Stadiums – Page 25 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Final Four to Shutout U Baseball Games

Posted on November 12, 2017November 12, 2017 by David Shama

A Sunday notes column leading off with news about Gophers baseball.

John Anderson thought he had 14 home indoor baseball games scheduled for his Gophers in 2019 at U.S. Bank Stadium, but his team will be shutout. Anderson, in his 37th year at Minnesota, is scrambling now to schedule away games in warm places in February and March of 2019 after recently being told preparations for the NCAA Final Four basketball games will take over the downtown stadium.

Anderson worked with the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority to set up his 2019 schedule, but the NCAA has now decided it is necessary to start staging U.S. Bank Stadium for basketball several weeks in advance of the Final Four dates of April 6-8. The change will mean no amateur baseball, not just for the Gophers but other college and high school teams, in the winter of 2019. “It’s really disappointing,” Anderson told Sports Headliners.

Anderson understands the importance and magnitude of the Final Four but wishes he would have known long ago the Gophers couldn’t use the indoor stadium in 2019. He won’t be able to reschedule all 14 games for his Gophers, and also empathizes with the teams that thought they were coming to Minneapolis but now must find other places to play on relatively short notice.

Anderson, long respected in the community for his coaching and integrity, feels bad that he recruited players with the sales pitch that they would be playing indoor baseball in 2019. This past winter the Gophers played for the first time in U.S. Bank Stadium and have 10 games scheduled in the impressive facility in 2018 from February 27-March 11.

A schedule highlight next year at U.S. Bank Stadium is the DQ Classic Tournament with Arizona, Washington, UCLA and the Gophers March 2-4.

For passionate Golden Gophers football fans with long ago and painful memories, yesterday’s 54-21 drubbing of the Cornhuskers was a sweet afternoon at TCF Bank Stadium. Although Minnesota has now won three of the last five games against Nebraska, the Gophers’ other two wins were by a total of 15 points. Yesterday was Gopher revenge for a string of 16 losses from 1963-1990, nearly all of them lop-sided scores favoring Big Red.

As recently as 1989 and 1990 the Cornhuskers beat Minnesota 48-0 in Minneapolis and 56-0 in Lincoln. If you’re counting, that is 104-0 in two games.

Following yesterday’s win those Gopher fans with nightmare memories might have read and enjoyed the words of Omaha World-Herald columnist Tom Shatel who described the outcome “as perhaps the lowest point in the last 65 years of Nebraska football.”

Fall rumors have swirled about the possible dismissal of Nebraska head coach Mike Riley. His players looked dispirited yesterday and speculation is Riley, one of football’s nicest coaches, could unfortunately lose his job this week—perhaps even today. Bo Pelini, Riley’s predecessor, was terminated soon after Minnesota defeated Nebraska in late November of 2014.

Bad omen? Cheatsheetwarroom.com points out the Vikings are 1-4 in the last five years coming out of their bye weeks. The Vikings haven’t played a game since October 29 and are in Landover, Maryland today to face the Redskins. Coming out of their bye last year, the Vikings lost to the Eagles and went on a four-game losing streak.

The Cheat Sheet website also reports the Vikings are 3-1 in their last four games versus teams coming off their byes. Included is a 26-20 loss last year to the Redskins in Landover.

Former Vikings linebacker Ben Leber predicted to Sports Headliners it won’t be easy today against the Redskins, but Minnesota will win 24-17.

After the first eight games of the 16-game schedule, the 6-2 Vikings rank fourth in the NFL in yards given up per game, 282.1. How does head coach Mike Zimmer assess the defense so far and what can the unit do better in the second half?

“I’ve already made assessments from last bye week,” Zimmer said. “We’re just trying to get better each week. We’re not going to talk about first half of the season. We’re just going to start moving forward here.”

The Vikings have three quarterbacks who are free agents next year, and the 2018 NFL college draft will likely feature at least four quarterbacks taken in the first round—Josh Allen, Wyoming; Sam Darnold, USC; Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma; and Josh Rosen, UCLA.

It was almost exactly 30 years ago that Darrell Thompson made his famous 98-yard touchdown run in the Metrodome against Michigan. Thompson’s run on November 7, 1987 still is the longest run ever from scrimmage by a Golden Gopher.

Here’s a note from the “we already knew that” department. The November 23 issue of Sports Illustrated includes a feature on Badger football that says, “No program is better at mining and developing the talent in its state.”

Newspaper columnist and radio talk show host Patrick Reusse will be roasted by the Minnesota Minutemen at a January 26 luncheon at Mancini’s in St. Paul. Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of Minnesota sports, Reusse is a 1963 graduate of Fulda High School. Local funnyman Dick Jonckowski will emcee the roast.

Twins baseball bosses Derek Falvey and Thad Levine were hired about a year ago. After assessing the organization for 12 months it wouldn’t be surprising if they were active this offseason in player acquisition moves.

Selection committee members for the prep Mr. Football Award met Saturday to narrow the field of finalists to 11 seniors from Minnesota high schools. The breakfast announcing the 2017 winner will be held December 10 at the DoubleTree Hotel in St. Louis Park.

The annual state high school all-star football game, known now as the Minnesota Football Showcase, will start at 3 p.m. December 9 at U.S. Bank Stadium. Only seniors are selected for the game, and more information is available at Vikings.com/showcase.

The Mr. Football Award and all-star game are among the ongoing events and activities of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association, an organization of dedicated supporters and promoters of amateur football in the state.

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Pressure on Wolves from Opening Tip

Posted on October 17, 2017October 17, 2017 by David Shama

With a disappointing past but an intriguing offseason of personnel changes, coach Tom Thibodeau and his players need to fulfill expectations in the months ahead. The Timberwolves, who haven’t earned their way into the NBA playoffs since 2004, open the regular season schedule Wednesday night in San Antonio against the Spurs, and the pressure to win starts this week.

The Wolves are a favorite of NBA authorities to qualify for the 2018 playoffs, perhaps finishing with the fifth best record in the Western Conference behind the Warriors, Spurs, Rockets and Thunder. If the team doesn’t make the playoffs the disappointed will include Wolves owner Glen Taylor. He told Sports Headliners Monday he shares the “high expectations” of fans and nothing else could balance out the club not playing in the postseason.

Taylor described the expectations for the playoffs as “good pressure” on the Wolves. “We have some very good players,” he said. “The coaching staff should be ready. I can’t think of any reason other than injuries that’s going to hold us back.”

Glen Taylor (photo courtesy of Minnesota Timberwolves).

Taylor is more excited going into this season than any in awhile. In the past he has been looking down the road, hoping for a playoff team eventually. “I think we’re there now,” he said. “We just have to produce.”

Thibodeau’s chair is a little warm after last season—his first as the franchise’s basketball czar. As coach and president, Taylor has entrusted his team’s future to Thibodeau who was one of pro basketball’s most successful coaches with the Bulls. The Wolves, though, underachieved last season when they won only 31 games, lost 51, and weren’t even a threat to make the playoffs.

Thibodeau, who in the past has been aloof with players, is considered an old-school coach demanding discipline and physical play starting with defense. The new era NBA—at least some places—seems to put an emphasis on chummy coach and player relationships, while tactically spreading the floor, using long distance shooting and multi-positional players.

Can Thibodeau make things work? Will the Wolves play differently than the grinder style characterizing the coach’s Bulls’ teams?

The Wolves, who open their home season Friday night against the Jazz, have three new starters and four newbies coming off the bench. Power forward Taj Gibson, small forward Jimmy Butler and point guard Jeff Teague join center Karl-Anthony Towns and shooting guard Andrew Wiggins as starters. Shooting guard Jamal Crawford is a key reserve.

With so many new faces there are questions? How will the club chemistry be? Will the players share the ball on offense and help each other on defense? Will they sacrifice their bodies and egos to achieve team success?

Among questions being asked is whether collectively the players will shoot well enough from the outside to help deliver a big year? Butler, Teague and Wiggins haven’t been that effective with perimeter shooting in the past.

The challenge of stepping it up faces all three, but maybe Wiggins more than the others. He just signed a mega contract and his physical gifts rank with the best in the NBA. That includes the potential to be a better long range shooter. But in his previous three NBA seasons Wiggins seems more interested in being isolated with the ball and slashing to the basket.

Thibodeau will ask for maximum effort and performance defensively from his players. As defenders, improvement will definitely be expected from Towns and Wiggins. Their buy-in will dictate a lot regarding the defensive prowess of this year’s team.

The hype is on about the Wolves. Butler, acquired in an offseason deal with the Bulls, is one of the NBA’s better all-around players, and at 28 presumably the veteran leader the club has been missing. Towns, the 21-year-old center going into his third NBA season, was named in a preseason poll of league general managers as the player they would most want to start a franchise with. Teague is expected to provide better shooting than former starter Ricky Rubio. Gibson, at 32, gives the Wolves experience at power forward, and Crawford, even older at 37, will play the role of three-point producer and scorer off the bench. That same general managers poll showed 69 percent forecast the Wolves to be the NBA’s most improved team.

Taylor said that unlike the past, Thibodeau hasn’t been critical of players when talking to him. “Listening to him…he’s really been pleased with just about all the players. As a matter of fact, I don’t recall anything negative he said about any player.

“The year before he always had bitter expectations of some of the guys that they could have done more, or a little bit (of) this. But this year he’s been really positive about the guys, and he’s pointed out a lot of good things that he sees. That’s not just the starting five, but everybody on the team.”

Worth Noting

In its NBA preview edition that came out last week, Sports Illustrated ranked the league teams 1-30 for entertainment value using criteria that included “style of play, firepower, age, health, coaching and personality.” The Wolves ranked No. 7 after the Warriors, Rockets, Thunder, Celtics, Cavaliers and Bucks.

The magazine projects the Wolves will finish fifth in the Western Conference behind the Warriors, Rockets, Spurs, and Thunder. S.I. raves about Towns. Writing that Towns “flashed talent seldom seen from a second-year big man,” the magazine reported that following the NBA All-Star break last winter Towns averaged 28.4 points per game on 59.7 percent shooting with 13.4 rebounds.

The Timberwolves and city of Minneapolis officials are justifiably excited to showcase their $145 million Target Center renovation on Friday night for the team’s home opener. The concourse and bowl improvements include a new state-of-the-art scoreboard, better restrooms, new seats, upgraded sound system and digital signage. There is also new luxury seating, and exterior changes including a new three-story glass atrium.

City officials, though, should be concerned about downtown’s reputation for public safety. The threat of violence and individuals who harass others on downtown streets are issues that worry patrons attending events on Hennepin Avenue, and at Target Center and Target Field.

Taylor’s Lynx have won four WNBA championships but he said the 2017 title stands out after a controversial officiating call played a role in his 2016 team losing in the finals. “This is a good one. This is right up there (among the best title winning years) just because I was so disappointed last year and how that got refereed at the end (of the championship game). We lost something which I thought we deserved to win.”

If the Lynx receive an invitation to be honored at the White House, Taylor said it won’t happen for awhile. Most likely a White House visit would coincide with a scheduled Lynx game in Washington D.C. against the Mystics.

U.S. Bank Stadium’s five pivoting doors were opened at 9 a.m. Sunday for the Vikings-Packers game that started at noon. The outside temperature was 43 degrees. The doors (95 feet tall at their peaks) are popular for the outside feel they contribute to the roof covered facility, but fans in the west stands sometimes complain about cold air.

A street seller was asking $125 for an inexpensive seat for last Sunday’s game, and $300 to $400 for better seats.

A parking lot across from the stadium was charging $55, while eight to 10 blocks away the rate was $20 per vehicle. The cost was $30 about six blocks from the stadium. Meters on the street charged $25.

Vikings second-year receiver Laquon Treadwell had fans raving over his one-handed catch in the Packer game. Treadwell said it was the second best reception of his life, with an even better one playing in college for Mississippi.

The Gophers’ fragile bowl hopes start with a must win Saturday at home against Illinois, the Big Ten’s worst team. Minnesota, 3-3 overall and 0-3 in the Big Ten, could get to the prerequisite six victories and a bowl invitation by defeating Illinois and Nebraska at home, and Northwestern on the road.

Iowa athletic director Gary Barta, who played high school football for Burnsville, is taking an extended leave of absence because of surgery and treatment for prostate cancer.

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Gophers Fleck Eyes Stadium Expansion

Posted on April 2, 2017April 2, 2017 by David Shama

You have to give P.J. Fleck credit for ambition and vision. The new Gophers football coach hasn’t even completed the team’s spring practice schedule, but last Friday night he was talking about expanding the seating capacity of TCF Bank Stadium.

The dynamic 36-year-old arrived in Minneapolis January 6 after four years as head coach at Western Michigan, and he started pointing the program toward eventual Big Ten and (yes) even national championships. On Friday evening he stood in front of a packed room at the DoubleTree Hotel in St. Louis Park and spoke about creating a lot more ticket buyers at TCF Bank Stadium.

“You see, we have 55,000 seats in our stadium, but my plan already three years down the road is to expand it to 85,000,” Fleck told an audience of high school and youth football coaches.

Fleck wants to grow his program’s budget and referenced a “certain rival” who has $40 million more in budget than the Gophers. How to catch up?

“(Add) 30,000 more seats,” Fleck said. “But to be able to do that we have to connect people who don’t even like football.”

At the Minnesota Football Coaches Clinic Fleck didn’t talk Xs and Os. Instead the message was often about “culture,” or connecting with people inside and outside his program. He hinted at aggressive marketing efforts for Gophers football coming this spring and summer.

Part of the messaging will be to convince the public, even those who don’t care much about football, that the Gophers enrich the quality of life in the state with what they do both on and off the field (think community service)—and are worthy of support including on Saturday afternoons at TCF Bank Stadium. “Our program is about two things. Serving and giving. That’s it,” Fleck told the audience.

When speaking about budgets, Fleck didn’t say who that “certain rival” is but it could likely be Wisconsin. The Badgers draw sellout crowds of more than 80,000 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison. There is no doubt behind the scenes Fleck is taking dead aim on the Badgers who turned around their program in both results and support in the 1990s. Wisconsin has won 13 consecutive games against Minnesota.

Fleck, who years ago started a bucket list that included becoming a Big Ten coach, is full of energy and ideas. He concedes his dynamo style and lofty ambitions aren’t for all, but some authorities think Fleck deserves a place among America’s most promising young coaches.

“I’ve got a good feeling about him taking this job,” Duke coach David Cutcliffe told the coaches Friday night at the clinic, which is an annual project of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association. Cutcliffe is 62 and old enough to be Fleck’s dad, but he knows the young coach’s story at Western Michigan where in four years he took the Broncos from 1-11 to 13-1, and built a fan base never seen before in Kalamazoo.

Fleck received a standing ovation when he stepped to the podium Friday night and then he reached out to his audience. His talking points included praise for the work of the state’s prep coaches. He acknowledged there are many resources to make Gophers football elite but said, “…If we didn’t have the (quality) high school coaches we have in the state of Minnesota, I would not have taken the job. I recruited this area. I remember it vividly.”

Fleck referred to himself as a young “schmuck” when he was recruiting as a member of the Northern Illinois staff and Minnetonka High School coach Dave Nelson showed him the kindness of inviting him into the Nelson home. That made a lasting impression on Fleck and he acknowledged Nelson, the MFCA Hall of Fame coach who was seated in the audience.

Many coaches in attendance at the DoubleTree are admirers of former Gophers head coach Jerry Kill. “Jerry Kill saved my career,” Fleck said. “I was let go when (Northern Illinois head coach) Joe Novak retired. Jerry Kill retained me. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Jerry Kill.”

Worth Noting

MFCA executive director Ron Stolski said there were over 1,700 attendees at the clinic—the ninth consecutive year attendance has increased.

Totino-Grace’s Jeff Ferguson was recognized as the MFCA’s Man of the Year. His Eagles won the 6A state title last year. In 15 seasons as head coach of the Eagles his record is 173-21, with eight state titles in classes 4A, 5A and 6A.

Clinic speakers included North Dakota State head coach Chris Klieman and several assistants. Bison defensive coordinator Matt Entz told Sports Headliners that 40 percent of the NDSU players are Minnesotans.

Stolski will speak at the Bison spring football clinic on Friday. The Brainerd coach’s talk is titled “A Coach’s Journey: Lessons Learned in Six Decades on the Field.”

The clinic’s keynote speaker will be Jon Gruden, the former NFL head coach and now an ESPN football analyst.

The Twins announced this afternoon they have placed left-handed pitcher Glen Perkins on the 60-day disabled list with a left posterior shoulder strain. They have also selected the contract of catcher Chris Gimenez and optioned first baseman Kennys Vargas to Triple-A Rochester. Minnesota’s roster is now set at 25 with 13 pitchers, two catchers, five infielders and five outfielders.

Rick Stelmaszek, the longest tenured coach in Twins history with 32 seasons through 2002, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch at tomorrow’s Twins regular season opener at Target Field. Minneapolis rapper Dessa will sing the National Anthem, accompanied by a brass quintet from the Minnesota Orchestra.

World War II vet Henry “Hank” Langevin, 94, will raise the American Flag. He was born in St. Paul in 1922 and enlisted in the Army in 1941. He trained for two years to be a paratrooper and later as a glider. He fought in the Battle of Sicily and the Battle of the Bulge.

An online story in last Thursday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that per the Westgate and Station Casino sports books, the Twins’ odds of winning the World Series are 100-1, with only four other MLB clubs facing longer odds. The Twins’ predicted win total is 74.

A week ago today the Gophers basketball team held its season-ending banquet on the floor of Williams Arena for the first time ever. “It was absolutely fabulous,” said former Gopher Al Nuness who attended. “I can’t figure out why we never had it there before. Everybody was just mesmerized.”

Minnesota native and Kings coach Dave Joerger talking about the Timberwolves who haven’t made the playoffs since 2004: “I think the future is very, very bright. This is a team that will be in the playoffs next year. …Nothing but the best is in front of them.”

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