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Humble ‘Billy Rob’ Still a Commissioner

Posted on June 21, 2021 by David Shama

Friends call him “Billy Rob.” It’s a nickname you might expect to hear when kids are choosing teams for a hockey game at a neighborhood pond. “Yeah, Billy Rob, you play goalie, okay?” When spoken by adults, the nickname shows how comfortable people are with Robertson who has a decorated behind-the-scenes career in professional sports.

Bill Robertson has many friends and admirers, and they celebrated his success a few days ago when the United States Hockey League announced that the St. Paul native is its new president and commissioner. Facebook, text, telephone and in-person messages congratulated Robertson on his new assignment to lead one of the world’s best junior hockey leagues. The total may have been about 1,000 well wishers including the likes of hockey’s Ryan Suter and baseball’s Paul Molitor.

Two years ago Robertson, then commissioner of the men’s WCHA, sat with a friend in a Bloomington restaurant and wondered what he might be doing in the summer of 2021. Most of the member schools in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association had announced in 2019 they were forming a new league for the 2021-2022 season. The end of the historic WCHA was more than a possibility. In the months following that Bloomington lunch Robertson continued to lead the WCHA, hoping to secure new members, but knowing that in June of 2021 and beyond he could be with another organization.

Several career possibilities were in play this spring, with Robertson telling Sports Headliners he had been talking with the USHL since the beginning of the year about succeeding his friend Tom Garrity as league commissioner. “When they told me several weeks ago that I was their candidate, and they would be forwarding me an agreement, there was a big sigh of relief,” Robertson said. “I sat in my chair for a few minutes, and put my head down, and thanked God for watching over me. To be honest…I wasn’t sure where I was going to end up next.”

Dave Mona, who built a public relations empire in Minnesota, wasn’t surprised Robertson landed with another hockey league that will have its leader based in the Twin Cities. “Bill is very good at what he does and he makes friends along the way,” Mona said. “So I think he’s on everyone’s list when someone says, ‘Hey, there’s an opening, do you know somebody?’

“Bill’s got a pretty board skill-set and I think he’s been extraordinarily skillful… making friends at all levels, people who enjoy being with him. He does what he does well. I don’t think he has to apply for a lot of jobs. People say, ‘Well, what about Bill Robertson?’ ”

During seven years leading the WCHA, Robertson successfully brought playoff games back to campuses, introduced the 3-on-3 overtime and shootout format to league games, and championed safety provisions. His commitment to a fan-friendly league that included overhaul of the WCHA’s digital operation, and he developed external corporate partnerships and sponsorships.

With the USHL, the 60-year-old Robertson will contribute extensive marketing experience and one of his initiatives will be how to grow the sport, not just for his 16 league franchises, but hockey in its entirety. He wants to see the expense issue of playing hockey addressed and with the best initiatives there will be more participation by both boys and girls. USA Hockey, the NHL and colleges are partners he looks forward to working with.

Robertson’s ties with hockey go back to childhood as the son of Norbert Robertson who played collegiately for both Minnesota and St. Thomas. Brother Mike played hockey at Boston College in the late 1960s. Bill was an executive with the startup Minnesota Wild from 1998-2011.

It was in those early Minnesota Wild years that Robertson and Patrick Klinger became acquainted. Klinger worked for the RiverCentre event complex in St. Paul and later became an executive with the Minnesota Twins. “We very quickly became fast friends and have been best of friends ever since,” Klinger said.

How did the bond form and stay in place all these years? “He’s such a high integrity individual,” said the 57-year-old Klinger. “You know, we share a lot in common. We have two children. Each of us has one that has special needs. We sort of grew up in the sports industry together…and here we are 20-plus years later, and my admiration and respect for Bill is greater than it ever has been.

“We play a ton of golf together. We talk, we go out to dinner. We do a (cable) television show together. I love the man, I really do.”

Klinger recognizes a flaw or two in his pal. “He’s an awful, awful putter. I am telling you what, Stevie Wonder would putt better. Watch him get to the green and then putt, and putt again, and a third time. Sometimes we just have to bite our lips. You know, he gets a little feisty.”

Klinger fondly recalls an “epic match” involving the two at a Hastings, Minnesota golf course. “There was some money on the line and it got to the 18th hole,” Klinger said. “Bill had literally like an 18-inch putt, maybe not even that much to tie the match, to tie me. It would have gone into sudden death. I wouldn’t give him the putt. Of course, he missed it. He’s never let me forget it.”

Robertson recently celebrated his USHL hire in South Carolina, with daughter Brooke, and son Brett and his wife Maritza. The trip had been planned for awhile to get in some long overdue family time, and turned out to be more special than anyone could have imagined.

“I don’t think there’s any greater gift than to have children, and I have two wonderful people,” Robertson said. “One is in his late 20s, my son, and my daughter is in her mid-20s. The thing that made me just tickled as a father was the fact that I watched the two together…in South Carolina and how they meshed together like when they were really young. It was so wonderful to see. I had some tears in my eyes watching how they interacted and how the older brother helped the younger sister with a lot of tasks. Just trying to help her continue to develop more skills and her independence.”

In recent days Robertson might have reflected on his career in the sports industry. He was Director of Communications with The Walt Disney Company, and in that role he led communications efforts for the Mighty Ducks of the NHL and Anaheim Angels of MLB. Before that he was the media relations boss of the NBA expansion Minnesota Timberwolves in the early 1990s.

Mona commented that media folks are often a cynical bunch but Robertson didn’t treat reporters, columnists and talking heads as adversaries. “They all speak highly of him, even though they may have known him two or three jobs ago,” Mona said. “They have lunch with him a couple times a year. When their kids graduate from college and you read the Facebook comments, one of the first comments is from Bill Robertson. He’s got really good people skills and he’s got…a knowledge of, and a track record of, being able to bring people together and get things done.”

Klinger has long observed how Robertson relates to people in various positions. How he treats individuals with authenticity and sincerity, no matter who they are.

“What you see with Bill is what you get,” Klinger said. “He really genuinely cares about people. …

“He knows that I am going through a difficult time with my back. He’s the guy that’s gonna pick up the phone, call me almost every day to check in, or send me a text. If something else is going on in life, in business, in family, I know I can call Bill and he’ll drop everything. We’ll get together and talk things through. And vice versa. We’ve done that for each other for a long time.

“He’s just that person that’s authentic and genuine and kind-hearted. He’s somebody that will do anything for his friends and family.”

While growing up in St. Paul, Robertson dreamed of having a baseball career, perhaps becoming the next Paul Molitor. He was passionate about the sport as an infielder at Cretin-Derham Hall.

His passions also include the city he reveres. “You know, he was born and raised in St. Paul, on St. Paul Avenue,” Klinger said. “Went to Cretin, loves the city. He’s in the Mancini’s (Sports) Hall of Fame. St. Paul is in his blood.”

So is hockey.

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Bud Grant, 94, Not Big on Exercise

Posted on May 24, 2021May 26, 2021 by David Shama

Bud Grant turned 94 years old on May 20. Awhile ago I interviewed the legendary former Minnesota Vikings head coach who was a superb athlete at the University of Minnesota and after his college career played in the NFL and the NBA.

Grant on living a long life: “The main thing is you gotta have the right parents. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t swear. I don’t believe in a lot of exercise. I think you wear yourself out.”

Grant is still enjoying life including family, who all live near his Bloomington home. “I’ve got 19 grandchildren, 13 great grandchildren, and they all live within a half hour of my house. They didn’t go very far. They didn’t want to get very far from their mother.”

Bud Grant (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)

Grant’s devoted wife Pat passed away in 2009 from Parkinson’s. Nine years later he lost son Bruce to brain cancer. Grant can occupy a lot of his time attending activities of the younger members of his clan, but he sets limits. The kids are involved with baseball, hockey, soccer and the like. “I don’t go to all those little league games. A lot of grandparents do all that. I’ve done enough practices (games). I don’t have to do that anymore.”

At 94 Grant’s mind is sharp, but his body has limitations. ” I enjoy my lifestyle. I got a place on the lake (in Wisconsin). I fish and hunt; (but) not as much as I used to because my mobility isn’t as good. I can’t go chasing pheasants across a plowed field anymore but I hunt things that come to me. I sit in a deer stand. I call turkeys. I call ducks and things that come to me. Now is that hunting? Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s shooting instead of hunting. I am not traipsing through the woods anymore.

“Same with fishing. I used to be a trout fisherman, wade down streams. Well, I can’t do that anymore but I can fish out of a boat. I can fish through the ice. I can do things that don’t require the mobility that I used to have.

“But I also enjoy good health except for my aging and body. I am stooped. I got a sore back now and then. I am not as mobile as I used to be, but I am interested (in things) and…I really enjoy doing nothing now days.”

Grant is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and Canadian Football Hall of Fame because of his coaching career. He was the first person ever to achieve that distinction. He coached the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for 10 seasons, winning four CFL titles. He led the Vikings for 18 seasons, establishing the franchise as an NFL power that went to four Super Bowls.

For those who have known Grant, his success is no surprise. Minneapolis sports columnist Sid Hartman, who knew Grant for more than 70 years, used to say his calm and poised friend had more common sense than anyone he ever knew. Hartman was Grant’s presenter at his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction in 1994, and sometimes the target of Bud’s practical jokes.

Although Grant had a reputation for being cold and calculating during his coaching career, he was a prankster behind the scenes. That sense of humor and how to use it made an impression on Pete Carroll, a Vikings assistant coach who worked for Grant in 1985. Carroll, who has gone on to become a college national championship coach and Super Bowl winning coach, writes of his admiration for Grant in his book, Win Forever.

Carroll said Grant “…taught me more about the art of coaching, leadership, and the importance of observing human behavior than any graduate class ever could.” He observed how Grant had “…an awareness of the signals people give off and understood how to use that information to spur them to play at their best possible level.”

Carroll was struck by Grant’s extraordinary intuition and ability to foresee what could happen in football. In the book Carroll writes about the Vikings preparing for an opponent that had been winning games with ease. Grant told his team that if the game was close in the fourth quarter, the Vikings could win because the other team would tighten up, not accustomed to last minute pressure. Then late in the game Grant instructed his kicker to kick the ball to “No. 26,” predicting the return man would fumble. He did. The Vikings recovered the football and went on to win the game. “Everyone went berserk (after the fumble recovery) except Bud, who just stood there with a satisfied smile on his face, as calm as ever,” Carroll wrote.

“Whatever you do to be successful, I did it, and I worked harder at it than most coaches that I talked to,” Grant said. He recalled once asking a coach what he was doing that day and learned his rival was in the Bahamas. “I was never down in the Bahamas,” Grant said. “I was out recruiting, or looking, and talking, getting an idea of players, and analyzing.”

Then Grant thought about safety Paul Krause who still holds the NFL career record for most interceptions with 81. “We got him for almost nothing from Washington, but I had seen him play in college and I followed him and I knew him. So we got players that played great for us but were not recognized by other teams. We didn’t have one player who went to another team who had any great success. We didn’t miss on any of those and that was just because we (the coaches) spent a lot of time analyzing the best players.

“I’ve always said this, coaches don’t win football games. Players win football games. Coaches are a dime a dozen. You get all kinds of coaches that know X’s and O’s. You gotta accumulate (players), manage and put them in the right places and recognize their talents. That’s what wins football games, not coaches. Lots of great coaches out there.”

When Grant coached he understood the job entailed more than finding talent and instructing players how to block and tackle. “I think I could probably pass some kind of test in marital relations and drug therapy. You know all the things we dealt with, and they deal with them today, but they have more people to deal with them. At my desk everyday (it) was who is in some kind (of difficulty). …I had many wives come in and talk to me about what they could do to straighten out their marital life and their financials. There’s so many things we dealt with. Well, now, I don’t know that (head) coaches do that so much because they’ve got so much help.”

NFL teams have three or four times the number of assistant coaches that Grant had when he started out with the Vikings in 1967. They also have almost countless numbers of support staff and interns. In Grant’s first season the coaching staff numbered five.

“We did all the work, and all the film work and everything,” Grant said. “And now, God, you got assistant to the assistant. I don’t know what they all do. I mean you gotta be chairman of the board instead of coach now.”

Grant is too smart and too much in the present to contend players of the past can match those of today. “Today’s football players are better than they were 20 years ago, 40 years ago, however far (back) you want to go. And there are more of them. All those kids aspire to be great football players from the time they are 12 years old. Well, some of them make it. I think if I could make $25 million a year, I’d aspire to it too. …They got better coaching. They’ve got 20 assistant coaches.”

Grant talked of his admiration for one of his greatest players, defensive end Jim Marshall who once held the NFL record for consecutive games at 282. “Jim Marshall is the most overlooked player in terms of recognition,” Grant said. “He played 19 years. He never missed a game. He never missed a practice. Even though he would have certain injuries, his recovery period was very short. Some guys with a twisted ankle, they’re out for three weeks. Jim Marshall came in on Mondays, he could hardly walk but he played on Sunday again.”

The 1985 season was Grant’s last as a head coach. He was only 58 but felt it was time to move on. He and Pat had decided when their last child graduated from college he would put away his whistle.

“Not all your plans work out but one of our plans was we wanted to get all of our kids educated,” Grant said. “I got six kids, they all graduated from college. They all got good jobs, and they have all been successful in their lives. …”

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Cancer or Not, ‘Polish Eagle’ Tells Tales

Posted on May 3, 2021May 3, 2021 by David Shama

I was in a Bloomington restaurant last Thursday awaiting two long time friends. Anticipating their arrival had me smiling in the nearly empty and quiet restaurant. I knew having lunch with Dick Jonckowski and John Justice would be a two hour “parade” of story telling and jokes.

To my surprise, they walked in with gifts. Dick loaned me a book celebrating the triumphs of the Boston Celtics, the storied NBA franchise boasting so many legendary players we admire. John owns Iron Horse Products and gifted a four-pack of root beer, cream soda and two bottles of black cherry.

Dick announced he and wife Arlene would celebrate their 55th anniversary on Friday. They planned dinner out at an Italian restaurant with son Jeff and daughter Jennifer. Ironically, Dick would have a PET scan that day, and then receive the results on Tuesday (tomorrow) whether he is cancer free.

This is his second fight with lymphoma and he requested a late lunch time Thursday because of a morning chemo session. He feels healthy and seems full of life. Short diagnosis is also this: the 77-year-old is still happy as a kid celebrating a birthday. Cancer can’t suck the happy-go-lucky out of him, and neither can diabetes. Despite a life long aversion to needles, he injects insulin into his body every morning.

John and Dick have been pals for almost 60 years. They met as ushers at old Metropolitan Stadium, working both Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings games. At the restaurant the stories and memories started with those Met Stadium days of long ago.

At the Met both drove cars to transport relief pitchers from the bullpen located in back of the outfield fence to the pitching mound. A challenge with the assignment was the Twins’ Vic Power delighted in throwing small stones at the car from the dugout. “Me like to throw stones,” the Puerto Rican first baseman said in broken English.

Power was a smooth fielding, skilled hitter who belongs in the “MLB Characters Hall of Fame.” Power was also a flashy dresser and Dick recalled an encounter Vic had with co-Twins owner Thelma Griffith Haynes.

“Vic, you look so cool today,” Thelma said.

“You don’t look so hot yourself,” Vic responded.

John became friends with Power despite his fondness for chipping paint off the bullpen car. The two once sat in Power’s car in the Met Stadium parking lot waiting out a bomb scare that interrupted the game. Power used to pick up John at his house and drive them to Met Stadium.

There was no friendship, though, between Dick and Chicago White Sox reliever Dave DeBusschere. The two had an encounter during a season when a golf cart, not a car, transported pitchers. When DeBusschere was summoned out of the bullpen, Dick realized the golf cart engine was flooded and didn’t start.

“You dumb ass,” an angry DeBusschere said to Dick.

DeBusschere had to walk from the bullpen to the mound and then pitched poorly. He complained after the game he was tired and blamed the golf cart driver for his performance. “I had to walk in from the bullpen,” lamented DeBusschere, who gained fame as a starting forward on two New York Knicks NBA championship teams in the early 1970s.

John has called Dick “Jongo” for a long time. He derived the nickname from the character Mongo in the movie Blazing Saddles. Just seemed right. Call him “Jongo” or the “Polish Eagle” (longtime Philadelphia Eagles fan), or whatever, he has been making friends and making audiences laugh in Minnesota and other parts of the country since LBJ was in the White House.

John has developed a lot of relationships through the decades with Twin Cities career stops at places like the old Decathlon Club in Bloomington and Pepsi in Burnsville, but “Jongo” is special to him. Any friends as funny? “I can’t think of anybody even close,” John said.

Dick was the longtime public address voice of Gophers baseball and basketball but paying the bills more through the years has been his public speaking and emcee work. The events gig started in 1965 in Ladysmith, Wisconsin where he emceed a beauty pageant. Years later he emceed a Carver County princess contest. Dick announced that instead of interviewing the contestants, they were to ask him questions.

The first young lady had a doozy, “Are you wearing any underwear, Mr. Jonckowski?”

In Dick’s early years he was befriended by the late Halsey Hall who was a master storyteller gifted with a gregarious laugh for the ages. Halsey was a sportswriter for the Minneapolis Star, broadcaster for the Twins and in his spare time worked the banquet circuit. He also enjoyed a cocktail or two or three, almost any day or time.

At a Monday night gathering for Minnesota sports fans years ago, Dick noticed Halsey was wearing a black shoe and a brown. He pointed this out to his mentor. Halsey was unfazed and replied, “I’ve got another pair like them at home.”

COVID has put a big dent in the emcee business but Dick’s phone is busy. Clients call and say, “We need a laugh, Dick. We gotta get you out here (to speak).”

And Dick can talk. He remembered an event in LaCrosse, Wisconsin where he told jokes nonstop for 90 minutes. That’s a lot of material and a lot of memory in his noggin, with some of it dating back to jokes told by classic comedians like Bob Hope, Red Skelton and Henny Youngman.

At our lunch Dick is giggling and telling one story after another including a joke that resonates with any parent whoever tried to persuade his son to get a haircut. The kid asks dad if he can use the car. Pops says okay, if the teenager will get his shoulder length hair trimmed. “But, dad, Jesus had long hair,” the son argues.

Then dad gets the final word, “Yes, he did and he walked everywhere.”

Nobody describes Dick as controversial but he has annoyed a few athletes over the years. At a golf outing Dick noticed a Minnesota sports hero (call him Tim) was completely inebriated. Dick told the crowd: “Here comes Tim’s foursome—him and his friends—Jack Daniels, Jim Beam and Johnny Walker.”

Dick has worked both sides of the media business as a radio host/sportscaster, and publicity man for the American Basketball Association Minnesota Muskies. High school teams could draw larger crowds than the Muskies who played at the old Met Center, home of the Minnesota North Stars.

The Muskies’ former publicity man loves to tell the story about a woman who called the box office inquiring about the starting time for that evening’s game. “What time can you be here?” replied the accommodating ticket seller.

ABA and NBA great Rick Barry first met Dick when playing with the Oakland Oaks. The two have remained friends and call each other on their birthdays. Dick’s b-day is October 22 and he refers to October as “the month of celebrities,” rattling off Mickey Mantle (October 20), Ricky Rubio and Vern Mikkelsen (October 21), and Johnny Carson (October 23).

If you haven’t caught on by now, Dick is not timid. Once he went to Milwaukee to watch his hero, Pete Maravich of the Atlanta Hawks, play against the Bucks. Dick was dressed in red, the Hawks colors, and he went on the court with no authorization or credential during team warm-ups. He greeted Maravich, who gave him a friendly hello. “He thought I was part of the front office,” Dick chuckled.

At a New Orleans Super Bowl he and Arlene crashed a Super Bowl victory party. “We’re walking down Bourbon Street and she said we can’t go in there. I said, sure we can.”

For about an hour the Jonckowskis mingled and enjoyed the hospitality. “Play like you belong and it works,” Dick said of his uninvited adventures. “Today (though) I might be arrested.”

As the pandemic eases, Dick will find his way back to a microphone more frequently. He is looking forward to entertaining at the annual Mancini’s St. Paul Sports Hall of Fame event June 14 where inductees will include Dave Winfield and Chris Weinke.

Count on Dick showing up with more stories than there is time for and filling the room with laughter. He is a believer in laugh and live longer.

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