the head football coach opening and will be disappointed if a successor to Tim Brewster isn’t named by early January.

Maturi said the quality of possible candidates is about what he expected and indicated the search has been thorough in considering many names.  That presumably includes unemployed coaches and possible names like ex-Oregon coach Mike Bellotti and former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer.

The search is about a month old and presumably Maturi already has a working knowledge about not only who is qualified but also interested.  Sports Headliners believes the following 10 coaches could be at the top of such a list: Troy Calhoun of Air Force, Al Golden of Temple, Brady Hoke of San Diego State, Ken Niumatalolo of Navy, Bronco Mendenhall of Brigham Young, Dan Mullen of Mississippi State, Greg Schiano of Rutgers, Randy Edsall of Connecticut, Kevin Sumlin of Houston and Bellotti.

Who the Gophers land depends on timing, not just qualifications.  Absent from the list above are coaches like Chris Petersen of Boise State and Gary Patterson of TCU who are very unlikely to throw away a possible national championship season by leaving for Minnesota in December.

Impacting candidate availability for the Gophers, too, will be competition from other schools.  Bellotti may favor the Colorado job where he could more easily use his California recruiting base.  If Rich Rodriguez is fired at Michigan, two names that will quickly be in the headlines are Stanford’s Jim Harbaugh and Hoke who was associate head coach at Michigan several years ago.

The good news for the Gophers is it looks like there will be fewer major college head coach openings than during a typical fall.

Gather a group of Vikings together and let them relax while having a few beers.  Then ask what team on the schedule they most want to defeat.  A lot of the players will answer the Packers, according to Jeff Dugan, Vikings tight end.

The reason is there are thousands of Packers fans living in Minnesota.  Vikings players prefer silencing those fans rather than listening to them talk about a Packers win in the middle of Purple Nation.

It will certainly calm the Vikings critics a bit if Minnesota (3-6) can avoid losing to the Packers (6-3) for a second time this season when the two teams meet on Sunday at Mall of America Field.  The Vikings are being labeled a “bad” team but the players believe they are a talented group.

“We’re loaded with talent,” Vikings defensive end Brian Robison said. “As far as us being a bad team, I totally disagree with that.  I just think this year we’re just not making the plays that need to be made in order for us to win.”

The scores in half the losses substantiate that last sentence.  The Vikings have lost three of their games by five points or less.

That includes a 28-24 loss to the Packers in Green Bay on October 24.  The defeat in Green Bay is part of a nine-game road losing streak dating back to last season.

The Vikings, who are 17-3 in their last 20 home games, will be happy to be at Mall of America Field on Sunday, unless they lose and have to listen to those “Minnesota” Packers fans.