Gophers football coach Jerry Kill predicted this morning on the Big Ten Network that work will soon start on a long anticipated new football complex at the University of Minnesota. The complex—which is expected to include an indoor practice facility and coaches offices—is part of a $190 million athletics project to upgrade facilities for Gophers men and women student-athletes. The entire project’s start date was delayed in June but Kill expressed no concern today when asked if it will be completed.
“Just got out of meetings…three or four days ago. We’ll be starting at the latest probably late September, early October,” Kill said from Chicago at a news conference for Big Ten football coaches. “We’ve already got a finish date where it needs to be finished.
“The hold up there (on the overall project) was probably football a little bit because we wanted to make sure everything we had in there, and what we wanted, was right before you take it any farther. We want it to be the state-of-the-art. We don’t want to do something and do it over again.
“It will be started and hopefully part of it will be finished at a year and a half, maybe even quicker.”
Kill didn’t elaborate on what parts of the athletics facilities project will start first but the implication from his remarks today and in the past about the importance of the football complex leave no doubt about it being at the top of the construction list. Kill has often referred to the importance of facilities to his recruiting and continued success at Minnesota.
The Gophers existing football complex has long ranked toward the bottom among Big Ten facilities. Iowa is the latest Big Ten program to move into a new facility. “The impact it’s had on recruiting has been exciting,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said yesterday.
The Gophers were 5-3 in Big Ten games last season, the program’s best league record since 2003. There are a lot of predictions the Gophers won’t match last year’s conference record that was part of an overall 8-5 record.
“We keep improving and keep getting better,” Kill said today. “Last year I said we’d have a better team (than) we had a year ago. We firmly believe that we’ll be more athletic and a better football team this year.
“But there are lot of other people that are here today that can say the same things but we feel good about our football team and the talent.”
Worth Noting
Colorado State, the Gophers second opponent of the season, was picked by the media on Wednesday to finish third in the six-team Mountain Division of the Mountain West Conference. Rams wide receiver Rashard Higgins, an All-American candidate, was chosen as the conference’s preseason Offensive Player of the Year.
Among the storylines at this weekend’s 3M Championship at the TPC in Blaine is whether Tom Lehman can become the first Minnesotan to win the nationally televised senior tour event. David Graham, a 2015 inductee into the World Golf Hall of Fame, was asked yesterday about the Alexandria, Minnesota native.
“I think he could very well win,” Graham said. “He’s one of the dominate players on the Champions Tour. I would think that if he got off to a good start—which you have to do in any tournament to get into some kind of a rhythm and some kind of a flow—he would certainly be somebody who is more than capable of winning. No question.”
At age 56, this could be the time for Lehman to make a strong run at winning the 3M Championship. Graham said it’s proven golfers from 51 to 54 years old are the most likely to win on the Champions Tour. “Statistically, when you get to 55 or 56 you start to go down a little bit,” he said.
Admission and parking are free at this year’s event that includes a promotion with golf legends Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. Graham, too, is playing in the Greats of Golf Challenge on Saturday. The Champions Tour event here has donated over $23 million to charity since 1993.
Men and women participating in the University of Minnesota’s 23 sports averaged an impressive spring semester GPA of 3.27. The highest GPA was women’s track at 3.49. The football team, with the largest number of athletes in any of the 23 programs, had a GPA of 3.04.
The Vikings organization receives keys to the new downtown covered stadium on July 29, 2016. Shortly after that the team will play two preseason games in U.S. Bank Stadium, a facility boosters are predicting will be the best in the NFL. Although no preseason dates or opponents have been determined, don’t be surprised if the Vikings play their first two exhibition games on the road and then host a rivalry opponent like the Packers in the preseason home opener.
There will not be a major college baseball team in the country playing in a billion dollar stadium like the Gophers. Starting in 2017 the Gophers will play early season games in the projected $1.1 billion dollar U.S. Bank Stadium. Other college baseball teams from the state will use the stadium too.
Timberwolves forward-center Gorgui Dieng is expected to play for Team Africa tomorrow against Team World in the first NBA game ever in Africa. Dieng, a native of Senegal, is part of an NBA roster of players from Africa that also includes former Wolves forward Luc Mbah a Moute (Cameroon). The Team World roster includes NBA stars and brothers Marc and Pau Gasol. The exhibition game from Johannesburg will be televised on ESPN starting at 8 a.m. Minneapolis time.
The 11th annual Little League Wood Bat Tournament is a charitable event for Little League teams ages 10-12. The tourney began Thursday and 23 teams from the metro area are playing at Lakeview Terrace Park and Lee Park in Robbinsdale, and Isaacson Park (Honeywell Fields) in Golden Valley. Games are from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. today (Friday) at all three playing sites. The tournament, which goes through Sunday and exclusively uses wood bats, benefits Baseball in Benin. The goal is to bring a team from Benin, a small country in West Africa, to participate in next year’s Wood Bat Tournament. More at BaseballinBenin.org.
That was former Minnesota Daily sports editor Marshall Tanick, for decades a prominent Minneapolis attorney, explaining in an opinion article for the Star Tribune that there is precedent for considering revocation of Bill Cosby’s Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to him by George W. Bush. Tanick, writing in the July 28 Star Tribune, cited examples of organizations that have withdrawn honors in the face of controversy including the 2014 Chicago Little League Baseball team which had its national championship taken away. Tanick suggested President Barack Obama should consider revocation of Cosby’s honor in light of revelations about the famous comedian’s conduct toward women.