Author: David Shama

The Minneapolis, St. Paul and Bloomington visitors bureaus want to bring the 2015 Summer National Senior Games to this area.  Local representatives will meet here today with Senior Games leaders.  Two other metropolitan areas are among the finalists for the multi-sport event for senior citizens, according to a Sports Headliners source.

Timberwolves basketball boss David Kahn is in Paris this week watching 2009 draft choice Ricky Rubio play with his European team.

It’s not certain whether the Wolves will replace departing vice president Fred Hoiberg or instead restructure their basketball operation.  Hoiberg, who has no professional or collegiate head basketball coaching experience, is the new head coach at Iowa State.

Former Timberwolves basketball boss Kevin McHale might be having too much fun in his work as an NBA TV analyst to coach again or return to the front office for a league team.  McHale’s name has been mentioned as the coaching successor to Vinny Del Negro in Chicago.  Another candidate might be Kentucky coach John Calipari who coached Chicago’s Derrick Rose when Rose was in college at Memphis.

Hoiberg said on last Sunday’s WCCO Radio Sports Huddle that McHale was the best coach he ever played for.  Hoiberg’s other coaches included Flip Saunders and Larry Bird.

Speculation about Jacques Lemaire, who recently resigned as New Jersey coach, includes that his players stopped listening to him.  That was also said when Lemaire coached the Wild last year.

The Wild’s Andrew Brunette and Nick Schultz are Twins season ticket holders and already have attended multiple games at Target Field.

Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom is holding a contest for fans on Wild.com to design his goalie mask for next season.

Saint Paul native Kyle Okposo scored two goals for Team USA in its 3-1 victory over France on Tuesday, the squad’s only exhibition game prior to the IIHF World Men’s Championship in Germany.

This year the Twins will break the franchise single season home attendance record of 3,030,672.

Brett Favre is coy enough about his football future that even a Favre neighbor in Mississippi doesn’t know what the quarterback will decide.

Favre and Twins manager Ron Gardenhire are on the roster of speakers for a motivational business seminar at Target Center on May 26.

Linebacker Gary Tinsley, who had an incident with University police earlier this spring, is expected to play for the Gophers next season and is a likely starter.  Tinsley had 10 tackles to lead the Gophers in their final Big Ten Conference game against Iowa last season.

Cordian Hagans, the defensive tackle transferring from LSU to join the Gophers, played high school basketball with Minnesota’s Ralph Sampson III at Northview High School in Duluth, Georgia.  Hagans, 6-5 and about 300 pounds, didn’t start playing football until his junior year.

Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi is starting to jog again after injuring his Achilles tendon about a year ago.

St. Thomas 2009 graduate Katie Theisen has been awarded the NCAA’s prestigious Walter Byers Scholarship. Theisen was chosen as this year’s female recipient of the $24,000 postgraduate scholarship.  She’s the seventh Division III honoree and second MIAC recipient to receive the scholarship.  A former All-American distance runner for the Tommies, Theisen is enrolled in medical school at Minnesota.

Former Edina state prep champ Whitney Taney, now playing tennis for Michigan, is a unanimous all-Big Ten choice by conference coaches.  During the nonconference and Big Ten schedules she was 25-9 in singles, 33-6 in doubles.  Much of her court time came at No. 2 singles and No. 1 Doubles.   As the team captain, she led No. 4 ranked Michigan to its best regular season in program history, 22-4 overall, 10-0 in the Big Ten.

Jay Pivec, who had a 20 year record of 452-115 at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, was inducted on April 30 into the NJCAA Men’s Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.  His presenter was friend and Twins executive Eric Curry.

Toby Gerhart admits he feels “pressure” in attempting to replace Chester Taylor as the Vikings No. 2 running back behind Adrian Peterson.  But not only does the second round draft choice have the physical skills to run, catch and pass block, his football education at Stanford was exceptional training for his rookie season this fall in the NFL.

Gerhart, who was the runner-up last year for the Heisman Trophy, told Sports Headliners that the offense at Stanford is “comparable” to what he must learn with the Vikings.  Similar schemes and plays will help Gerhart transition, but so, too, will the work ethic exemplified by head coach Jim Harbaugh who played 15 seasons in the NFL, coached three seasons at the University of San Diego, then took over a Stanford program following a 1-11 season in 2006.

Stanford was 8-5 last season and has become a program on the rise.  Harbaugh had made good on a quote that ESPN The Magazine included in the May 3 issue.  “I will attack this job with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind,” Harbaugh said upon being named Stanford coach.

“He taught us what you put into it is what you get out of it,” Gerhart said.

Gerhart had a work ethic when he was a prep star in southern California but Harbaugh’s commitment to succeed made an impression on him.  “He made practices fun, up tempo and all about competing,” Gerhart said.  “Prior to that (Harbaugh arriving), it wasn’t that way.  With him, he pushed every player no matter if you were the best player, or the worst player. …”

With Taylor gone to Chicago after four seasons with the Vikings, we’ll see whether Gerhart can become the replacement.  What seems certain, though, is the Vikings will get the rookie’s best effort.