Golden Gophers – Page 358 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Holtz Saw ‘Gold Mine’ at Minnesota

Posted on July 10, 2013July 10, 2013 by David Shama

George Stewart has been on vacation from his job as the Vikings’ wide receivers coach but it wouldn’t be a surprise if his thoughts have wandered back to 1983.

It was 30 years ago last spring that Stewart began his coaching career as a graduate assistant for Lou Holtz at Arkansas. In December of 1983 Holtz was hired by the Gophers as head coach and he made Stewart his offensive line coach.

“I’ve been very fortunate. Lou Holtz is the person who got me into coaching,” Stewart told Sports Headliners.

Without Holtz, Stewart wouldn’t have experienced a national championship at Notre Dame in 1988. That success in South Bend helped send Stewart into the NFL in 1989 coaching special teams for the Steelers and beginning a 25 year pro coaching career.

Stewart was reminded about his time with the Gophers under Holtz who quickly rebuilt the program in two seasons, 1984 and 1985. Even back then Holtz was one of America’s premier coaches and his ambitions for the program could have made an optimist blush.

Stewart believes the Gophers might have even earned glory beyond Big Ten titles and Rose Bowl victories under Holtz, who was fired for unknown reasons at Arkansas despite a 60-21-2 record. “We had a chance to build something very special (at Minnesota),” Stewart said.

How special? Well, how about the Gophers’ seventh national championship?

Scoff if you wish but first listen to Stewart. “When coach Holtz left in ‘85 that (first) recruiting class we had in South Bend, (the) majority of those guys were coming here,” he said. “They all switched (Minnesota commitments) and came to South Bend with coach Holtz (in 1986). You’re talking about a lot of great players. …We were able to have a national championship with those guys.”

Holtz—a devout Catholic who as a kid walked to school singing or humming the Notre Dame Fight Song—used an escape clause in his contract to leave the Gophers after just two seasons. Stewart believes South Bend might well have been the only place that could have made him depart Minneapolis.

“I knew in his heart Notre Dame was where he wanted to be,” Stewart said. “Strong Catholic. …If Gerry Faust had done a great job, Lou Holtz probably would have finished his coaching at the University of Minnesota.”

Faust had jumped from Moeller High School in Cincinnati to head coach at Notre Dame. It was one of the strangest coaching hires in college football history and despite Faust’s bubbling optimism and passion for Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish often got kicked around during his era, compiling a 30-26-1 record in five seasons before he was fired. His postseason highlight was a one point win over Boston College in the 1983 Liberty Bowl.

Holtz was only 46 when hired by the Gophers in 1983. He took over a program in free fall, 1-10 during the 1983 season. The talent on the 1984 roster was probably worthy of duplicating the previous year’s record.

But in 1984 the Gophers were much improved, mostly because they played better fundamentally and had talented freshman quarterback Ricky Foggie. That team was 4-7 including 3-6 in the Big Ten after being winless in conference games the year before. In 1985 the Gophers improved to 7-5 overall, 4-4 in the Big Ten. Minnesota scared No. 3 ranked Oklahoma, losing 13-7 in the Metrodome. The Gophers gave No. 9 Ohio State the jitters in the dome before losing 23-19. At season’s end the Gophers, without Holtz coaching them while on his way to South Bend, beat Clemson 20-13 in the Independence Bowl game.

Stewart said Holtz thought the Gophers’ head coaching job was a “gold mine,” having the resources to turn the program into a national power. That was an opinion Holtz shared with Stewart back at Arkansas, even before the two arrived in Minneapolis. Stewart didn’t doubt the wisdom of the decision to come to Minnesota because he knew Holtz could out-coach and out-recruit most coaches.

Before Stewart coached for Holtz, he played for him at Arkansas as an All-Southwest Conference guard. From 1977-1980 Stewart saw the Holtz magic. “We always knew we had a chance to win because he was our coach,” Stewart said. “We knew our coach was better than the coach on the other sideline.”

For much of Holtz’s coaching career there was a perception he operated loosely with NCAA recruiting rules. Stewart said his experience was Holtz adhered to guidelines.

The two of them met when Stewart was a highly sought high school player in Little Rock. “People have a misperception of coach Holtz,” Stewart said. “I was the No. 1 prospect…in the south when I came out of high school. I had a choice go to any school in America. I was offered by a lot of other schools. …He (Holtz) promised me two things. He promised me an opportunity to get me my degree, and No. 2, I was going to work as hard as any player in the country.”

Stewart said other schools offered cars, money and easy grades, but not Holtz. Later as an assistant coach, Stewart saw Holtz operate within the rules. “He’s had a bad reputation for being a guy…that has had a lot of trickeries. But nothing was devious with Lou Holtz.”

Holtz may have mastered more roles than any college head football coach in history. He excelled in not just recruiting, but coaching practices and games, and hiring talented assistants. He could charm fans and boosters, raising funds and awareness for his program while throwing quips around the room and maybe performing a magic trick or two. He was a genius at understanding how to market Lou Holtz and his team.

Holtz, who during his coaching career entertained on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, had Minnesotans so enthralled about the program that in 1986 the Gophers’ season tickets total was 56,000, certainly among the largest totals in school history.

All those skills had everything to do with why Stewart chose to play and coach for Holtz. “He was like a father,” Stewart said. “He’s very demanding. I am glad I had an opportunity to learn how to coach from him. I was able to learn all aspects of football from him.”

When Holtz first approached Stewart about becoming a graduate assistant, Stewart was selling cars in Little Rock. Holtz convinced him to try coaching for three months. Three decades later Stewart has experienced a career that has included six years with the Vikings and many memories—even some might-have-beens in Dinkytown.

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Football Mags Buoy a Soggy Outlook

Posted on June 26, 2013June 26, 2013 by David Shama

If we’re to have a stretch of wonderful weather this year it’s going to be from now until sometime into September. A sci-fi like soggy spring has sometimes put me in a foul mood but the anticipation of summer and activities associated with cheery days has brought relief (I think). Today I offer details about pleasurable pastimes that have made summers obliterate memories of ugly winters and springs.

For openers, I’ve always been excited about perusing summer newsstands looking for college football magazines. Who would think a lifelong Gophers fan could find comfort this month looking at magazine covers featuring Iowa’s Mark Weisman or Wisconsin’s Chris Borland? Unexpected therapy to be sure! But ever since I was a kid the arrival of college football magazines at the local drugstore was an event not to be missed.

Honestly, working my way through 150 magazine pages covering every college program from Arizona to Yale has always been as exciting to me as eyeballing large packages under a Christmas tree. I can’t even explain the enthusiasm—not even to this day when my passion to read the predictions about the Big Ten and the rest of the country jump-start my adrenaline in anticipation of another college football season.

Unlike the days of my youth, there’s no waiting until August for the magazines to arrive in stores. I purchased and read a couple of the football annuals a few weeks ago—devouring them both in one night, not only reading predictions but articles on All-Americans, coaches on the hot seat and high school news.

Your average Minnesotan couldn’t even tell you who the likely starters are for the Gophers this fall. I can plug you in on why Mississippi is one of the hottest programs in the country. If you can’t talk Ole Miss football, better get down to the drugstore.

The neighborhood pharmacy was where I bought my baseball cards years ago. I remember going to the drugstore three or four times per week hoping to buy a packet with cards I didn’t already own. The excitement of finding a Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays was a rush, and so too was popping a slab of ultra sugary bubble gum in my mouth. Wow. Sucking up all that flavor was the best 30 seconds of the day.

I still have most of my baseball cards. Yeah, some were lost and others sort of foolishly destroyed by clipping them between the spokes of my bicycle tires to make noise that for some reason we thought was cool. But I have an album filled with old cards and even a few in a bank safe deposit box. To this day I never sort through those cards without enjoying them and the memories associated with the players.

Baseball had much to do with making my summers magical. I often joined friends on a school playground where we played “Tennis League.” All we needed were three players, a bat and tennis ball. The object of the game was to see who could hit the most home runs over a not too distant chain-link fence. As one ball after another disappeared over the fence, we placed another notch on the brick exterior of the schoolhouse.

If not playing “Tennis League,” I might be in the backyard with a golf driver, tee and wiffleball. This wasn’t the start of my golf career but instead a fantasy exercise where a ball that travelled over the house was a home run, or a ball that hit high up on the stucco was a double or triple.

At night the Twins were on TV and I also followed other major league games on the radio. Listening to games from the West Coast had a special appeal. A game between the Giants and Braves from San Francisco meant you were up late, perhaps later than allowed but it was sweet hearing the midnight action on the radio while crickets chirped outside the house and the warm breeze of a summer night filled my bedroom.

The All-Star Game was never to be missed, not with a chance to see all my heroes in one setting. There was even a stretch when MLB played two All-Star Games each summer and the parade of stars was another occasion for my Dad and I to argue over who was baseball’s best player.

Dad couldn’t have liked Ted Williams more if Teddy Ballgame had been a relative. Dad said Teddy was the greatest hitter of all-time and I also know my argumentative father liked the combative demeanor of Williams. Dad insisted that not only were Williams’ numbers among the best ever but he also never failed to mention that the Boston Red Sox legend missed several seasons to serve his country during World War II and the Korean War. “He didn’t play for five years when he would have been in his prime years,” Dad said.

I didn’t care. At the time I had other heroes, but years later my suppressed affection for Williams came bubbling to the top. It was 1999 and a debilitated Williams was in a wheelchair at Fenway Park for the All-Star game. Tears came to my eyes, the only time I ever cried over a ballplayer.

You won’t be surprised to know I no longer play “Tennis League” or hit wiffleballs off the exterior of the house. But summer would never be the same to me without a tennis racquet in hand or a golf club.

The many joys of summer have long included a visit from my buddy Myron. We started playing tennis together during our college years and although he’s lived in Michigan for decades, many summers we competed on the court. There’s a trophy that was established years ago as a reward to the winner of our (sometimes) annual rivalry. Funny how he initiated the trophy just about the time he started defeating me all the time.

Got to give Myron credit, though, for a few years ago coming up with a new trophy to acknowledge our golf rivalry. That one is mine so far but I would rather not detail how infrequently we’ve played together and how little time Myron has invested in improving his game.

Long ago I recognized Myron was a better athlete than me. That’s one reason I wanted him on my side when we played two-on-two summer basketball games on campus at the U where there was this small outdoor court with an eight-foot basket at one end and a seven-foot basket at the other. Those days were the only times I ever dunked, although the best part of my game was jump shots coming off screens set by Myron. On defense we might win a close game because of Myron’s shot blocking. I called him the “white Bill Russell.” I dreamed he might label me a “young Jerry West.”

Didn’t happen.

That’s one of only a handful of disappointing summer memories from an otherwise abundant collection of awesome moments. Let’s get some sunshine and make memories.

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Shabazz Gets Musselman Endorsement

Posted on June 24, 2013June 24, 2013 by David Shama

Among the assumptions about Thursday night’s NBA Draft is the Timberwolves will select a shooting guard with their No. 9 pick in the first round. What might be far more clandestine is their interest in UCLA swingman Shabazz Muhammad.

While public conversation has frequently included the possibility of selecting Indiana’s Victor Oladipo, the Wolves almost certainly have to make a trade with another team and move up in the draft to obtain the Indiana junior shooting guard. There’s no guarantee the Wolves want to or can make such a move.

In the June 24 issue of Sports Illustrated the magazine predicts the Wolves will select Muhammad at No. 9 after Oladipo is chosen at No. 5 by the Suns. The publication includes a feature on Muhammad who played only as a freshman at UCLA, averaging 17.9 points per game and finishing his career in a 20 point first round NCAA Tournament loss to the Gophers last March.

Among Pac-12 rivals who watched Muhammad play was Arizona State associate head coach Eric Musselman, a friend of Timberwolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders. “If there were an NBA game tomorrow, you could put him in your rotation,” Musselman said in the magazine. “There are probably less than 10 guys in this draft you can say that about.”

While Muhammad is stereotyped as a shooter-scorer, a one dimensional player, Oladipo has all-around abilities including a stingy defensive skill set. The Wolves’ glaring need, though, is someone who can hit open jump shots while joining a team already built around forward Kevin Love and point guard Ricky Rubio.

Given that roster need, Jim Dutcher wouldn’t advise Saunders to move up in the draft to take Oladipo. “If you’re looking for a shooter I would say no,” said Dutcher. “He’s more of an all-around athlete than he is a pure stroker. He’s not like a Klay Thompson or those kind of players that can just knock down (shots). Stephen Curry, those great shooters.

“That’s one of the question marks. Is he (Oladipo) a quality outside shooter? And I am not sure. I think his better game is a penetrator, a guy who gets to the basket. One thing he does do is he finishes at the basket.”

Dutcher, the former Gophers’ coach whose players at Minnesota included Saunders, labels Oladipo a “great physical talent” with good character who will be a solid pro.

“The one thing that would be concerning to me is as you watched Indiana play, there were large periods where Oladipo kind of disappeared. He’s out there and then he would do something spectacular. And maybe it’s because Indiana had a balanced team. …I would be concerned that he wasn’t their go-to guy at the end of games. Sometimes he would be and a lot of times he wouldn’t be involved.”

Basketball fans in this town will be intrigued by Thursday night’s draft not just to see what the Wolves do with two first round picks and two second rounders. There will also be interest in the futures of former Gophers Trevor Mbakwe and Rodney Williams.

Mbakwe led the Big Ten in rebounding at 8.7 per game. His instincts for rebounding and physical strength at 6-8, 245 are NBA level but there are holes in his resume including a limited offensive game. Williams, 6-7, 205, can put himself on ESPN SportsCenter with world-class dunks, but it seems like there are almost as many questions about his overall skill set as inches he can jump.

“I think on Trevor you gotta evaluate where you are going to play him,” Dutcher said. “He’s strong around the basket but he does not have a refined inside game. If he can’t dunk it, he can’t make it a lot of times.

“He’s not big enough to play a full-time center in the NBA. You gotta be able to make that face-up jump shot and there were games that he did that, and he was probably the premier rebounder in the Big Ten Conference which says a lot, but everybody evaluates Trevor based on one game. The Indiana game where he out played (Cody) Zeller and the Gophers upset Indiana who was then the No. 1 team in the nation.

“But you gotta look at the whole picture where he got out played at Nebraska and Northwestern. Some of the lesser teams…where he didn’t have great games. The Michigan game here (facing a top 10 team) I thought he got badly outplayed by Michigan’s big men.”

Dutcher believes Mbakwe is probably a second round NBA draft choice at best. “He’s not a sure fire NBA player. Probably going to end up playing in Europe would be my guess unless somebody has a spot for a guy that can go in and get you a key rebound or two.

“He does have some down things. He’s older (24). His age is not in his favor. The off the court baggage, I think Trevor has dealt with that pretty well. I don’t think that is a major concern but…when they evaluate a player they evaluate everything.”

While Mbakwe had serious issues off the court during his college career, Williams won’t have to answer such questions from NBA teams. The signature question about Williams is how did he miss doing more with all his athleticism?

“People that watched Minnesota waited four years for Rodney to have a break-out year and he never did,” Dutcher said. “Not a consistent outside shooter. Not a great defender. He does the spectacular. He can go up there and dazzle you with a slam dunk but at the end of the year when you look at the stats he doesn’t average great scoring. He doesn’t average even great rebounding, and doesn’t have impressive statistics. But you gotta be impressed with his leaping ability. ….

“I doubt that he gets drafted. Somebody will take a chance on bringing him to (an NBA) camp or putting him in the D-League, or doing something just because of his physical jumping ability. But you evaluate the all around game and Rodney…is probably not an NBA player.”

Worth Noting

The year’s draft will feature more Big Ten players likely to be selected in the first round than any in recent memory. The list consists of Indiana’s Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller, Michigan’s Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr., and could include Ohio State’s Deshaun Thomas.

The Timberwolves will host a free draft party for fans at Target Center starting at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday night. The draft begins at 6:30 p.m. and will be telecast by ESPN. Wolves center Greg Stiemsma is scheduled to be in attendance for a portion of the party.

Former Gophers assistant coach Jimmy Williams is no longer an assistant at the University of Memphis and has interest in NBA coaching. Williams is living in Houston.

The Wild have eight picks in next Sunday’s NHL Entry Draft but none in the first round. A trade may change that. The draft begins at 2 p.m. Minnesota time and will be televised by the NBC Sports Network.

Miguel Sano, the super prospect who some observers think could be playing for the Twins as early as next year, is off to a slow start after being promoted from Class A Fort Myers to Class AA New Britain. In 11 games the 20-year-old third baseman is hitting .171 with two home runs and eight RBI.

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