Author: David Shama

Sometimes Reusse has used name calling in his columns. Does he have regrets about that?

“That’s always the big debate, whether it’s personal or whether it’s observation,” he answered.  “When I get attacked in return, I never take it personally.  I find it extremely humorous that people take a shot at somebody and then get offended when they take a shot back at you.”

Reusse said Twins relief pitcher Joe Nathan is upset with him.  Reusse criticized Nathan’s performance in the playoffs.  “I said ‘choked,’ and you looked at him on the mound against the Yankees and he couldn’t breathe,” Reusse said.  “Now is that personal?  Or is that observation of an athletic performance?  That’s what the debate becomes.

“He’s outraged, and that’s fine.  He should be.  He’s told guys ‘I am never talking to him again.’  I am not going to think any less or any more of him either way. People don’t believe that but really I don’t.  Somebody wants to say that ‘he’s a fat SOB,’ there’s no denying the fat part.  I am not very defensive at all about stuff I’ve written.

“Sure, there’s regrets.  A lot of them have been patched up.  Harvey Mackay (friend of ex-Gophers coach Lou Holtz) and I were mortal enemies during the Holtz era, and now I get along with him fine.  Louie Nanne (ex-North Stars president) is a former turkey of the year (Reusse’s annual Thanksgiving column) and I consider him a good friend, and a character.

“What the hell. You can’t write 250 columns a year for 30 years until the last year and not say, ‘God almighty, was I stupid.’  Of the feuds I’ve allegedly had, yeah, maybe the Holtz one (Reusse labeled him the “Music Man” after the character in the Broadway show).  He came in and he started bullshitting and I got kind of offended.  Now I look back at him and I should have adopted him as a unique character.”

Reusse recalled how he was critical of former Vikings coach Bud Grant and Twins owner Calvin Griffith.  His observation was that “everybody” was required to patronize Grant so much it drove Reusse nuts.  “So when I started writing columns, I would take some shots, whatever I could,” Reusse said.  “Then through the years I came to appreciate he’s one of the most unique Minnesota guys we’ve ever had. Calvin, too, I went from taking shots at him every chance to thinking he was one of the greatest characters of all-time. So I guess I regret some of the early observations I made of some people. …”

Reusse grew up in southwestern Minnesota and later graduated from Prior Lake High School.  He was a liberal arts major at the University of Minnesota but dropped out long before he could earn a degree.  His dad had a friendship with a Minneapolis Tribune writer and Reusse signed on as a teenager for an entry level part-time position in the sports department in 1963.

The Tribune was home almost at first sight.  “God, it took me about two weeks to say this is the greatest,” Reusse said.  “I just loved the hubbub and the crazed Friday nights, and the angry people, and the hard drinking people. (People) screaming at each other and taking calls.  You go to work and you were probably working a six-hour shift back then and it was over in 10 minutes. …”

At age 20, Reusse headed for Duluth and a job with the daily newspaper there paying $76.08 per week.  The work didn’t require a degree and journalism positions were easier to come by in the 1960s than they are now.  “Hell, it was between me and some wino off the street, probably for the job,” Reusse said. “Who are you going to hire for that kind of money?”

A few months later Reusse was writing sports for the newspaper in St. Cloud.  His salary increased to $110 per week for 52 hours in an “anything goes” sports department atmosphere.  Reusse’s memories include befriending a couple of St. Cloud State athletes with plenty of favorable publicity.  They were also old enough to buy beer for him when he wasn’t of legal age.

Four-plus years after going to St. Cloud, Reusse arrived in St. Paul writing for the Pioneer Press.  Later he switched to the Star Tribune and between Minneapolis and St. Paul newspapers has been writing a column for three decades.  Ask other journalists about Reusse and many will say his touch (how he uses words and phrases) is among the best in the country.  When Reusse began writing he copied the clichéd filled style of most sportswriters during that era.  But Reusse worked at his writing, thinking about how he enjoyed taking a “mild situation” and exaggerating it, or a “horrible” one and understating it.  He also read and admired the country’s best sportswriters including a roster of legends in Boston such as Will McDonough, Bob Ryan and Leigh Montville.

Reusse started covering the Twins for the Pioneer Press in 1974.  He enjoyed “turning a phrase,” working with the excitement of writing under a deadline, and also fitting in a few hours of daily drinking.

An addiction to alcohol forced a decision in April of 1981.  Twins vice president and friend Clark Griffith had told Reusse to call him when Reusse was ready for treatment.  “There was no risk to my job or anything like that,” Reusse said.  “I got sick of being hung over. I was single, (and) my first wife had divorced me in ‘79.  I was running around with a younger crowd and acting goofy.  Just got sick of being hung over and one Sunday morning called Clarkie and the next morning I was in Saint Mary’s (for recovery).”

That spring the North Stars were in the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Reusse grew up without exposure to hockey and to this day struggles with his interest in the sport.  He said the “good news” about being in treatment was he avoided about “30 days of hockey columns.”

Reusse hasn’t had a drink of alcohol since April 27, 1981.  He said it’s “the greatest feeling in the world” to see a police car’s lights in his rear view mirror and know “they can’t hurt you and ruin your life.”  Then he added: “Fortunately I did my heavy drinking in the ‘70s when drunken driving was legal.”

Alcohol is the easiest of addictions, Reusse said.  He’s seen others struggle with booze, cigarettes and over eating.  He has battled a weight problem for years, using crash diets and seeing the pounds fluctuate.

“I must be at 300 now,” he said.  “It’s terrible.  I haven’t tried one of my crash diets for about three years now.  I am ready probably for another one.  Obviously it’s (the extra weight) not healthy.”

Reusse, who weighed 170 pounds in high school and 190 after treatment for alcoholism, has no major health problems but is worried about his weight and so, too, is his family.  “I am concerned,” he said. “I am like everybody else.  I am afraid I am going to tip over.”

But Reusse has seldom missed a day of work and remains energetic. “It’s amazing how lucky I have been with my healthy considering how fat I am,” he said.

Reusse “loves writing baseball” and he talked about the “smaller the ball, the better the scene” theory of sportswriting.  Baseball and golf, he believes, offer special opportunities to describe the scenes with the fields, courses, stands, galleries and more, not just the “combatants.”

Then Reusse brought up Gophers football and how many readers believe he is a “big U basher.”  He followed Minnesota teams in the 1950s and remembered sobbing as a 12-year- old when the top 10 and undefeated Gophers lost to Illinois in 1957, a season that held promise of a national championship.

Reusse said it amuses him when he walks into a Gophers game now and fans ask him to write “something good.”  That’s not up to him, he said, that’s on the Gophers.  “People think that you go to a game thinking you know what you’re going to write.  No, you go to a game to see what happens.”

Joel Maturi hasn’t decided whether to extend the contract of Gophers football coach Tim Brewster and likely won’t make that determination until January.  The Gophers athletic director told Sports Headliners during an interview last week that despite criticism of Brewster he “fully expects” his coach to return for a fourth season in 2010.

All staff receives extensive annual evaluations and Brewster’s review will be made after January 1.  By then the Gophers will have played in their yet to be determined bowl game.  The result of that game will determine whether Minnesota, now with a 6-6 record, finishes above or below .500 under Brewster who has also had records of 7-6 and 1-11.

The Gophers are headed to a bowl game for a second consecutive season after playing a challenging nonconference and Big Ten schedule.  Minnesota finished 3-5 in the conference, a better record than Michigan’s 1-7, a program that is the winningest in college football history.  The Gophers lost five games to teams headed for bowls and two of Minnesota’s defeats were by a total of six points.

Yet the Gophers lost four of their last six games (two of the final three).  The offense didn’t produce a touchdown in the 16-13 win over South Dakota State and the 12-0 loss to Iowa.  That sort of stuff had the sky falling after the Iowa game, according to many Gophers fans.

A week ago Sunday Maturi found himself wading through well over 100 emails. “There seems to be a belief…that we’re in shambles here, and quite frankly I don’t share that belief,” Maturi said.

A notion some fans won’t let up on is that retired NFL coach Tony Dungy will ride back to campus on a white horse to announce he’s the new football boss.  “Tony Dungy is not coming to Minnesota, and it’s not the money,” Maturi said.  “I talked to Tony.  He was the first call I made (in January 2007 while looking for a coach).  We’ve talked many times since that time.

“I don’t know if Tony will ever coach again, No. 1, and if he does, he will probably go back to the pros.  I appreciate and respect (that) people say, ‘Well, we’ve got to get Tony Dungy.’  Well, that would be wonderful.  And, again, this is not at the price of Tim Brewster.  I am just trying to say that people have that image because he (Dungy) played here, and he coached with the Vikings and with the Gophers, therefore he will come back here as a coach.  Not going to happen.”

Dungy hasn’t coached in college since 1980 when he was an assistant at Minnesota.  His decades of coaching experience and success (Super Bowl champion coach for Indianapolis in 2007) have been in the pros.  Maturi said beyond that there’s another reason Dungy isn’t likely to come back here and that is the cold weather.  Maturi said Dungy’s wife Lauren “wasn’t crazy” about the climate in Indianapolis and that Tony is a “family man” who values those sorts of considerations.

In January of 2007, before Brewster was hired, Maturi sought not only Dungy’s interest in the job but also the names of candidates to be considered.   “If and whenever a change is made again while I am the athletic director, he will still be the first call because I have such great respect and admiration for him and his knowledge of the game and of Minnesota,” Maturi said.