Vikings – Page 191 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

NFL Scouting Combine Not the Gospel

Posted on February 27, 2015February 27, 2015 by David Shama

The NFL Scouting Combine that ended earlier this week in Indianapolis drew plenty of attention (as usual) from pro football fans but all the measureables recorded of participating players certainly don’t guarantee future results.

Representatives of the NFL’s 32 teams judged more than 300 college prospects, evaluating speed, strength and what’s in their collective noggins (Wonderlic intelligence test). Over the years the combine has proven this: low test scores won’t deter players from fooling the personnel gurus and becoming All-Pros.

Former Vikings All-Pro defensive end Jared Allen wasn’t drafted until the fourth round in 2004 by the Chiefs. Michael Salfino, writing in the February 19 Wall Street Journal, offered insight on Allen in his article about the combine. “Jared Allen became a fearsome pass rusher despite being third-weakest since 1999 in the bench press.”

Combine results from 2015 aren’t yet posted on NFLcombineresults.com but details of prior years are. Ever heard of Tom Brady? He is the guy who won four Super Bowls as the Patriots quarterback despite being a sixth round draft choice. Salfino points out that since 1999 Brady ranks 283rd among the 288 quarterbacks tested in the vertical leap at the combine. “Coming out of Michigan in 2000, Brady barely managed to get himself two feet off the ground in the vertical-leap drill,” Salfino wrote.

A source close to the Vikings told Sports Headliners that going into last year’s NFL Draft the Vikings weren’t interested in selecting quarterback Johnny Manziel. “Johnny Football” was drafted by the Browns’ with the No. 22 choice in the first round last year while the Vikings took Teddy Bridgewater at No. 32, the final pick of the round. Maybe Manziel’s 32 score on the Wonderlic (Bridgewater had a 20) was part of the Browns’ decision-making process.

Manziel was no wonder last fall as a rookie having zero touchdown passes, two interceptions and a passer rating of 42 in five games (two starts). Bridgewater was selected as the quarterback on the Pro Football Writers of America All-Rookie team. His percentage completion of 64.4 percent was the third highest in NFL history for a rookie.

While college prospects at the combine parade around in track outfits, it might be best to remember how these guys played on the field during their college careers. NFL teams have countless hours of game films to use in evaluating prospects and scouts are seeing players live week after week in the fall.

ESPN talk show host Colin Cowherd wisecracked last week on his show that if he were running an NFL team he would instruct the personnel guys to stay home. Instead he suggested dispatching a private detective and psychologist to Indy.

Worth Noting

NFL scouts also look at college prospects during pro days at various schools. Expected to participate at the Gophers Pro Day on Monday are former U players Michael Amaefula, Cameron Botticelli, David Cobb, Derrick Engel, Zac Epping, Isaac Fruechte, Logan Hutton, Marcus Jones, Donnell Kirkwood, Harold Legania, Ben Perry, Cedric Thompson, Derrick Wells, Maxx Williams, Damien Wilson and Devon Wright. The event isn’t open to the public.

The Vikings will use their No. 11 first round draft choice to select Stanford junior offensive tackle Andrus Peat, according to this week’s NFL mock draft by Sports Illustrated’s Don Banks. He predicts on Si.com the Browns, drafting one spot after the Vikings, will take DeVante Parker, a wide receiver from Louisville and former college teammate of Bridgewater’s.

Parker, 6-3 and 210, is one of the best wide receiver prospects in the 2015 draft. Although Parker doesn’t have elite speed, he has quickness and is able to get open and make yards after receptions. Bridgewater’s familiarity with Parker causes speculation the Vikings, who need help at wide receiver, will give plenty of thought to drafting him.

The Gophers basketball team upset Michigan State last night for the program’s first win in East Lansing since 1990. It was one of Minnesota’s best performances of the season but the Gophers are a disappointing 6-10 in Big Ten games. Many college basketball authorities thought before the season the Gophers would finish between third and sixth in the standings but with two regular season games remaining Minnesota is in seventh place.

The Gophers have lost seven conference games by a total of 27 points. Jim Dutcher believes if Minnesota had former Apple Valley star and Duke freshman Tyus Jones the Gophers would be around .500 in the Big Ten. Jones, among the nation’s elite point guards, has been a clutch performer for the Blue Devils. “He’s a big game player who knows when certain things need to be done,” said Dutcher, the former Gophers coach.

Dutcher thinks it will be a mistake if Jones decides to enter the NBA Draft after this season. He said Jones, 6-1, 190, needs more experience and physical strength to maximize his chances of succeeding in the pros.

Darryl Mitchell, who was an all-conference selection on Dutcher’s 1982 Gophers Big Ten championship team, has been practicing law in Florida but is relocating to Minnesota in March. Mitchell was a first team Parade Magazine high school All-American and chose the Gophers over other schools including 1970s powerhouse UCLA.

The Western Collegiate Hockey Association has three teams in the top 11 in the country in two national polls, with No. 2 Minnesota State, Mankato; No. 3 Michigan Tech and No. 11 Bowling Green. Tonight and tomorrow evening Minnesota State hosts Tech.

“I think we’re as competitive as any other league in college hockey,” WCHA commissioner Bill Robertson told Sports Headliners. “We have the hope and intention to get three teams into the NCAA Tournament and we’re on track for that. We could also have more if a surprise team wins the WCHA Final Five which would give them an automatic bid.”

The Final Five will be March 20 and 21 at the Xcel Energy Center. Robertson hopes to approach 8,000 fans in attendance on each of the dates. Ticket information is available via Ticketmaster.com.

St. Thomas men’s basketball coach John Tauer was featured in a February 17 article in the New York Times. Tauer is not only one of the most successful Division III basketball coaches in the country but is also among the few who teach in the classroom, according to the story. Tauer, who has his doctorate in social psychology, is currently teaching a class called Motivation and Emotion.

The Tommies, who won an MIAC record 10th regular season title in 2015, open the playoffs tonight at home against Gustavus. St. Thomas finished 22-3 and 17-3 in the MIAC while the Gusties were 16-10 and 11-9. The Tommies are one of only three Division III programs to have won 1,600 games.

Tommies football coach Glenn Caruso speaks tomorrow at the Chicago Catholic League Coaches Association Clinic at Fenwick Park High School in Oak Park, Illinois. Other speakers include Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz. Caruso is 73-13 in seven seasons at UST and the Tommies have participated in the NCAA playoffs five of the last six seasons.

Tickets are on sale for the sixth annual Camden’s Concert at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. The event will be held July 13 featuring The Wright Brothers who were popular at last summer’s concert and helped generate funding for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Tickets are available via Hopkinsartscenter.com.

1 comment

Book Reminds Why Sports Inspire

Posted on February 25, 2015February 25, 2015 by David Shama

Sometimes I am reminded why sports has played such a prominent role in my life. My latest wakeup call was prompted by reading Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville by the late Stephen Jay Gould. Gould’s 2003 book consists of essays he wrote about his lifelong passion for baseball that appeared in publications like the New York Times. Gould was a paleontologist but his intelligent musings about his baseball love affair introduced him to another audience.

A Harvard intellectual, Gould grew up in New York City in the 1940’s and 1950’s, a golden era for baseball in New York. He watched his beloved Yankees in the World Series almost every year. He saw baseball gods like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle from the Yankees, and the Giants Willie Mays and the Dodgers Jackie Robinson.

Although Gould died from cancer in 2002 at age 60, his passion for baseball over a period of seven decades lives on, and his essays stirred something in me. As I read his book, I realized how the great and rare moments of sports have impacted my being while both enriching and frustrating my life.

I say frustrated because slogging through the mediocre and miserable performances of many teams and athletes year after year is no fun. It’s an experience that lessens my fervor for spectator sports and creates both apathy and anger that my sports world has frequently fallen on hard times.

The last great ride for me came in the autumn of 2009 watching Brett Favre. The legendary quarterback was 40 but in his first season with the Vikings he threw darts where no balls had any right to go. His statistics included career bests in completions (68.4 percent) and passer rating (107.2).

The Saints won the postseason’s dirty play of the year award with their shameless diving at Favre’s legs. Then the Vikings screwed themselves late in that infamous NFC championship game by killing a chance to win after being penalized for having 12 players on the field.

The Humpty Dumpty end to the season and Super Bowl chase couldn’t spoil my satisfaction in watching the old gunslinger will the Vikings to one of their best seasons ever. No Vikings quarterback since scramblin’ Fran Tarkenton in the 1960’s had brought such entertainment as Favre. Tarkenton—who seemingly could run away from tacklers so long you had time to make a sandwich—brought that rare skill level and excitement that we’ve seen too little of in this town.

Where have you gone, Kirby Puckett? The center fielder told teammates they should jump on his back because he would carry the Twins. Perhaps he never carried the load better than when his game six winning home run forced a seventh game in the 1991 World Series against the Braves. “And we’ll see you tomorrow night,” TV’s Jack Buck told the world.

The Twins unexpectedly won both the 1987 and 1991 World Series, the only two MLB titles in franchise history. The nation watched when Twins heroes like Puckett and pitchers Frank Viola and Jack Morris showed they were World Series competitors and heroes for the ages.

For the ages? Coach Herb Brooks and his 1980 Winter Olympics players are at the head of that line. Miracles are not forgotten and the US Hockey team’s 1980 gold medal triumph at Lake Placid still stirs emotions of all sorts including national pride. The best moment, of course, was America’s stunning upset of the Soviet Union. The US team consisted of amateurs while the Red Machine was capable of playing in the National Hockey League.

For years the Soviet Union had tried to bully America politically. Premier Nikita Khrushchev had long ago proclaimed, “We will bury you.” In 1980 America had lost prestige in the world and at home. When the Soviet hockey team humiliated the US in an exhibition game prior to the Olympics, America shrugged its collective shoulders and hung its head lower. But the US Hockey team’s semi-final ground-shattering triumph had Al Michaels asking the TV audience: “Do you believe in miracles?” Americans found new swagger and confidence about their country and themselves. The stunning upset and later gold medal win in February of 1980—35 years ago—helped jumpstart an American comeback at home and on the world stage that saw the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union empire.

Those who had known Brooks for many years may have been surprised by how far the former Gophers coach led the US team but they weren’t completely caught off-guard. The St. Paul native led the Gophers to national championships in 1974, 1976 and 1979. It was the greatest period ever for Gophers hockey.

The 1970’s and the immediate decades before delivered a scrapbook full of great sports memories for Minnesotans. Bud Grant’s four Super Bowl teams set the standard for a franchise that is still trying to climb back to the biggest stage. Tarkenton, Eller, Page, Marshall. Their jerseys are still worn by fans and their images are forever remembered.

Bill Musselman’s Gophers basketball teams created an electric environment in Williams Arena with their pre-game Harlem Globetrotters routine during the 1970’s. The coach got in trouble with NCAA rules but he ignited a passion inside Williams Arena that’s never been duplicated. The highlight of the Musselman era was the 1972 Big Ten championship team that included NBA first round draft choices Ron Behagen and Jim Brewer, and baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield.

The Twins Rod Carew flirted with baseball’s immortals when he chased a .400 batting average and graced the cover of Time Magazine in 1977. The sweet swinging Carew was hitting over .400 in early summer of that memorable season before finishing at .388.

The Twins were an American League power in the 1960s led by a wrecking crew of home run sluggers captained by the great Harmon Killebrew. Long ball baseball put an excitement on the field during that era which the Twins have never duplicated. The team high point was reaching the World Series in 1965. Invincible pitcher Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers were too much for the Twins in their first Minnesota World Series appearance.

The Gophers made two trips to the Rose Bowl in the early 1960’s. The second time they got it right with a 21-3 win over UCLA. The glory of that win, though, didn’t match the Gophers winning the 1960 national championship. That was Minnesota’s seventh and perhaps last national title. The Gophers, led by legendary coach Bernie Bierman, won national championships in 1934, 1935, 1936, 1940 and 1941. Coach Henry Williams also led Minnesota to a national title in 1904.

Bierman’s titles came before another glorious run in Minnesota. The Minneapolis Lakers dominated pro basketball from the late 1940’s through 1954, winning five world titles and boasting pro basketball’s first superstar. George Mikan, the giant 6-10 center, was so revered that he was commonly called Mr. Basketball. When the Lakers once played in New York’s famous Madison Square Garden, the marquee said “George Mikan vs. the Knicks.”

Olympic gold, national championships, world titles, men named Bierman, Brooks, Carew, Favre, Grant, Killebrew, Mikan and Puckett. Whew! That’s the kind of high life this town knew.

Comments Welcome

Vikings Got Cosell at ’75 Super Bowl

Posted on January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 by David Shama

It was 40 years ago this month the Vikings lost to the Steelers in Super Bowl IX, and while that memory brings no joy to Doug Kingsriter he does recall with fondness an incident involving two of his Minnesota teammates and legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell.

The 1975 Super Bowl was played in New Orleans and the NFL assigned the Steelers to a posh hotel for their stay in the Crescent City. The Vikings, according to Kingsriter, were sent to a motel located adjacent to the New Orleans airport because they had alienated league authorities at the Super Bowl the year before, criticizing the Houston practice field locker room which had no lockers, nails in the wall for hanging clothes and birds flying around in the showers. Kingsriter said the New Orleans motel was “near the end of runway No. 9,” and in the days leading up to the big game the Vikings found themselves listening to one airplane after another taking off and landing.

To pass the time during Super Bowl week—and perhaps to ignore the roar of jet engines—Kingsriter and other Vikings organized a team cribbage tournament. On the Friday afternoon before Sunday’s game he and a couple of teammates were in one of the motel rooms playing cribbage. At the same time Cosell was interviewing Fran Tarkenton in the motel’s open air courtyard for a segment that was to be seen the next night on ABC TV.

Cosell died in 1995 but he is well remembered by those who knew him and millions who watched him on ABC programming including “Monday Night Football” and “Wide World of Sports.” Cosell was known for “tell it like it is” sports reporting and bragged about his accomplishments. He certainly was among TV’s biggest personalities in the 1970s and 1980s even though his arrogance alienated viewers across the country.

“There have always been mixed emotions about Howard Cosell,” the comedian Buddy Hackett once said. “Some people hate him like poison and other people just hate him regular.”

A former lawyer and highly intelligent, Cosell was also admired by many for his willingness to ask probing questions and deliver information to viewers that went beyond much of the drivel from other TV sports journalists. Presumably on that Friday afternoon about 40 years ago, Cosell conducted an interview of substance with Tarkenton, the Vikings Hall of Fame quarterback.

Problem is, we will never know. The interview never aired because Cosell was so upset with the shenanigans of Vikings linebacker Wally Hilgenberg and All-Pro defensive tackle Alan Page.

How did it all come about? Kingsriter, a tight end with the Vikings from 1973-1975, thinks the incident was pretty much spontaneous and probably the creation of the fun-loving Hilgenberg who likely decided enlisting someone of Page’s stature to play a prank on Cosell was a good idea.

“(While playing cribbage) we kept hearing this snickering outside and pitter-pattering running by the door,” Kingsriter remembered. “I went out to see what was going on. I saw Hilgenberg and Page. They both had waste baskets—full of water.

“They were looking down (from the second floor walkway to the open court yard) and they were pretty much over Cosell who had his back to them. He was interviewing Fran.

“Hilgenberg and Page were counting silently were their mouths, ‘1, 2,’ and kind of swaying the buckets in rhythms. I looked at Fran and he saw it (the water) coming, and he didn’t flinch. You know Fran had great peripheral vision. He just sat there.

“They hit Cosell square. When I say square they knocked his toupee off, not totally off but it was off to the side. He quick grabbed it and put it back on before he turned around. They got him in the back, in the head, and really soaked him.

“Well, Hilgenberg ran away. Page stayed there. He hung over the railing looking down with a huge Cheshire cat grin, just looking down at Cosell. Then Cosell turned around and he points his finger up at Alan. He said, ‘I am gonna get you for this, Page.’ ”

Cosell was angry and in the months ahead maybe he forgave Page for the prank but he certainly didn’t forget. The next season, on October 27, 1975, Cosell and ABC were televising the Vikings-Bears game as part of the Monday Night Football series. Page didn’t play in the game and Cosell knew why.

Multiple times during the broadcast Cosell reported Page was sidelined because of hemorrhoids. “This was true but he wanted to make sure that everybody in the world knew that Alan had hemorrhoids,” Kingsriter said.

Kingsriter believes ABC should have aired the interview including when the water hit Cosell. The film could have been edited to show Cosell getting soaked but not losing his toupee. The man with the hall of fame ego had an opportunity to poke fun at himself. “He missed what I thought was a great opportunity to help his image,” Kingsriter said.

As for the Super Bowl game, it was the Vikings’ image that took a hit on January 12, 1975. The Steelers held the Vikings to 119 yards of total offense in a 16-6 win. It was the Vikings’ second consecutive Super Bowl loss, having lost the year before to the Dolphins, 24-7.

But when it came to Howard Cosell, neither the Steelers nor the Dolphins had anything on the Vikings thanks to the chutzpah of Hilgenberg and Page.

Comments Welcome