Vikings – Page 181 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Teague, Flip Missed Golden Connection

Posted on August 14, 2015August 14, 2015 by David Shama

Norwood Teague’s departure as Golden Gophers athletic director stirs memories of his failed connection with Flip Saunders who was a candidate to replace Tubby Smith as Minnesota’s basketball coach in the spring of 2013.

Saunders was a once-in-a-generation fit for the job. The former Gophers point guard played during the program’s glory days of the 1970s when the team’s talent was extraordinary and the capacity crowds at Williams Arena were the envy of college basketball. Saunders, a four-year starter, later was an assistant coach for the Gophers and eventually became the popular head coach of the Timberwolves who reached the NBA Western Conference Finals in 2004.

Saunders kept his permanent home in the Minneapolis area after he left the Timberwolves and made coaching stops in Detroit and Washington, D.C. He was out of coaching in 2013 when Smith was fired by Teague. Saunders, full of energy and with a never ending appetite for basketball, had stayed active in the sport with national TV work, and when in Minnesota attended games including those involving Apple Valley High School superstar Tyus Jones.

Sources said Saunders was interested in returning to his alma mater. Teague, a cocky administrator and newcomer to this state, had other candidates for his basketball coaching job and made them a priority. The search wasn’t gaining ground when Teague agreed to meet out of town with Saunders—a gesture that may well have been prompted by pressure from program boosters and media to interview the former Gopher.

Saunders was told in the interview he would need the approval of Teague to hire his assistant coaches, according to multiple sources. A career coach with more than 30 years of experience and with connections all over the country, Saunders wasn’t going to be told who he could hire.

There probably were other issues—perhaps including bonus incentives—that may have tripped up getting a deal done. Whatever the stumbling blocks, talks ended within about 24 hours.

My sources questioned the determination of Teague’s efforts with Saunders. I know the late David Larson, a major Gophers financial supporter and former member of the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents, was angry a deal couldn’t be reached with Saunders.

What Larson and other proponents of a Saunders hire saw was a unique candidate and golden opportunity for the Gophers and the University. Saunders would have jump-started a program that has been in decline for more than 15 years and is still going downhill. Saunders’ relationship with Jones could well have resulted in the two of them leading a Gophers on-court turnaround last season. Instead Jones, playing as a freshman for Duke, was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player after the Blue Devils won the national championship.

As a former college point guard and veteran NBA coach who had coached some of the world’s best at that position, Saunders could have made a convincing pitch to Jones who he had a relationship with. Jones committing to Minnesota might have caused a domino effect in recruiting that at this point would have the program rolling.

Saunders was intrigued with college basketball and returning to Minnesota. He had insights into coaching in the Big Ten because of his close friend Tom Izzo, the legendary Michigan State coach. Over the years Saunders had thought about college coaching and planned to use the famous pregame ball handling and passing show he had learned as a player under coach Bill Musselman at Minnesota. It was a show stopper choreographed with music that had the stands packed 30 minutes before tipoff, with enthusiastic fans ready to clap and roar approval.

No wonder Larson and other insiders were angry when a deal wasn’t reached with Saunders. What they knew is this: When you’re dealing with a big time coaching candidate the strategy is to create a deal that person can be happy with and gives him the authority, structure and resources to be successful. Let’s also make this point: Of course you negotiate and make deals that you wouldn’t for other candidates.

Teague, who was hired as Minnesota AD in 2012, was an outsider from the East. In not developing relationships and understanding the culture here, he failed many times. I don’t think he understood what he had in Saunders.

The most passionate of Gophers basketball fans might now forgive but they won’t forget.

Worth Noting

Gophers senior wide receiver KJ Maye, who played in 13 games and started five in 2014, caught 16 passes for 298 yards and one touchdown. His goals for this season are “maybe like 60 catches, 900 yards,” he said.

Sophomore Brandon Lingen, who played prep football at Wayzata High School, is one of the Gophers trying to replace the departed Maxx Williams, probably the best pass catching tight end in program history. Does Lingen compare himself with Williams?

“Try not to because he’s a really good tight end,” Lingen answered. “But at the same time I try to emulate him, try to be just like him—trying to do what he did well and hopefully some day try to be like him.”

Lingen said earlier this year Williams, now in training camp with the Ravens, took all the Gophers tight ends out to dinner. What is the best advice he has heard from Williams? “Work hard and treat practice like a game,” Lingen said.

Stefon Diggs, the Vikings fifth round rookie draft choice from Maryland, impressed with a 62-yard punt return in Minnesota’s preseason opening win Sunday against the Steelers. Vikings special teams coach Mike Priefer was asked if he anticipates Diggs taking that primary punt return role from incumbent Marcus Sherels, the former Gopher from Rochester, Minnesota.

“I would like to continue to work Marcus [Sherels] in there because if he’s going to be the guy, then we need to make sure he’s ready for the season as well,” Priefer said. “You can’t just roll the ball out there against San Francisco and hope Marcus is the guy. So, were going to continue working the top three returners (including Adam Thielen) as we go forward.”

The Vikings open the regular season on September 14 against San Francisco, but tomorrow night play preseason game No. 2 against the Bucs starting at 7 p.m. in TCF Bank Stadium. Diggs, also a wide receiver, and Sherels, a reserve defensive back going into his sixth NFL season, have four more preseason games to prove their value. So, too, does Thielen, a second-year wide receiver, who didn’t return punts in game action last season. Sherel’s 10.5 career average on punt returns is the best in franchise history. His 15.2 average in 2013 was second best in the NFL.

Sports Media News reported on Tuesday the Vikings-Steelers game averaged 11 million viewers on NBC and was the most watched NFL preseason telecast on any network in five years.

Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki is struggling at the plate with a .231 average and just four home runs and 33 RBI. The team needs offensive production and first baseman Joe Mauer doesn’t have stats worthy of his $23 million salary. He is batting .269, with seven home runs and 50 RBI while usually hitting No. 3 in the lineup. But Twins president Dave St. Peter all but dismissed the notion of returning Mauer, a former All-Star catcher, back to that position. St. Peter said the organization has crossed the “threshold” with Mauer regarding catching because of his concussion history that prompted the switch to first base in 2014.

While the Twins are only 4-8 in their last 12 games, St. Peter is encouraged the club is playing “meaningful games in August for the first time in five years.” The Twins, who lost 90-plus games the previous four years, are a wildcard contender with a 57-57 record. St. Peter hopes that will help season home attendance to total about 2.2 million. The club’s attendance in 2014 was 2,250,606.

Rob Fornasiere, the Gophers assistant head baseball coach, is excited about the return of pitching coaching Todd Oakes who has made a courageous and inspirational recovery from cancer. “I would say the biggest boost we have for the coming season (2016) is the return of Todd Oakes full-time to our coaching staff. Just the overall presence and confidence he brings to the pitching staff I think will have a dramatic effect on our whole team. So you can talk about recruiting all you want, but I still think he is the biggest addition we have coming back to our team.”

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Peterson Tells NBC He Understands Critics

Posted on August 12, 2015August 12, 2015 by David Shama

Controversial Adrian Peterson didn’t play in last Sunday’s nationally televised preseason Vikings-Steelers game but he certainly wasn’t ignored. Among references to the Vikings running back was acknowledgment by NBC that Peterson declined an on-camera interview regarding the incident last year when he beat his four-year-old son with a switch. However, NBC pro football analyst Cris Collinsworth reported a conversation with Peterson where the future Hall of Famer “owned up” to his mistake.

Collinsworth told TV viewers Peterson understands the harsh views people have about him if all they know regarding his character are graphic photos showing the bloody injury his son suffered. Peterson’s supporters, though, including many individuals in the Vikings organization, have long insisted the 30-year-old Texas native is someone they like for his personal qualities and community involvement.

“It was a difficult conversation with him,” Collinsworth said on the NBC telecast. “He explained his family growing up—that he had tough love. That he was spanked by his parents and extended family, and (he) thought that discipline went a long way towards the guy that he became. Also, that many of his friends did not receive that kind of discipline and they’re in jail to this day.”

Adrian Peterson (Photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings)

Peterson has multiple children by different women. He talked to Collinsworth about his 10-year-old daughter “who understood everything that was being said about her father” (involving the child abuse incident and his NFL suspension last season).

Peterson and the Vikings were in Canton, Ohio to play in the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game. Chris Wesseling, writing for NFL.com on Sunday, reported Peterson believes his eventual induction into the Hall of Fame is a “no-brainer.”

Peterson has the third highest all-time average of rushing yards per game, but Wesseling quoted him as having career ambitions that go beyond being acknowledged as football’s greatest running back. He wants to be known as “the greatest player” ever.

Because injuries are a possibility, Peterson probably won’t play in the team’s remaining four preseason games. His first on-field appearance is likely to be the regular season opener September 14 against the 49ers.

Worth Noting

Sports Illustrated’s August 10 College Football Preview predicts the Gophers will be third in the Big Ten’s West Division after Wisconsin and Nebraska. Iowa, Northwestern, Illinois and Purdue will finish behind Minnesota.

Ohio State is the magazine’s choice to win the East Division and is ranked No. 1 in the country. S.I. projects a four-team college football playoff between the Buckeyes, Auburn, Notre Dame and TCU. The Gophers play at Ohio State November 7 and host TCU in Minneapolis September 3.

About 5,000 tickets remain for the TCU game that is expected to sell out. Among fans attending the game will be about 8,000 University of Minnesota students, including 3,000 who purchased tickets. Another 5,000 will be freshmen who annually receive free tickets to the home opener.

Among true freshmen making a good impression at early Gophers practices were offensive tackle Quinn Oseland and running back James Johanesson. Oseland, 6-6, 301 pounds from Springfield, Illinois, was rated the No. 2 offensive tackle in Illinois by Scout.com. Johannesson, the two-time North Dakota Gatorade Player of the Year, rushed for 81 career touchdowns at Fargo South High School. If Johannesson, 6-1, 221 pounds, becomes a starter for the Gophers some day, he will draw comparisons with Barry Mayer, a similar size running back from Fargo who led Minnesota in rushing in 1968 and 1969.

Mayer’s son, Adam Mayer, is a freshman walk-on wide receiver with the Gophers. The 6-1, 205-pound Mayer is from Concord, California where he played on a state championship high school team and was considered one of the better prep receivers in the Bay Area.

Gophers senior wide receiver KJ Maye liked what he saw of true freshman wide receiver Rashad Still during informal summer workouts. “The way that he can go get the deep ball and the way that he learns (impressed),” Maye said. “He learns pretty good.”

Still, 6-5, 200 pounds and from El Paso, Texas, was ranked as the No. 62 senior prep wide receiver in the nation by ESPN.

Dan O’Brien, Gophers senior associate athletic director, said his teenage son Casey had a successful surgery for cancer on his right lung last week. In a few months Casey will undergo surgery on the left lung with intent to remove all the cancer in his body.

O’Brien will have to decide whether he wants to be a candidate for the athletic director’s job vacated by Norwood Teague.

It’s interesting to look back at the comments of Rick Pitino about Teague. Pitino, the Louisville basketball coach, is the father of Gophers men’s coach Richard Pitino who was Teague’s most important coaching hire in three years at Minnesota. In April of 2014 the older Pitino, talking on 1500 ESPN, referred to Teague as one of the five best athletic directors in the country. “He’s an awesome AD,” Pitino said. “He is going to bring them to heights they’ve never seen before.”

Gene Taylor, the former North Dakota State athletic director who is credited with helping shape the Bison’s nationally prominent football success, told the Fargo Forum last week he isn’t interested in the Gophers job. Taylor is now deputy director of athletics at Iowa.

Chris Obekpa, the 6-9 shot blocking center the Gophers reportedly once had interest in, has transferred from St. John’s to UNLV. Obekpa, who was suspended by St. John’s earlier this year, will use his final season of college eligibility (2016-2017) at UNLV.

A source told Sports Headliners Dr. Bill McGuire’s option to buy eight acres of land near Target Field and the Farmers Market expires at month’s end. McGuire’s intent has been to build a new outdoor soccer stadium there or in St. Paul as part of the effort to acquire a Major League Soccer franchise for Minnesota. Proponents of the Minneapolis site want to see Hennepin County involved in covering infrastructure costs.

Danny Santana, the former Twins shortstop recently sent down to AAA Rochester after hitting .218 here, is batting .266 with the Red Wings.

The Gophers have commitments from Arizona, Illinois, Michigan State, UCLA and Washington to play in a round-robin baseball tournament at the new U.S. Bank Stadium. Rob Fornasiere, Minnesota’s assistant head coach, said the Pac 12/Big Ten Challenge will be the first weekend in March of 2018.

Minnesota native Karl Gregor is the new men’s head tennis coach at Tufts University. Gregor, a Wayzata High School alum, was interim coach of the team last season. He is a 1997 graduate of the Air Force Academy where he played No. 1 singles.

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U Not Switching Prize QB to Defense

Posted on August 7, 2015August 7, 2015 by David Shama

The Gophers have their first official practice today and in the weeks ahead it will be interesting to watch the quarterbacks. All of Dinkytown knows redshirt junior Mitch Leidner is the starter but what will the pecking order be behind him? Will fans see prize freshman Demry Croft this season?

Jerry Kill made it clear earlier this week Croft will remain a quarterback. “He’s a guy that played receiver but we’re not doing that,” the Minnesota head coach said.

The 6-5 Croft was a wide receiver at Boylan High School in Rockford, Illinois before switching to quarterback. Kill, who said after signing Croft to a National Letter of Intent last winter that the young QB was a “steal,” is high on the 18-year-old’s athleticism and poise. Defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys has even asked about Croft’s availability for defense.

“I know coach Claeys would like to have him over on defense, so any time he does that, that means he’s a pretty good athlete,” Kill said. “I informed coach Claeys that will not happen.”

Kill told Sports Headliners that Claeys thought the 198-pound Croft could add weight and with his athleticism become a defensive end. Kill has made defense the priority at Minnesota but he’s keeping Croft at his present position. Scout.com ranked Croft No. 1 among Illinois senior prep quarterbacks.

Last spring offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover raved about Croft. “We feel like the sky’s the limit for him,” Limegrover said.

Kill will think about redshirting Croft—just like many programs do with true freshmen quarterbacks. Redshirt sophomore Chris Streveler was last season’s No. 2 quarterback and also during spring practices. He is a gifted runner who Kill said is one of the five fastest players on the team. During offseason informal workouts, Kill told Streveler to not only work on passing but also catching the ball.

“We may practice him a little bit there to see what he does, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to play him at wide receiver,” Kill said. “I just want to make that clear.”

Redshirt freshman quarterback Jacques Perra impressed Limegrover in spring practices. He’s a superior passer to Streveler, and the former walk-on from Roseville High School could some day be the No. 2 quarterback behind Leidner. Limegrover likes the consistency of Perra who during his senior season at Roseville threw for over 3,100 yards and had 35 touchdowns.

Leidner is the No. 1 quarterback and the Gophers are hopeful the former Lakeville South standout will impress with his passing this fall. He attended the famous Manning Passing Academy in Louisiana this summer and it was a growth experience for him. “He was a different kid when he came back from Manning’s camp,” Kill said. “He was down there with some of the best (college quarterbacks).”

How Leidner looks in practices and early games starting with September 3 against No. 2 ranked TCU will be a big part of the storyline about the quarterbacks. Just like the QB depth chart behind him.

Worth Noting

There will be a couple of high profile names that likely will circulate fast online as Gophers fans think about who the University of Minnesota should consider for the next athletic director. Two names could be Tony Dungy, the former Gophers quarterback and Super Bowl winning coach, and Pete Najarian, the ex-Gophers linebacker and financial investing authority. (Read a lot more about the AD topic here on Monday).

Mick Tingelhoff, the former Vikings All-Pro center who made 240 consecutive career starts for the Vikings, will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio tomorrow. Former Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton, also a member of the Hall of Fame, will be his presenter. Live TV coverage of the ceremonies for the inductees, including Tingelhoff, starts at 6 p.m. Minneapolis time on the NFL Network.

The Vikings preseason Hall of Fame game on Sunday in Canton against the Steelers begins at 7 p.m. Minneapolis time. The game will be televised on NBC and KARE 11.

Richard Pitino’s basketball team leaves Monday for exhibition games in Spain. The Gophers will play against Spanish club teams and Pitino admitted he doesn’t know a lot about the competition. His coaching approach won’t be as intense as during the season, and part of the mission in Spain is to bond as a team. Planned activities on the trip include visiting the famous Barcelona soccer stadium and seeing a flamenco show in Madrid.

Pitino was asked about the recent announcement that Wisconsin’s legendary coach Bo Ryan will retire after next season. This spring the Badgers made it to the Final Four before losing to Duke in the national championship game. Ryan has coached the Badgers to a fourth place finish or better in the Big Ten during each of his 14 seasons in Madison. “What he accomplished was miraculous,” Pitino said.

Then the Minnesota coach laughed in telling a story. Prior to the 2015 Final Four, Pitino texted Ryan that he hoped for a Badgers NCAA championship—and that the coach would retire.

The Vikings have exclusive five-year rights to pursue a Major League Soccer team in the new downtown multipurpose stadium once it opens in 2016. However, Dr. Bill McGuire and his ownership group have emerged as the MLS favorite if Minneapolis-St. Paul is granted an expansion team. McGuire is trying to win approval from MLS by building an outdoor soccer stadium in the Twin Cities, but that doesn’t mean Vikings owners (the Wilfs) won’t consider promoting soccer exhibitions involving international teams in the new covered stadium.

With or without the Wilf family, the new U.S. Bank Stadium may host soccer, according to Lester Bagley. The Vikings executive vice president for stadium development told Sports Headliners the building’s management company, SMG, is interested in booking soccer matches.

Bagley said that while the Vikings are disappointed the MLS aligned with an outdoor stadium plan, they understand. “They want to play outdoors on grass, and God bless them. We’re supportive of MLS coming here and we’re supportive of what Dr. McGuire is trying to accomplish.”

Bagley said MLS soccer in U.S. Bank Stadium would have an “indoor-outdoor” feel because of the building’s 60 percent clear roof, and the five glass pivoting doors that will be 95 feet at their peaks and can be open weather allowing. Part of the Wilf’s plan for MLS soccer was a stadium curtaining system allowing seating setups for 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000 fans. The stadium will have a Vikings game day capacity of 66,000.

Gophers assistant head baseball coach Rob Fornasiere said the program will open its new 5,000 square feet indoor hitting and pitching facility later this year at Siebert Field. Gifts totaling $1 million from former Gopher and now Twins reliever Glen Perkins and ex-Gopher Dick McCullough (1964 national championship team) made the hitting and pitching facility possible. Perkins also contributed $125,000 toward construction of Siebert Field, Minnesota’s on-campus baseball home that opened in 2013.

Gophers baseball alums from 1956-1964 celebrated championships and other memories on Wednesday, playing golf at Dwan Golf Club in Bloomington, and with a party at one of the former player’s home. From 1956-1964 Minnesota won five Big Ten championships and had only one overall losing record. In 1956, 1960 and 1964 the Gophers won NCAA national championships.

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