Lynx – Page 24 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Worth Noting

Posted on August 27, 2012August 27, 2012 by David Shama

Ted Mondale, Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority executive director, will be the speaker on Thursday, March 14 at the C.O.R.E.S. luncheon in Bloomington. NBA referee and Minnesota native Ken Mauer Jr. will speak at C.O.R.E.S. on Thursday, September 13. Anyone interested in more information can email Jim Dotseth at dotsethj@comcast.net. C.O.R.E.S. is an acronym for coaches, officials, reporters, educators and sports fans.

The Vikings and Gophers will give local football fans a rare local football TV doubleheader on Thursday night. The Vikings play at Houston in their final preseason game starting at 6 p.m. and KARE 11 will televise. The Gophers open their nonconference season on the road in a 10 p.m. start against UNLV broadcast on CBS Sports Network.

Vikings rookie offensive tackle Matt Kalil is relieved to have experience now in preseason games. He told Sports Headliners it was “nerve-racking” prior to the preseason opener against the 49ers but he was comfortable after the first play.

The Vikings offense is similar to what Kalil played in at USC but more sophisticated, he said. The Trojans, Kalil predicted, will probably win the national championship.

Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway, 29, acknowledged he’s in his prime years after leading the team in tackles last season with 174 and playing in his first Pro Bowl.

Vikings coach Leslie Frazier recalled how substandard the secondary performed on last season’s 3-13 team. He said an opposing secondary coach even called to tell him “you guys have to address your secondary.”

“…It’s not a lot of fun, but I think we have addressed some of those issues this offseason and now if we can keep our guys healthy it should help us to answer some questions when we play opposing offenses,” Frazier said.

John Gagliardi is preparing for his 60^th season as Saint John’s head football coach. He needs 16 wins to reach 500 career victories (484-133-11). The Johnnies open their season on Saturday at home against Northwestern College.

Saint John’s will finish fourth in the MIAC, according to a conference coaches poll. St. Thomas is picked to win the title followed by Bethel, St. Olaf, Saint John’s, Concordia, Gustavus Adolphus, Augsburg, Carleton and Hamline.

Former Gophers captain and Roosevelt High School alum Mike Svendsen will be among those inducted into the Minnesota Old Timers Football Association Hall of Fame on September 18 at the Prom Center in Oakdale. Others being induced that evening are Bob Meslow, Tom Turk, Frank Seidel and Dick Walker, according to www.tommiesports.com.

Phil Esten, University of Minnesota Alumni Association president and CEO, will leave his position in October to become executive associate athletic director for advancement at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to his alumni assignment, Esten was associate athletics director for the Gophers.

Based on sales at wnbastore.com, the Lynx’s Maya Moore jersey is the best seller in the WNBA. Teammate Lindsay Whalen’s jersey ranks No. 10 among league players. The Lynx are No. 1 in team merchandise sales.

Pearl Park Field No. 1 in the Washburn High School district has been renamed Harmon Killebrew Field. Improvements to the field have been made including new dugouts and a scoreboard featuring Killebrew’s name and No. 3 uniform number. Funding of $300,000 was provided by the Hennepin Youth Sports Program, and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. Washburn has historically fielded some of the state’s better baseball teams.

Wild coach Mike Yeo and college coaches will speak at the first Herb Brooks Foundation Leadership Conference on September 15 at the National Sports Center in Blaine. The conference goal is to share with coaches from all levels of hockey what motivates players.

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DiNardo: U Done Losing to NDSU’s

Posted on August 14, 2012August 14, 2012 by David Shama

The Big Ten Network football crew including commentators Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith was in Minneapolis last weekend to evaluate the Gophers as part of a 12-campus tour of Big Ten football programs. DiNardo and Griffith are impressed with coach Jerry Kill and the improvement of the Minnesota team.

“I think we’re all gonna see (in 2012) why Minnesota hired Jerry Kill,” DiNardo said on the network’s Gophers preview show. “He’s a guy that maximizes his (player) personnel. We’ll see him do that. He maximizes his staff because they’ve been with him so long.

“The biggest surprise to me a year ago is when Minnesota lost to New Mexico State and North Dakota State. That won’t happen again. Minnesota will win every matchup opponent. Matchup opponent is someone that’s a little better or a little less personnel than you do (have). He’ll win every one of those games. …It’s taken him maybe a little bit longer here than some of the other places he’s been.”

The Gophers were 3-9 last season including those surprise nonconference losses to the Aggies and Bison. If DiNardo is correct, the Gophers will sweep their 2012 nonconference games against UNLV, New Hampshire, Western Michigan and Syracuse. Then Minnesota has to find two wins among eight conference opponents to reach the qualifying six victories to be eligible for a bowl game.

Minnesota is a second-year rebuilding program under Kill, and Griffith thinks the Gophers are still going to “take their lumps.” Griffith likes the direction of the program with Kill and said the players “have bought into the message that he’s talking about from the front of the room.”

No Gopher discussed on the preview show received higher praise than junior defensive tackle Ra’Shede Hageman. Griffith doesn’t believe any center in the Big Ten can block Hageman who was outstanding in Minnesota’s final game last season against Illinois and has continued to progress. “In my mind he’s going to be tough to block for anybody,” Griffith said.

Defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys told the Big Ten Network that Hageman, a former tight end, is now understanding the demands of his position. “There’s not a better athlete in the United States playing d-tackle than what Ra’Shede Hageman is,” Claeys said. “The more he continues to learn the game, the better off I think he will be.”

Griffith thinks senior quarterback MarQueis Gray can have a “tremendous year.” DiNardo said proven running skills and improved passing could make Gray the best “dual-threat” quarterback in the conference.

Asked to identify “newcomers” of note this season, Griffith selected redshirt freshman defensive end Theiren Cockran, a promising pass rusher whom Kill has praised in the off-season. DiNardo chose true freshmen Jamel Harbison, a wide receiver that has shown athleticism in practice this month, and converted quarterback KJ Maye, an exceptionally quick athlete who could play both receiver and running back for the Gophers.

Olympic Basketball & Other Notes:

Minnesotans may never again see an Olympics where men and women with ties to this state played such significant roles in the gold medal success of USA basketball teams. Kevin Love, the Timberwolves’ best player and an NBA All-Star, ranked down the list of premiere players on the men’s roster but he was Team USA’s best rebounder despite limited minutes, while Lynx players Seimone Augustus, Maya Moore and Lindsay Whalen were contributors to the USA women’s team championship run in London.

On a team lacking size and rebounding, it was Love who consistently came off the bench to lead the USA in rebounding at 7.6 per game and he was fifth in team scoring with an average of 11.6. Balls that he couldn’t control he would tap to teammates. With the USA only ahead by one point at the end of three quarters in the championship game against Spain on Sunday, Love was asked to play major fourth quarter minutes surrounded by his all-world teammates including LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

Love showed his usual basketball IQ in the gold medal game, not only positioning himself effectively for rebounds but in the fourth quarter, despite playing with four fouls, he effectively defended Spain’s best player, Pau Gasol. Despite being undersized against Gasol, he made it difficult for the Spanish center to score, including in the low post.

Love demonstrated something else in the Olympics, too. He’s a great player but he will never be an alpha dog scorer, the kind that can carry a team to an NBA championship. If the Wolves are ever to dream about a title, they will have to find a James, Bryant, Kevin Durant or Carmelo Anthony to team with Love.

It’s highly doubtful if a healthy Rick Rubio, playing forSpain, could have been the difference in the title game. The Wolves point guard is not yet a dominant enough all-around player, nor the kind of defensive force that the Spanish team needed.

While the USA men had to struggle in a 107-100 title game win over Spain on Sunday, the women defeated France 86-50 in their title game Saturday. The Lynx Olympians combined for 17 points. Moore averaged 9 points and 5.6 points per game during the Olympics while Whalen made 56.4 percent of her shots and averaged 8 points. Augustus averaged 7.8 points.

Augustus, Moore and Whalen will hold a news conference in Minneapolis tomorrow.

The 12-members of the USAmen’s team weren’t paid to play in the Olympics but Kurt Badenhausen writing on August 6 for Forbes.com said those players earned $230 million in NBA salaries and outside endorsements during the last 12 months. Their Olympic experience will be a further boost to their commercial appeal.

Working for the Big Ten Network on football coverage this fall will be former Gophers Derek Rackley and Justin Conzemius, and ex-Minnesota coach Glen Mason.

Are the Twins moving their metro area radio broadcasts of games to KTWN-FM starting in 2013?

Twins first baseman Justin Morneau is hitting .400 in his last 10 games and moved his average up to .276. Morneau’s contract expires after next season. He reportedly earns $14 million this season, according to online information from Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

There have been 126 home runs hit at Target Field this season, the same total as in all of 2011. In 2010, the opening season of Target Field, only 116 total home runs were hit.

The Twins have drawn over 2 million fans at home this season, the eighth consecutive year they have done so.

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Worth Noting

Posted on July 9, 2012July 9, 2012 by David Shama

Lou Nanne told Sports Headliners the Wild’s acquisition of free agents Zach Parise and Ryan Suter last week will likely make the team “12 to 15 points better” next season.

The Wild had 81 points last season and missed the playoffs. An additional dozen or more points would have pushed the club ahead of teams who qualified.

“Each player is in the top 10 in the league,” said Nanne, the former Minnesota North Stars player and executive. “Suter played more minutes than any player in the league last year. Parise is the hardest worker in the league.”

The Wild will introduce Parise and Suter, both 27, at a news conference today. Parise, a forward, accounted for 69 points last season playing for New Jersey. He scored 30 or more goals in five of the last six seasons and brings badly needed offense to the Wild. Suter, a defenseman, had career highs in points, 46, and power play points, 25, last season with Nashville. He was third among defensemen in power play points and 10^th in scoring.

Nanne said no NHL team has ever executed a one-two signing at the same time with so much star power as the Wild accomplished last week. The signings set off euphoria among hard core fans and excited casual followers of a franchise that has seen season ticket sales decline.

But not now with fans buying over 1,500 new full season tickets and Nanne predicting the Wild could approach sellouts for every game next season gate receipts, corporate revenues and TV ratings will be headed upward. “This is a move (signing Parise and Suter) they needed to make,” Nanne said.

Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor is 71 but team president Chris Wright told Sports Headliners he doesn’t believe the Mankato billionaire is aggressively shopping the team. However, Wright believes Taylor is “willing to entertain people who might want to have this franchise long term.”

The priority consideration, Wright said, is keeping the team in Minneapolis. “The Minnesota Lynx and Minnesota Timberwolves are Glen Taylor’s legacy in this market,” Wright said. “Over a longer period of time he wants to make sure that it’s in place. …”

The Wolves, 26-40 last season, haven’t finished over .500 since 2005 when the club was 44-38. Wright said there’s a “real drive in the organization” to win next season. “The goal is absolutely to make the playoffs next year,” he said.

Taylor has owned the team since 1995 and wants to win an NBA championship after seeing his 2011 Lynx become WNBA champs. Admired coach Rick Adelman is 66 and has never coached an NBA champion. Adelman impressed in his first season here during 2011-2012 and so, too, did young stars Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio.

“The great thing is that they (Rubio and Love) really like each other,” Wright said. “They work hard with each other. They’re the backbone of our franchise right now.”

Love is an ESPY candidate for “Best NBA Player.” Fans can vote online until 10:59 p.m. tonight Minneapolis time. www.espn.com/espys

Joe Mauer’s grandfather Jake and about 20 other relatives and friends were scheduled to board a bus this morning at Mauer Chevrolet in Inver Grove Heights and ride to Kansas City for tomorrow night’s All-Star game. The Twins catcher will be a reserve for the American League all-stars.

Jake told Sports Headliners his grandson will pay for the bus and take care of the group’s lodging in Kansas City. The group buses home on Wednesday.

The Vikings have a database of 18,000 email contacts used for advocating support to build the new downtown football stadium approved this spring. The Vikings will use their contact list in the fall prior to November elections for House and Senate seats in the state legislature, reminding stadium supporters who did and didn’t vote for the new facility expected to open in 2016.

Steve LaCroix, the Vikings vice president of sales and marketing, has an unusual challenge in the years ahead. Because the Vikings aren’t expected to occupy their new stadium for four more years, the club will play all or part of future seasons at not only Mall of America Field but also TCF Bank Stadium. That’s a lot of variables involving individuals and corporate partners LaCroix and staff will sort through.

Vikings cornerback Marcus Sherels, 5-10, has struggled to gain weight during his football career including with the Gophers. He was up to 177 pounds late last month, according to his brother Mike who will help coach the Gophers linebackers next season.

Jim Marshall, the retired Gophers athletic trainer, turned 82 last Tuesday. For many years Marshall assisted legendary Gophers trainer Lloyd “Snapper” Stein who retired in 1975. On this date 37 years ago Minnesota governor Wendell Anderson declared Lloyd “Snapper” Stein Day in the state. (Source: June 1975 University of Minnesota Alumni News).

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