David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Worth Noting

Posted on March 5, 2012March 5, 2012 by David Shama

Condolences to the Fitzgerald family, including Larry Sr., Larry Jr., and Marcus, following the death of Sally Fitzgerald, their mother and grandmother. Services were held last Friday in Chicago.

The NBA’s compacted, strike-shortened season can be ridiculous as witnessed last week when the Wolves played on three consecutive nights—all road games. No wonder the Wolves, including Kevin Love who had a busy All-Star Weekend and was suffering from the flu during the week, looked sluggish at mid-week.

Gophers senior forward Trevor Mbakwe, injured and unable to play since November 27, was ceremoniously named the sixth man of the game on Saturday in Minnesota’s 81-69 win over Nebraska. The Williams Arena crowd responded with a standing ovation for Minnesota’s best player.

Paper work has been submitted to the NCAA requesting one final season of eligibility for Mbakwe since he was only able to play in seven games. It’s not known when the NCAA will respond and if Mbakwe will want to play next season for the Gophers, or pursue a professional career.

Sophomore guard Chip Armelin had a career high 20 points off the bench in Minnesota’s win, the last Big Ten regular season game prior to the start of Thursday’s conference tournament. He was given a rare second half start. Armelin has talked in the past about playing college football. It will be interesting in the coming months to see if he tries to play both football and basketball, or chooses one sport.

Coach Jerry Kill will provide C.O.R.E.S. members with a look at his Gophers football program on Thursday. Minnesota starts spring football practice on March 22. Ron Stolski, Brainerd High football coach and executive director of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association, will introduce Kill. C.O.R.E.S. members can still make reservations by contacting Jim Dotseth. C.O.R.E.S. is an acronym for coaches, officials, educators, reporters and sports fans.

Fox Sports North televises the first of five Twins spring training games starting tonight at 6 p.m. when Minnesota plays Boston.

Patrick Reusse, talking on 1500 ESPN last week, credited a caller with a different way to look at the public commitment for a new Vikings stadium: The team ownership is willing to spend $427 million on the proposed $975 million facility and will use it only 10 or 12 times per year. The state and city, investing a combined $548 million, gets a covered facility to use for more than 300 days per year for community sports and a variety of major events. Seems like a good return on investment.

License plate seen Saturday on the all-electric Nissan Leaf car: Ybuygas.

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Search Firm Identifies U A.D. Profile

Posted on March 2, 2012March 2, 2012 by David Shama

At a Monday meeting earlier this week a representative of Parker Executive Search described what the Atlanta-based company will look for in the next University of Minnesota athletic director.

The University search advisory and search committees were told that Parker will seek candidates who it believes can foster a program that successfully graduates student-athletes, wins championships, and operates within the rules and ethics of the school and NCAA.

The two committees will help generate candidates to fill the vacancy created by departing athletic director Joel Maturi, but much of the searching will be done by Parker. Grassroots searching will be aided by a series of listening meetings with University supporters that will be held on campus next week.

Parker will conduct a national search that ultimately will help generate a few finalists to be reviewed by the four-person search committee and one or more names are expected to be forwarded to school president Eric Kaler. The Parker firm—also retained in 2010 to identify head coaching candidates for Gophers football—has been involved with many searches for athletic directors across the country.

Those searches have typically—although not always—resulted in the hiring of a person with previous administrative experience in an athletic department, often athletic directors willing to become directors at other schools. Also, with a significant representation of University employees on the search advisory and search committees, it seems likely the next Gophers athletic director will have an academic-athletic background rather than a business or legal resume.

Non-traditional candidates can be attractive, though, if it’s the right person. Many will argue Paul Giel, who came to campus from WCCO Radio, was the best Gophers athletic director since World War II. Pat Richter, who once was an executive with Oscar Mayer, received a lot of praise for his work as Wisconsin’s athletic director in the 1990s. Like Giel and Richter, Pat Haden is another former college football hero, and he returned to his alma mater (USC) in 2010 to become athletic director, giving up a law career and broadcast duties to re-energize a sagging athletic department.

A smart search at Minnesota won’t deal in any stereotypes involving gender, race, age—or heaven forbid—a non-academic background.

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UST Football to Head North in May

Posted on March 2, 2012March 2, 2012 by David Shama

Coach Glenn Caruso told Sports Headliners his St. Thomas football team will travel to Winnipeg in late May to play a game against a club team made up of men about 18 to 30 years old.

Division III rules allow teams to play a foreign game every three years. All MIAC teams are permitted seven spring practices but the foreign game policy allows additional practices.

Three years ago Caruso took the Tommies to Winnipeg for a game against another club team. Asked about the score, Caruso didn’t recall but said St. Thomas won by a “pretty good chunk.”

A few extra practices are useful and winning big is better than the alternative but Caruso raved about something else when discussing plans to head across the border. “We’ll play everyone on the squad,” he said. “The benefit (to the trip) is building camaraderie.”

In four seasons under Caruso the Tommies have become a national Division III power. St. Thomas was 13-0 last fall before losing in the semifinal NCAA Division III playoffs to UW-Whitewater.

Next season the Tommies will open at UW-Eau Claire, playing a program that defeated St. John’s last year. The second nonconference game is at home against UW-RiverFalls. “It certainly gets us ready for our conference (schedule),” Caruso said.

The Tommies games will again be broadcast on WCCO Radio. Caruso said he’s heard from various sources including recruits that the broadcasts are making an impact.

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