Vikings – Page 122 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Zimmer a Vikings Steal at $4 million

Posted on August 8, 2018August 9, 2018 by David Shama

The Vikings are spending aggressively to lock up their players for coming seasons, while pushing for their first Super Bowl since 1977. An August 1 story by the Star Tribune’s Ben Goessling reported that starting in 2019 nine Vikings will have “a contract that carries a yearly average over $10 million in each of its first three seasons.”

For this season Spotrac.com lists six Vikings earning $10 million or more. They are quarterback Kirk Cousins, $24 million; cornerback Xavier Rhodes, $13,400,000; linebacker Anthony Barr, $12,306,000; defensive end Everson Griffen, $11,600,000; offensive tackle Riley Reiff, $11,400,000; safety Harrison Smith, $10,000,000.

Even a grade school NFL fan knows a team can’t deliver on lofty ambitions without talented players. Or as former Golden Gophers national championship coach Murray Warmath once said, “No mule ever won the Kentucky Derby.”

Yet it’s interesting to contrast the compensation of highly paid Vikings players with that of head coach Mike Zimmer. His annual salary is guarded by club officials but media reports have the 62-year-old Zimmer earning $4 or $5 million annually. But for all the talent surrounding Zimmer, he might be the most important individual with the team.

In the competitive and strategic world of pro football, the head coach is far from a figurehead or caretaker. “Coaching is 60 to 65 percent of (team) success,” former Viking defensive lineman Bob Lurtsema has reminded Sports Headliners.

Zimmer will soon start his fifth regular season as Viking head coach and the team is among the favorites to win the NFC. He has won 39 regular season games, more than any other Viking head coach accomplished in his first four years. Zimmer’s teams have won two NFC North titles and were within one win of advancing to the Super Bowl last winter. The only losing season Zimmer has experienced was his first year 7-9 record. The prior season the Vikings’ record was 5-10-1.

Zimmer looked like a career NFL assistant coach until the Vikings gave him his first head coaching job. From day one he let his players know he was on a mission to build a tough, smart football team that gives maximum effort. The process has benefitted immensely from Zimmer’s direction including his widely acknowledged expertise as a defensive guru.

There have been bumps in the road for both the team and Zimmer personally. When the club hasn’t met expectations he can be a difficult character to be around, but his competitiveness sends a message. So does his toughness which Viking fans followed for months when he coached through a series of eye miseries that began with surgery for a detached retina.

It’s the way of the NFL to pay the best players more than the coaches—sometimes much more. A June 12 Street.com story by Scott Van Voorhis reported the NFL’s top paid head coach is New England’s Bill Belichick at between $10 million and $12.5 million. Oakland’s Jon Gruden is No. 2 at $10 million, with Seattle’s Pete Carroll and New Orleans’ Sean Payton making $9 million, according to the article.

Street.com listed the top 10 paid NFL head coaches and Zimmer didn’t make the cut. Coming in at the bottom of the 10 were Green Bay’s Mike McCarthy and Dallas’ Jason Garrett, both reportedly at $6 million.

You might have to search all over Vikingland to find anyone who would prefer McCarthy or Garrett before our guy Zim. Like the headline says, Zimmer is a steal.

Worth Noting

Steve Erban, known to travelling Gophers and Vikings fans as the operator of Stillwater-based Creative Charters, was a thoroughbred horse racing trainer for many years and is still involved with ownership. He’s organizing the “Royal Day Party” on Saturday at Canterbury Park that is part of the “Dress to the Nines” promotion celebrating racing including the Minnesota Derby and Minnesota Oaks. It’s all inspired by the annual Royal Ascot races in England where fans dress up in style. More at Canterburypark.com/racing-promotions.

Ruttger’s Bay Lake Lodge is celebrating 120 years and its history includes golf, having established the first Minnesota resort golf course in 1921. That course had sand tee boxes. Now the resort has two courses, Alec’s 9 on the site of the first course and Jack’s 18, a scenic course that winds around two lakes.

Pitcher Kyle Gibson appeared among the likeliest of Twins to be traded a couple of months ago but now could be with the club through the season and be a prominent part of the rotation in 2019. The 30-year-old right hander has the second most quality starts on the club behind Jose Berrios. He’s turned his career around since the last half of the 2017 season.

Quoting Twins baseball boss Derek Falvey in a letter sent Monday to ticket buyers reassuring them about the franchise’s future: “…We should all look forward to a strong finish to this season and the continued growth of our players as we build toward sustained, championship-caliber baseball together. Most importantly, thank you for your continued support!”

Condolences to family and friends of Dick Erdall, who passed away this summer after a life that included 1950s youth football coaching in Minneapolis. His coaching contributed to the state powerhouse teams at Washburn High School. He was also a 13th ward alderman in Minneapolis and interim mayor.

Gopher football practice at TCF Bank Stadium is open to the public Friday and begins at 4 p.m.

Next June will be the 30th Bruce Smith Golf Classic at Faribault Golf Club. Organizer Bruce Krinke said the event (named after Faribault native and Gopher Heisman Trophy winner Bruce Smith) hopes to reach a 30-year total of $250,000. Proceeds are annually given to Faribault schools.

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Tales Galore in Jonckowski’s New Book

Posted on July 29, 2018July 29, 2018 by David Shama

A grasshopper goes into a bar. The bartender says, “Did you know we have a drink named after you?”

The grasshopper replies, “You have a drink named Steve?”

That joke and many more are in Dick Jonckowski’s new book It’s All About Me. The well-known Minnesota native has giggled his way through life telling jokes and rubbing elbows with celebrities, most of them sports heroes.

Dick turns 75 in October but he’s still a kid at heart. Still ready to swap tales with a friend or stranger. Still looking to meet a new celebrity, or renew a friendship with an old one. Still ready to add a poster, photo, bobblehead or some other keepsake to the famous memorabilia collection housed in the basement of his Shakopee, Minnesota home. Still going about his day with a twinkle in his eye and ready to have fun because he believes “laugh, and live longer.”

Arlene and Dick Jonckowski in their sports memorabilia-filled basement.

Dick and his wife Arlene dipped into family finances to fund It’s All About Me, Dick Jonckowski: A Minnesota Treasure. It’s a project they talked about for years. As Arlene says in the book: “So I finally told him, ‘Now or never, Dick. You need to do this.’ “

With the help of writer Jim Bruton, Dick wrote a 130-page story about his life as a sports fan who became a field usher at Met Stadium, master of ceremonies for a long list of events near and far, PR man in pro basketball, professional rasslin’ ring announcer, radio host at stations in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and men’s basketball public address announcer for decades as the voice of the Golden Gophers.

There’s not only been a lot of kid in Dick all these years but some “hot dog too.” As a field usher for Vikings games, he liked to return errant footballs to game officials by throwing the balls around his back. When Vikings running back Chuck Foreman slid for about 10 yards on a slick field, Jonckowski rushed over to make the baseball safe at home sign. A video clip ended up on TV’s Tonight Show but Bud Grant labeled Dick a “hot dog” for his antics that played well with Met Stadium crowds but not so good with the Vikings head coach.

Dick’s most infamous incident is still talked about by Vikings fans. In the Vikings-Cowboys playoff game in 1975, Dallas wide receiver Drew Pearson caught a key pass that helped sustain a late drive and soon led to a Minnesota loss. It’s been widely acknowledged that Pearson was out of bounds when he made the catch but the play stood. The Cowboys went on to win the game with another controversial catch by Pearson. Here’s what Dick wrote about the out of bounds incident in his book:

“Drew Pearson was lying there on the ground, and I was so mad I walked up to him and I kicked him—just a little. It was a real sissy kick. I barely hit him at all. I just kicked the bottom of his shoe. I was just so mad and frustrated by the call.”

Dick’s kick was reviewed by NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. He told the Vikings Dick couldn’t be a field usher for the next two seasons. “When I came back in 1978, all the fun was gone. They watched me like a hawk,” Dick wrote in his book.

Dick has lived a life a bit like Forrest Gump. He’s been on assignment in various roles at many sports events but sometimes he’s just crashed the party. After the Vikings-Kansas City Super Bowl he and Arlene were walking around New Orleans when they found the Chiefs’ celebration party. Chief players and former Gophers Bobby Bell and Bob Stein asked what the Jonckowskis were doing at the party? “So I told them we were invited,” Dick wrote in the book while mentioning he and Arlene hung around at the hotel victory party for about 90 minutes.

Dick’s mischief once prompted him to sit—uninvited of course—in the owner’s box of the Cincinnati Reds. When Marge Schott showed up, she hit it off with Dick and invited him to stay.

“There is an old saying, ‘If you play like you belong, you can get in anywhere,’ ” Dick says.

Maybe the first time he tried that out was in 1964 when sold-out Williams Arena was hosting a huge Big Ten game between the Golden Gophers and Michigan. Dick didn’t have tickets so he approached Wolverines star Cazzie Russell when he got off the team bus outside the arena. Dick asked if he could carry Cazzie’s bag to the locker room. That not only got Dick into the building, but he watched the game from one row behind the Michigan bench.

There’s a lot of fun in the book but some serious moments too. Awhile back Dick was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and shortly thereafter was dealing with stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The chemo treatments four years ago were rugged and at least once Dick wondered whether he would survive. He lost a lot of weight and his voice weakened for awhile but he recovered.

“I have been very lucky,” Dick writes in the book. “I only go in once a year now to be checked.”

Dick has kept his sense of humor through his fight with cancer and other ordeals including a basement flood. I always was confident Dick would keep a positive attitude. Years ago he told me it’s important to laugh in life “because no one gets out alive.”

Dick’s book can be purchased by calling him at 952-261-3013.

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Kelly Iffy on Managing in 2018 Baseball

Posted on July 19, 2018July 19, 2018 by David Shama

Tom Kelly is in the Twins Hall of Fame and his uniform number is retired. He’s the only manager in club history to win the World Series—doing it in both 1987 and 1991. When he retired after the 2001 season he was the longest tenured manager or coach in major professional sports.

Kelly was also only 51 years old when he gave up his job. He hasn’t managed for the Twins or anyone else since he quit in Minnesota. The club’s current manager, Paul Molitor, is only six years younger than the 67-year-old Kelly who is revered for a big league managing career with Minnesota that began in 1986.

Yet Kelly would probably be the longest of long shots to manage again. Baseball is so different now with its avalanche of data driven information impacting decisions. How the game has to be managed now appears almost perplexing to Kelly.

Kelly talked about his feelings on “Behind the Game,” a Twin Cities cable TV show. “There are things…I would probably have a hard time with,” Kelly told hosts Patrick Klinger and Bill Robertson. “I am probably not capable of managing now.”

Kelly said things are “pretty technical” in baseball with information dictating all kinds of things like shifts and positioning of players in the field. There seems no end to even the most miniscule of details about how to strategize against hitters and pitchers in an attempt to gain an edge on opponents.

Hitters give the impression they are more interested in “launch angles” to increase their home run totals, than in making consistent contact with the baseball. Stealing bases seems like a lost art and bunting appears to have passed away, too. Hit-and-run in today’s game? Not much. “I guess they have numbers that prove these things (what to do), so they go with the numbers,” Kelly said on the show.

Kelly saw his job as manager to be creative when his club was not scoring runs. That’s where he would call for a hit-and-run, sacrifice bunt or stealing a base.

Also to Kelly’s chagrin, teams no longer take pregame infield practice. He believes the practice helped prepare his teams to potentially start games efficiently and even get off to an early lead.

“The game still comes down to the basics of pitching and fielding,” Kelly told TV viewers. “You pitch the ball decent and catch the ball when you’re supposed to, (and) you find a way to score three or four runs, and you have a chance to win.”

Tom Kelly (photo courtesy of Minnesota Twins)

Kelly referred to himself on the show as a “dinosaur” and acknowledged more than once how difficult it would be for him to manage today. “I probably would have a hard time because I would get told, ‘We don’t want to do this. We don’t want to do that.’

“I would probably say, well, I am going to do this, and I am going to do that. And (then) I am going to be shown the door. They’re going to replace me with somebody that will do what they feel…through their numbers and analytics that this is how you should do it.”

Kelly told a story about his friend Tony LaRussa, the Hall of Fame manager who is a contemporary. LaRussa went to a meeting where 12 baseball people from his organization were looking at their computers . He didn’t even know many of the people but they were telling him things like why the data said so-and-so should hit second in the batting order. “That’s when he knew he had enough (managing),” Kelly said.

These days Kelly is a special assistant for the Twins. Molitor might call and ask advice, but mostly his role is that of an ambassador for the organization. He watches games now and enjoys them more as a fan than a manager.

“Things you miss are the camaraderie the game affords,” Kelly said. “The competitiveness that the game presents each and every night. You miss those things.”

Worth Noting

Adrian Peterson, the 33-year-old former Vikings running back, is a free agent and needs one more rushing touchdown to total 100 for his career. Playing for the Saints and Cardinals last season, he scored just two touchdowns rushing.

Vikings’ nemesis Aaron Rodgers told Peter King of NBCsports.com, “I’d love to play to 40.” The Packers’ 33-year-old quarterback referenced Brett Favre’s success at 40 when he was quarterbacking the Vikings to a 12-4 record.

The Vikings, who will hold their first training camp in more than 50 years not in Mankato, are part of a trend by NFL teams to hold summer practices in the home towns of franchises. The percent of home training camp teams has increased from 32 percent in 2000 to 66 percent this year and last.

Gopher senior Rodney Smith has 3,850 career all-purpose yards (2,805 rushing, 419 receiving and 626 on kick returns). He ranks eighth in program history. He needs 1,260 all-purpose yards this season to break Darrel Thompson’s Gopher record of 5,109.

Smith will be one of three Gophers and 42 total players attending the July 23 and 24 Big Ten Media Days and Kickoff Luncheon in Chicago. The other Gophers are junior linebackers Thomas Barber and Carter Coughlin.

Tickets were still available this week for the WNBA All-Star Game at Target Center on July 28. Stubhub.com listed availability yesterday starting at $59.

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