Author: David Shama

Coach Tim Brewster said the surprising Gophers, 7-1, “have been the Bear” but the team is becoming the “hunted.”

The Gophers named sophomore safety Kyle Theret the team’s weekly Defensive MVP and Special Forces MVP for his outstanding game against Purdue.  The 5-foot-10, 185 pound Theret is an exceptional tackler and smart player.  “His heart is as big as his body,” Brewster said.

A source, who requested anonymity, said Northwestern declined to move tomorrow’s game at the Metrodome from an 11 a.m. start to 2:30 p.m. because of airplane arrangements.

Former Gopher wrestler Dave Henry, along with his 90-year-old mother, his daughter, aunt and uncle, two brothers, three nephews, two nieces, and other family rented a motor home and drove from Minnesota to last week’s Purdue game.  Henry’s mother has a 1933 Purdue-Minnesota scorecard.

Coach Tubby Smith’s basketball team will hold a free practice and scrimmage open to the public beginning at 4 p.m. tomorrow at Williams Arena.

Former KSTP anchorman Joe Schmit, now president of the John T. Petters Foundation, reports the good news that his lymphoma has “stalled” and he’s not undergoing treatment.  Schmit will speak briefly this evening at the fourth annual Lake Minnetonka Monster Mash, a Halloween benefit for the Lymphoma Foundation.  The event will be at the Bayview Center in Excelsior and entertainment includes Jimi Jamison, former Survivor lead singer and also Alex Ligertwood, former Santana lead singer.  Tickets are available in advance and at the door, with more information available at 952-470-8439.

The Lee County Commission voted 3-1 earlier this week to approve a new spring training baseball home for the Boston Red Sox, according to news-press.com that reports news in the Fort Myers, Florida area where the Twins also headquarter.  The proposed new ballpark will seat approximately 10,000 and resemble famed Fenway Park.

Four MIAC football games were decided by a total of 12 points last Saturday. The largest margin of victory was Saint John’s 20-14 overtime win at St. Olaf.  During the last two weekends, only one MIAC game has been determined by more than six points. Through the first 24 games of the MIAC season, 17 games have been decided by eight points or less.  With three weeks left in the regular season, six of the nine MIAC teams have one or two losses.

Saturday’s big game is Gustavus at Bethel.  Both teams are 3-2 in conference games. All-MIAC sophomore running back Logan Flannery leads the run-oriented Bethel offense.  Senior running back Ray Wilson set a school single-game rushing record with 258 yards on 28 carries in a 34-31 victory over Augsburg College on Saturday in St. Peter.  He was chosen the MIAC offensive player of the week.

Because Saint John’s has a bye this weekend, football coach John Gagliardi will be able to attend his induction into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in suburban Chicago on Saturday night.  Gagliardi broke former Grambling State head coach Eddie Robinson’s NCAA record for the most games coached (588) earlier this season.  Gagliardi’s 60 years of collegiate coaching is the most in college football history.

The 2008 MIAC Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Championships are Saturday at the Como Park Golf Course in St. Paul. The men’s race is set to begin at 2 p.m. and the women’s race starts at 3 p.m. The Saint John’s men and the St. Thomas women are trying to win third consecutive championships.

The NSIC has five schools ranked in the NCAA DII Wrestling Coaches Association top 20 poll.  Minnesota State is ranked No. 2 in the country followed by Upper Iowa (10), St. Cloud State (12), Augustana (14), with MSU Moorhead is tied for 17^th with Truman State of Missouri.  Upper Iowa’s Travis Eggers is ranked first in his 157 pound weight class.

With the surprising Gophers (7-1) in an all-out blitz to qualify for a New Year’s Day bowl game for the first time since 1962, there will be monitoring not only of the team’s progress on the field but also at the box office.  As of Monday morning an athletic department official reported sales of about 45,000 for Saturday’s Homecoming game against Northwestern in the 64,172 seat Metrodome.  Advance sales for the two other remaining home games are 45,000 for Michigan and 54,000 for Iowa (and we know many of those attendees will be wearing gold and black, not maroon and gold).

These numbers may frustrate and mystify some but they shouldn’t.  The Gophers annual average attendances for 40 years have mostly been in the 40,000 to 50,000 range.  The only major breakthrough was the Lou Holtz era.  In his second and last season here, 1985, the Gophers averaged 60,985, the best home average since 1957. He left behind a season ticket holder base of more than 50,000 and the 1986 Gophers averaged 55,848, the third best mark in more than 40 years.

Hats off to coach Tim Brewster, the staff and Gopher players for an astounding turnaround from last season’s 1-11 performance.  The Gophers are playing winning football, featuring an exceptional turnover-causing defense, and surprising the college football world from Baudette to Bourbon Street.  It’s just that two months of the superb will not undo more than 40 years of problems.  Here’s a primer on why Gopher football attendance has been both mediocre and lousy all these years:

Ineptitude.  The Gophers haven’t won a Big Ten Conference championship since 1967.  During the last 20 years they have never finished second or third in the standings and only six times won half or more of their league games.  Glen Mason, who took the Gophers to seven bowl games between 1997 and 2006, was 32-48 in the Big Ten.  Jim (Geezo-Beezo) Wacker was 8 and 32 in conference games from 1992-1996.

Heartbroken.  In the last 10 years the Gophers frequently had fast starts to their seasons and then showdowns with quality conference opponents only to lose those games.  No defeat was worse than the 2003 loss to Michigan at home when the Gophers blew a 28-7 second half lead and lost 35-28 before a Friday night crowd of 62,374.  A lot of those fans weren’t Gopher regulars and many were boiling mad after seeing the U crumble at the end.  The next week the Gophers drew 38,788 at home against Michigan State.  Being a fan has a lot to do with hope and until this season the Gophers were often consistent in raising expectations, then not being able to deliver.

Purple factor.  No one at the U or over at Winter Park ever acknowledges it publicly, but pro football put a dent in Gopher interest in the 1960s and except for the Holtz years this has been a Vikings town for about 40 years.  There are more NFL fans than college fans here and across the country.  You can make a good argument that with all its tradition, color and variety, college football is a better product but the facts are that in towns where the pros and colleges collide for fan following, the NFL almost always comes out ahead.  Just ask the folks at Miami University where the Hurricanes have for more than 20 years been among the elite of college football but frequently play to non-sellout crowds while the fans turn out in bigger numbers to watch the so-so Dolphins.

Generations lost.  Minnesotans in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s have grown up with little or no interest in the Gophers.  Even alums in those age groups are likely to have passed through Dinkytown without a strong connection to Gopher football.  There are a lot of gray haired folks at Minnesota football games, people who grew up with the tradition of following the program. 

Season tickets.  The Gopher public season ticket sales are about 32,500 for this season.  The student sale a dismal 6,500 among a student population of over 50,000.  When you start each game with a base of 39,000 tickets, it leaves a long distance to reach a 64,000 seat sellout.

Front runner town.  Tough to say it about your home turf, but fans are quick to bail on the local teams.  Start with the Minneapolis Lakers who a few years after they had won the last of their five NBA titles left town because of poor attendance and need for a better playing facility.  The Gopher football team couldn’t even fill its stadium in the late 1960s after winning a national championship in 1960 and the Big Ten title in 1967.  The North Stars left town in 1993 after season ticket sales and overall attendance had failed dramatically after the glory years at the box office in the 1960s and 1970s.  The Twins, who won the World Series in 1987 and 1991, weren’t exactly the toast of the town in the later 1990s when annual attendance dropped to the 1 million to 1.5 million ranges and contraction loomed.  The Wolves were a hot ticket when they went to the Western Conference finals in 2004 but a playoff drought since has shown how indifferent the public can be.  Even the Vikings, by far the most bullet proof to the fickled fandom, have seen ticket sales soften following 6-10 and 8-8 seasons.  The Wild will likely see a fallout of support, too, if Marian Gaborik leaves town and the team begins to lose.

Not hopeless.  The Holtz years and occasional big crowds since indicate the Gophers could significantly create a larger fan base if they were to capture the public’s attention in a credible way.  Holtz wasn’t here long enough to win a lot of games (10 in two years) but he was perceived as a winner.  Brewster doesn’t have Holtz’s proven resume so he must do it all on the field.  Give the Gophers two or three consecutive years of New Year’s Day bowl games and watch the fan interest soar.

Next year the Gophers give up about 14,000 seats to move into the 50,000 capacity new TCF Bank Stadium.  Because of smaller capacity and increased season ticket sales, sellouts for all home games are expected before the first game on September 12.  The stadium is built for expansion and the state has the ticket buying potential to one day demand just that.