Author: David Shama

The Gopher football team that takes the field against Kansas Wednesday night for the Insight Bowl is likely to be highly motivated.  The season ending 55-0 loss to Iowa was humiliating and is a five star stimulus to prepare for the bowl game.  The consensus of the college football world, though, is that Kansas will win and the Jayhawks are favored by about 10 points.

Kansas is led by Mark Mangino who some will argue is the best coach in school history.  He’s created attention for his success like last year’s 12-1 season (7-5 this season) at a school long known for basketball championships and a suffering football program.  Mangino is also the fattest major college coach in memory, probably weighing north of 350 pounds and for years the subject of jokes (“our coach beat anorexia”).

The Jayhawks’ star receiver is Kerry Meier who 18 months ago was competing for the starting quarterback job, according to a story last week on LJworld.com.  The Lawrence, Kansas newspaper Web site told the success story of Meier who has become a Sports Illustrated cover boy and one of the Big 12’s best receivers.  Meier, from the small town of Pittsburgh, Kansas, has older brothers who played for Kansas State.

Jason LaFrenz, Gophers’ assistant athletics director for marketing and ticketing sales, reported via e-mail on Saturday that he’s expecting more than 10,000 Minnesota fans at the Insight Bowl.  He also reported that about 1,000 tickets remain for Wednesday’s Minnesota-Michigan State basketball game at Williams Arena.

Former Bloomington Jefferson center Cole Aldrich is leading the Kansas basketball team in rebounds, 9.9 per game, and is second in scoring at 13.6 points.  The 6-11 sophomore, along with former Minneapolis North guard Khalid El-Amin, who led Connecticut to a national championship, could be remembered as one of the two best Minnesotans ever to leave the state and play elsewhere.

The Giants scored 12 of their 19 points against the Vikings yesterday on field goals by 44 year old John Carney.  The team’s punter is 42 year old Jeff Feagles.

Third year linebacker Chad Greenway hasn’t received a lot of publicity but his improvement has been noticed by many observers including teammate and fellow linebacker Ben Leber.  Greenway said he believes his performance has been consistent during the season.

Vikings’ defensive end Ray Edwards finished the regular season yesterday with five total sacks in 15 games.  That’s a long way from the goal he set before the season of breaking Michael Strahan’s NFL single season record of 22.5.  Earlier this month Sports Headliners asked Edwards if he had regrets about going public with his goal.  “Who me? Nah.  I don’t have no regrets at all.  I mean I set goals high for myself.  Sometimes you fall short of your goals but you keep on moving.  You don’t let that stop you.”

Edwards, in his third season as a pro, had to adjust to playing on the left side after being a right defensive end.  I missed a lot of sacks I should have had,” he said.  “Once I get there I gotta cash the check, as they say.”

Vikings’ rookie offensive lineman John Sullivan might be the successor to center Matt Birk but this season was a time for learning.  “I can just ask Matt about anything…(for example) why he used a certain technique in certain situations,” he told Sports Headliners earlier this month.  “He’s always eager to share that information with me and try to help me to become a better player.”

As a reserve, Sullivan prepared to play either center or guard if needed but had no game starts.

The Twins are likely to play exhibition baseball at the new Target Field before opening the stadium for regular season games in 2010.  Twins president Dave St. Peter told Sports Headliners that specifics about first events in the stadium won’t be decided until next summer.  Amateur baseball in March or April could be part of the plan, too.

St. Peter said the sod for the new field will be laid in August.  He said that’s earlier than need be but the Twins are working to keep everything with the new stadium on schedule or ahead.

The annual TwinsFest will be January 23-25 in the Metrodome with attendance of 25,000 to 30,000 expected, St. Peter said.  With the Twins lease ending next year, it’s not certain where TwinsFest in 2010 and beyond will be held.  The fan festival attractions will include the baseball hall of fame plaques of former Twins Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield, according to the Twins website.

St. Peter said Michael Cuddyer is “our regular right fielder” and he couldn’t explain why last fall the team’s website listed the former third baseman among the infielders other than to say manager Ron Gardenhire is “not our webmaster.”

Former Twins broadcaster Ted Robinson will provide play-by-play on tomorrow’s Minnesota-Louisville basketball game from Glendale, Arizona.  The game begins at 1 p.m. Minneapolis time on Fox Sports Net.

Gopher coach Tubby Smith has a 4-6 record against Louisville coach Rick Pitino who was his boss when both worked at Kentucky.  The Gophers, 9-0, are one of 13 undefeated college teams.  Louisville, ranked No. 9 in the country, is 7-1.

The second cup in the State of Hockey Greats coffee mug series will be given to all fans tonight at Xcel Energy Center.  The mug features coaches Herb Brooks, Lou Nanne, Doug Woog and Jacques Lemaire.

New York Islanders wing Richard Park returns to the Xcel Energy Center tonight for only the sixth time since 2003-04.  Park had 37 goals and 37 assists for 74 points in 216 games for the Wild from 2001-2004.

The Wild’s Marian Gaborik was activated off injured reserve Wednesday and played his first game since October 14 at Atlanta.  He had a goal and assist in a 3-2 loss to Calgary, the Wild’s sixth straight defeat.  The Wild are 221-180-87 all-time with him in the lineup and 47-56 -13 without him.

A reliable source who requested anonymity predicted to Sports Headliners that the Vikings’ likelihood of gaining approval for a new stadium during the coming legislative session appears “very, very bleak.”

Optimism was tempered even earlier in the year when the economy was slowing and construction costs were increasing but a fourth quarter headlined with more bad news such as unemployment and furthering of the mortgage crisis has put the state and country in a worse funk.  In Minnesota we have a $426 million state budget deficit for the current biennium (with forecasts for about $5 billion by 2010) and possible unemployment of seven percent or more next year.

The source, who has local stadium expertise, predicted that the Vikings and their legislative supporters might not even offer up a stadium bill in 2009.  Instead, a progress report on development of a stadium on the Metrodome site could be a focus, along with potential planning for a do-or-die effort in 2010, one year before the Vikings’ lease at the Metrodome expires.

Sources don’t believe owner Zygi Wilf and his family will move the Vikings even if the community doesn’t help fund a new stadium.  However, it’s believed the Wilfs might sell the franchise to an ownership group willing to take it elsewhere.

Billionaire developer Ed Roski announced plans to build a privately funded stadium in the Los Angeles area earlier this year but hasn’t broken ground.  In today’s fragile economic environment one wonders about the future of even that project.

The San Diego Chargers’ stadium lease runs through this season but don’t expect them to move to Los Angeles, according to Jeff Dotseth.  He’s a talk show host in San Diego and reported via e-mail to Sports Headliners that franchise prospects for staying there have improved because of a change in city leadership and team president Dean Spanos has long been committed to the area.

As for the Vikings and Los Angeles, Dotseth wrote:  “…If you talk to people up there, they don’t want the Vikes, Chargers, Jags etc…They are fine without an NFL team, but if a team was to go there, they want an expansion team. The other problem is where to play. The Coliseum is 100 years old and, like the Rose Bowl, does not have luxury boxes. …”