Skip to content
David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners
Menu
  • Gophers
  • Vikings
  • Twins
  • Timberwolves
  • Wild
  • United
  • Lynx
  • UST
  • MIAC
  • Preps
Menu
Murray's Restaurant

Dinkytown Athletes

Creative Charters

Meadows at Mystic Lake

Gold Country

Culver's | Iron Horse | | Meyer Njus Tanick

Category: MIAC

Ubiquitous Mike Max Did It Again

Posted on June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 by David Shama

 

It was a surprise and yet it should not have been that Mike Max, WCCO TV’s sports director, was out on the streets covering last month’s social justice protests and rioting in Minneapolis.

Max, 55, has long demonstrated an extraordinary work ethic reporting on Minnesota sports for television and radio. The Gaylord, Minnesota native covers most everything from baseball to hunting and fishing. His deep network of contacts ranges from youth sports to hall of fame personalities. He thrives on working his beat and talking to sources.

Athletics are the “candy store” of reporting, but Max showed sportscasters are journalists too, able to cover breaking news as it develops. And that’s where Max found himself late last month after WCCO TV news room boss Kari Patey chose her sports director to go out on the streets of Minneapolis to cover the chaos that became a national story after the tragic death of George Floyd Monday, May 25.

There was major unrest the night of Thursday, May 28, including the disturbing images of the police’s third precinct being burned down. Max had finished the 10 p.m. sports that night and headed to his house. “When I got home Channel 4 was still broadcasting live because of this monumental event, and I just remember feeling ‘God, I wish I was out in the field somewhere. I wish I was doing something out there,’ ” he told Sports Headliners. “It almost killed me being home when my colleagues were… working.”

The next evening more breaking news developed involving protestors and looters. Patey needed help in the field and Max eagerly volunteered. He didn’t know what to expect but that only added to his curiosity and adrenaline.

That Friday night and into Saturday and Sunday Max was live on the scene of the unrest in various parts of the city. Viewers tuned into Ch. 4 and there was the sports guy reporting on one of the most dramatic upheavals the city has every witnessed. It was both peaceful and violent and the memories for Max will long be in his consciousness.

Max knows he watched history with a “front row seat.” He was motivated by both not knowing what was going to happen next and needing to perform for his TV audience. Part of the experience he valued, too, was working alongside the station’s team of on and off camera professionals, all pulling together to report the news in a challenging environment.

“Because I grew up playing sports I love playing on teams,” Max said. “I love it when we’re working together to try to do something, try to accomplish something. In this case, try to bring you the best coverage that we can.”

Out on the streets Max didn’t try to complicate his assignment. Just the opposite. “You just tell them (viewers) what you see,” he said. “It’s a real simple thing, you know. You just ask people what they see, and there’s no right or wrong answer. So you just simplify it. …”

A Ch. 4 viewer watched Max so close to protestors and police he could literally reach out and touch them. A rubber bullet or runaway vehicle might have struck him and done serious harm. Was he afraid at times? “ It’s hard to explain but I never, ever felt like we were in deep danger,” he answered.

Max was nervous, though, when approaching a chaotic scene on Lake Street where rioters were attacking the local Wells Fargo and stealing money, and threatening the police’s fifth precinct. The situation appeared out of control and he felt his nerves and adrenaline spike.

But then the police arrived in force. “…All of a sudden they showed up just like the cavalry, and it was just unbelievable the way they walked in and took control of that precinct, of that situation. I ended up getting tear gassed as part of it, but not intentional. It was just tear gas that blew over my way. That set me back some, but I never, ever really felt like we gotta make a run for it.”

After covering the civil unrest for long hours over three days Max looks back and finds praise for both peaceful protestors and law enforcement. He found many individuals who wanted their voices heard. They were articulate and thoughtful. His impression was most individuals he encountered were Minnesotans, not outsiders, and they had no intention of creating chaos including destruction of buildings and people’s lives.

Max saw law enforcement that had a plan and executed it with precision. The police and others worked with discipline, controlling emotions even when tested by those who sought to provoke them. “The law enforcement was so fricking impressive, I can’t put it into words,” he said.

Max photo courtesy of WCCO photo journalist Will Greiner

On Sunday night near Bobby & Steve’s Auto World on Washington Avenue Max watched law officers arrest and take away curfew violators. He was impressed with the friendly interaction between law enforcement and protestors. He witnessed friendly conversation, smiling and laughing.

“It’s like, from Minnesota’s standpoint, we’re all in this together,” Max said. “We may agree on one issue or not, but we really are one team, and I thought that was pretty powerful to observe.”

In this spring of COVID-19 Max drew attention for not wearing a face mask while reporting. It was always deliberate because he wanted people to recognize him as the sports guy from Ch. 4. “…That was incredibly advantageous because enough of them knew who I was, and I could engage them, and find out what they were doing,” he said.

Days and nights were long for Max over that last weekend in May. He made his way home late at night, but he has no complaints about fatigue or endurance. “When you’re out there in the community your adrenaline kicks in. That’s big,” he said.

Max is also dedicated to a conditioning and exercise routine that enables him to work long hours week after week. He lifts weights at least five days per week. He does cardio exercises for a minimum of 40 minutes every day. “I am fanatical about seven days a week, getting a really good workout in,” he said.

Max attended Hamline where he played baseball for four years. When he went to college there was no plan to be a journalist. ”I was majoring in business and took a video production class for fun and my professor said you seem to have a passion for this,” Max told Sports Headliners in a 2010 interview. “I really enjoyed putting a video together. She said you should try to go get an internship in this and I didn’t even know an internship existed. And that’s when I started knocking on doors and finally I got in to Ch. 4. … It wasn’t like I set out to be a reporter. I literally kind of fell into it that way.”

The internship at Ch. 4 was in 1986 so Max has come a long way as a sports journalist whose face and voice are widely recognized in Minneapolis and throughout the state. Yet professionally perhaps he may never have felt so alive as when he covered the drama of the city’s unrest last month. It was an assignment he would repeat “in a heartbeat.”

“If things like this happen again, I just want to be able to raise my hand and have her (Patey) have the confidence in me that I can go do it,” Max said.

Comments Welcome

D-1 NCAA Vote on Tommies Next Week

Posted on June 9, 2020June 9, 2020 by David Shama

 

Phil Esten, vice president and director of athletics at the University of St. Thomas, told Sports Headliners Monday the NCAA will vote next week whether to approve the Tommies’ request to participate in Division I sports starting with the 2021-2022 school year.

That vote was to have happened in April but got postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Tommies are requesting a transition from Division III status to Division I after involuntarily being removed from the D-3 MIAC starting in 2021-2022.

Historically, the NCAA does not allow immediate transition from D-3 to D-1 but for various reasons it’s believed the Tommies are a likely exception. “I remain optimistic (about approval),” Esten said.

Playing at the D-1 level would allow St. Thomas athletes to test themselves against far better competition. After the MIAC’s decision to ask the Tommies to find another home (conference presidents thought UST was too dominant in athletics), school leadership contemplated whether to remain at D-3, or transition to a higher level. The D-1 alternative became more realistic when the Summit League extended an invitation to the Tommies last fall.

The Summit not only provides a home for 19 of the Tommies’ 22 sports (football and men’s and women’s hockey excluded) but the NCAA can also look at other favorable factors encouraging a vote of approval for D-1 status. While the private school has a small undergraduate enrollment of about 6,000, it has a prominent history of academic and athletic success, with generous funding including alumni support. Unlike many states Minnesota only has one D-1 program with the University of Minnesota, so the big time college sports platform here is not crowded.

The Twin Cities media market has to be attractive to the NCAA and Summit League whose full participation schools (all sports offered) in 2019-2020 were Denver, North Dakota, North Dakota State, Omaha, Oral Roberts, South Dakota, South Dakota State and Western Illinois. St. Thomas’ presence in the revenue producing sport of men’s basketball is a plus for future Summit League TV and corporate sponsorship deals. The recruiting base of Twin Cities athletes is also a major asset for Summit League schools.

The COVID-19 epidemic has made the major college athletics landscape uncertain in regard to future revenues. There is plenty of speculation about drastically reducing athletic department budgets including travel. More regional (less national) travel seems all but certain, and that is another reason why Esten believes a D-1 program in the Upper Midwest could benefit not just the Tommies but other schools looking for shorter travel distances with their schedules.

With the Summit League not an option, Esten said he is still “sorting” through where his hockey programs will find new conference homes, but the plan is for the Tommies to be part of the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League whose 10-members last fall consisted of Butler, Davidson, Dayton, Drake, Jacksonville, Marist, Morehead State, San Diego, Stetson, and Valparaiso.

Some of those schools are not exactly located just around the corner from the St. Thomas campus, and travel along with the usual expenses associated with the sport of football will certainly contribute to an overall UST athletics budget expected to jump from about $5 million annually to perhaps $10 million.

Esten declined to offer specifics on budgets but the foreseeable future will have St. Thomas subsidizing its athletics budget as in the past, with revenues not matching expenses. On the fields and courts the Tommies will face more difficult opposition and there could be one-sided results for awhile, with Esten saying the school goes into D-1 territory with “eyes wide open.”

John Tauer

St. Thomas coaches already have and are recruiting D-1 caliber athletes. The Tommies are accustomed to winning championships, and even on the national stage coaches like John Tauer from men’s basketball and football’s Glenn Caruso have had their teams in the news as NCAA D-3 championship contenders.

St. Thomas president Julie Sullivan wrote about the Division I process in an October, 2019 article on the school’s website last fall. In that article she expressed what the school sees as the value of transitioning to D-1 status. “This decision is about more than athletics – it’s about advancing our vision to be a leading Catholic university recognized at the national level. An important outcome of increasing St. Thomas’ visibility, for example, is an ability to attract a more geographically diverse cross section of students who are accomplished in and out of the classroom.

“This additional representation would add value to classroom discussions, campus life, co-curricular activities and virtually every aspect of St. Thomas while providing St. Thomas with the opportunity to extend the reach of our mission and impact. The presence of Division I sports teams will also build on the strong Tommie fan loyalty and provide the campus and alumni with more engaging fan experiences.”

St. Thomas has the internal commitment to become D-1, and now all it needs is NCAA approval next week.

Comments Welcome

Vikings Could Draft St. John’s Tackle

Posted on March 20, 2020March 20, 2020 by David Shama

 

Enjoy a Friday notes column referencing the Minnesota Vikings upcoming draft, regular season and playoff predictions for the Minnesota Twins, and more.

The Vikings’ offseason campaign to upgrade the offensive line could include a draft eligible player from inside the state’s borders. St. John’s left tackle Ben Bartch has earned praise in the months leading up to the April NFL Draft despite playing Division III football.

Pete Najarian, the former Gopher linebacker who has been an ESPN college football analyst, has a son who attends St. John’s. Najarian has watched Bartch’s career as the Oregon native has transitioned from a tight end to tackle while dramatically increasing his weight to about 310 pounds. Despite an impressive NFL Scouting Combine performance this winter, Najarian told Sports Headliners a lot of observers “don’t really understand how good he is.”

Najarian believes the 6-foot-6 Bartch, who could play tackle or guard in the NFL, might be drafted in the fourth round. “He’s athletic as heck,” Najarian said.

Najarian is also a fan of Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts who he thinks the Vikings should pursue, perhaps in the second round. The Vikings don’t have an athletic quarterback with the skill-set of Hurts who also was a star at Alabama. The 6-foot-1, 220-pound Hurts ran a 4:59 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine.

“…I think he could be a quarterback not too dissimilar to a Dak Prescott, or some of the other quarterbacks that are considered dual-threats including Lamar Jackson,” Najarian said. “I think he is somewhere in that category, and his combine numbers say a lot about how fast and big he really is.”

Najarian, best known as a financial whiz on television, played for the NFL’s Tampa Bucs, who have acquired 42-year-old quarterback Tom Brady. The team is known for its offensive talent, but not at quarterback. Last season the Bucs had a 7-9 record. Najarian believes the arrival of Brady, considered by many to be the NFL’s greatest quarterback of all time, transforms the Bucs into Super Bowl contenders.

“I think he’s that good,” Najarian said. “I think he still has the ability to play at a high enough level—probably not the highest level he ever played at—but a higher level than most quarterbacks in the NFL still. So it gives Tampa what they have been missing, which is somebody secure at the quarterback position.”

Sports Illustrated’s spring baseball issue predicts the Twins, who won 101 games last season and became American League Central Division champs, will again finish ahead of the Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals. The Twins will have a 93-69 regular season record but will lose their AL Division series to the Houston Astros (will they cheat?), according to S.I.

S.I. points out the Twins hit an MLB record 307 home runs but at least as impressive was that the pitching staff struck out a franchise record 1,463 batters. “The dingers got the attention last year, but the biggest change was the embrace of modern approaches under new pitching coach (Wes) Johnson,” the magazine said.

The publication forecasts the New York Yankees will defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Yesterday the website BetOnline.com gave Minnesota the third best odds to win the American League playoffs, and sixth best chance of any MLB club to win the World Series.

Former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, now the Tigers’ skipper, saw his team lose 114 games last season and could be on track for a similar total in 2020. While the Twins had nine players slug more than 20 home runs, no Tiger hit more than 15 last season.

Former Twins infielders C.J. Cron and Jonathan Schoop, now with the Tigers, hit 25 and 23 respectively last season.

It will be interesting to see if former Timberwolves player and coach Sam Mitchell, who resigned from his assistant’s position with the Memphis Tigers about a year ago, gets back into coaching. Mitchell, 56, now has both NBA and college coaching experience.

Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle speaks to the CORES lunch group Thursday, May 14 at the Bloomington Event Center, 1114 American Blvd. More information is available by contacting Jim Dotseth, dotsethj@comcast.net.

Ron Stolski

The retirement celebration for prep football coaching legend Ron Stolski has been moved from April 4 to June 13 at Cragun’s Legacy Clubhouse in Brainerd. He coached football in Minnesota for 58 years, including the last 45 at Brainerd.

Comments Welcome

Posts navigation

  • Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • …
  • 54
  • Next
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
Twitter   Facebook

Search Shama

Archives

Meyer Law   Culvers   Iron Horse  

Recent Posts

  • No Sleeping on Danielle Hunter’s Sacks
  • Twins Transformation Excites Club Prez for October
  • Vikings’ Must-Win, Gophers’ Uniforms Headline Worthy
  • Gophers on Spot to Fix Offense Before Mighty Michigan
  • Twins Shortstop Correa Impresses with High Character
  • Here’s the Predicted Outcome in All 17 Vikings Games
  • Justin Jefferson & the 2,000 Yards Question in 2023
  • Vikings May Surprise the NFL Prognosticators Again
  • U Season Ticket Sales at Best Total in P.J. Fleck Era
  • Mystery Solved on Gophers’ Play Caller?
Murray's Restaurant

Dinkytown Athletes

Creative Charters

Meadows at Mystic Lake

Gold Country

Culver's | Iron Horse | | Meyer Njus Tanick
© 2023 David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme