Rick Adelman – Page 6 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Worth Noting

Posted on December 14, 2011December 29, 2011 by David Shama

Joe Mauer’s fiancé is a nurse in the Twin Cities. He and Madeline Bisanz have known each other since high school at Cretin-Derham Hall. The two have been in Florida but will be back in Minnesota for the holidays. No wedding date has been set for Madeline and the Twins catcher who once dated the 2005 Miss USA, Chelsea Cooley.

Next season needs to be a comeback year on the field for Mauer but it’s even bigger for his buddy, first baseman Justin Morneau. Injuries have slowed Morneau for two seasons and production has been far below his best years (in 2011 four home runs, 30 RBI and a .227 batting average). He turns 31 in May and 2013 is the last year of his contract with the Twins.

Joe’s brother Jake Mauer will return for a third year as manager of the Twins Single-A affiliate Ft. Myers Miracle (Florida State League).

The Saints franchise that comes to Mall of America Field on Sunday to play the Vikings beat Minnesota in the NFC Championship Game on January 24, 2010. Since then the Saints are 21-8 in regular season games, the Vikings 8-21.

The Minnesota Football Coaches Association’s annual clinic with the Gophers is March 29-31. Coaches interested in attending can learn more at www.mshsca.org.

New Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman has only four teams in 20 seasons of NBA coaching who didn’t make the playoffs. Twice his teams have been in the NBA Finals.

In five seasons playing in the Spanish ACB League, new Timberwolves guard Ricky Rubio made .374 percent of his field goals and .314 of his three point attempts. Although he’s only 21, Rubio’s shooting and defense will be scrutinized in the early weeks of the NBA season.

Last summer Rubio treated a north Minneapolis family, who had been impacted by tornadoes, to an afternoon at the Mall of America.

Saint John’s head coach Jim Smith has 731 career wins, the 21^st best total in college basketball history. Smith is 10 wins behind former Temple coach John Chaney.

The Wild will never have a better goalie storyline during the first months of the season than this year. Training camp opened with the comfort of having six-year veteran and regular goalie Niklas Backstrom on the roster. But backup Josh Harding has probably been the team MVP while supporting roles have been played by 51-year-old “emergency” goalie Paul Deutsch and Matt Hackett who didn’t make his first start until December 8. On Monday Hackett was named by the NHL as its Second Star for the week after a 2-0, 1.01 goals against average last week.

The Wild’s Devin Setoguchi is scheduled to sign autographs at the Maplewood Mall Hockey Lodge store on Friday from 6 to 7 p.m. The store is located at 3001 White Bear Avenue in Maplewood.

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Worth Noting

Posted on October 3, 2011November 27, 2011 by David Shama

Vikings defensive end Jared Allen is no admirer of the Metrodome, except for the passionate fans. “The Metrodome is bad,” he said. “Maybe four showers with hot water down there. We have such great fans and they continue to come to the dome. …They deserve a new stadium more than anything too. …”

Here are the Sports Headliners weekly rankings of Big Ten Football teams: Wisconsin, Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Penn State, Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana and Minnesota.

My advice to college coaches targeting nationally recruited Apple Valley sophomore point guard Tyus Jones: He will want to play for a winning program and not care about stats while contributing to team success. He won’t want to be the center of attention.

Big Ten basketball media day will be Thursday, October 27 in Chicago. Look for Bloomington native and Wisconsin senior Jordan Taylor to rival Ohio State sophomore center Jared Sullinger for preseason media Player of the Year. Taylor, a point guard, finished among the conference’s top 10 scorers and assists last season, 18.1 and 4.7.

In a downsizing move, retired Gophers basketball coach Jim Dutcher put his Eden Prairie home up for sale, but with three daughters living in the Twin Cities will continue to live here.

Dutcher said Jimmy Williams expects to hear a decision within a “couple of weeks” from the Minnesota Court of Appeals regarding the Williams lawsuit against the University of Minnesota. Litigation has been ongoing for several years in the case with the possibility of a large financial settlement for Williams. Williams was an assistant coach to Dutcher in the 1980s and had wanted to again work for the University after Tubby Smith was hired as Minnesota coach in 2007.

New Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman and wife Mary Kay have been married for more than 40 years. They have six children.

The Twins are not a “knee jerk reaction” organization but I will be surprised if there isn’t some “subtraction” and “addition” in the baseball department before year-end.

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Worth Noting

Posted on September 19, 2011November 27, 2011 by David Shama

Vikings coach Leslie Frazier said after yesterday’s game he expects defensive tackle Kevin Williams, suspended for the team’s first two games, to rejoin the club for meetings starting today.

The September 12 issue of Sporting News Magazine lists the 10 greatest college football teams of all time including the 1956 Oklahoma Sooners at No. 5. Those Sooners were coached by Minneapolis native Bud Wilkinson who played for the Gophers. The magazine identifies Wilkinson as the only man in college football history to win three national championships each as a player and coach. Sporting News chose the 1971 Nebraska team as the No. 1 all time team.

Saint John’s football boss John Gagliardi, who has been coaching in the MIAC since 1953, saw his team forced into overtime by Concordia on Saturday but managed to win its league opener, 28-21.

A.J. Hammons, a 7-foot center from Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, is interested in the Gophers and visited campus last weekend.

Former Gophers basketball captain Al Nuness transferred from Fort Dodge Junior College in Iowa to Minnesota in 1967. Nuness, now retired from an executive position with Jostens, has not only enjoyed an outstanding business career, but has also been involved with volunteer community work in Minneapolis for decades. On Saturday he will be inducted into not the sports hall of fame but the school hall of fame at Iowa Central Community College (formerly Fort Dodge). Nuness was a first team junior college All-American, the first player to earn that honor at Fort Dodge.

Magic Johnson comes to Minneapolis tomorrow for an event to promote Urban Ventures and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. Johnson will be speaking at the Colin Powell Youth Leadership Center.

Wonder if Timberwolves-Lynx owner Glen Taylor has delayed the Rick Adelman introductory news conference so as to not draw media and public attention away from the Lynx playoff games.

The Wild purchased 500 tickets for tomorrow night’s Lynx playoff game that were made available this morning to the first 250 callers at 612-673-8400 with a limit of two per customer.

Former North Stars, Twins and Gophers marketing leader Pat Forciea is marketing director for the Hell’s Kitchen restaurant downtown, according to a column by Jon Tevlin in the Star Tribune last week.

Minneapolis businessman Bruce Lambrecht, long ago a proponent for a Twins stadium in the Warehouse District, continues to believe in a Farmers Market site for a new Vikings stadium.

The Wild are scheduled to practice today at Xcel Energy Center, then open the preseason schedule tomorrow night in Edmonton. First home exhibition game is Friday night against Columbus.

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