Condolences to the family of Judy Mona Schell who passed away on Saturday. Her family included husband George and brother Dave Mona.
The Lions have lost 13 straight dating back to last season. Opponents have outscored the Lions by 190 points. The latest loss was 47-10 to the Tennessee Titans. You wonder half seriously if the Lions could win the Southeastern Conference championship competing against Alabama, Florida and other quality college teams in the football crazy south.
Gophers’ athletic director Joel Maturi said six hockey playing schools would be needed to form a Big Ten Conference. Penn State has a quality club hockey program but presently the Big Ten programs with intercollegiate hockey are Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State and Wisconsin.
Lane Kiffin, the Bloomington Jefferson alum, impressed Maturi when he was a candidate for the Gopher football job almost two years ago. He liked Kiffin’s energy, passion for football and Minnesota roots. Of course, Maturi said, he was concerned about Kiffin having no previous head coaching experience. It was a concern about hiring Tim Brewster, too, but Maturi thought Brewster was a better total “fit” for the Gopher job. Kiffin, 33, is now the new head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers after having coached the Oakland Raiders.
Scout.com has the Gophers ranked No. 37 in football recruiting for the class of 2009. The Gophers have 15 commits while Ohio State, ranked No. 1 so far in the process, has 24.
The St. Louis Blues rank eighth in the NHL in average attendance, according to espn.com, but the Blues web site was promoting 50 percent off on single game tickets a few days ago. The Blues are at the Xcel Energy Center tonight for a game against the Wild who are 10th in the league averaging 18,568, according to espn.com. St. Louis is playing to about 90 percent capacity while the Wild is over 102 percent, per ESPN. Chicago, which averaged almost 17,000 per game last season and was far down in NHL attendance, is leading this season at 21,485 per game.
The New York Daily News web site (www.nydailynews.com) had this observation last week: “Kevin Garnett has been going after smaller guys, including Toronto’s Jose Calderon and Milwaukee’s Luke Ridnour, and it’s starting to hurt his rep. One executive said of Garnett, ‘He’s nothing but an instigator.’ With several teams complaining about Garnett’s antics in recent weeks, the league has taken note.”
Gopher public address announcer Dick Jonckowski tells a joke to basketball coach Tubby Smith before home games. Jonckowski, known as the “Polish Eagle,” asked Smith why all Polish names end in “s-k-i”? “Because we can’t spell toboggan,” Jonckowski said.
Conrad Smith, the new chief operating officer of the Minnesota Lynx, has been involved with local pro sports teams here since the early 1980s. His front office public relations, marketing and management experiences include the Minnesota North Stars, Minnesota Twins, and Minnesota Timberwolves.
Greg Wicklund’s Racquet Ramblings column in the USTA Northern Section magazine features Jim Holden’s book, Tennis in the Northland. The former Northfield tennis coach has written a comprehensive history of boys’ high school tennis in Minnesota. https://www.jim-holden.com/
Concordia’s Justin Foss and Augsburg’s Alex Hildebrandt have been named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Men’s Soccer Team, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America. They were named third team All-Americans in the College Division (non-Division I). Foss, a senior, has a 3.58 grade point average while majoring in psychology. He had a career year in 2008, finishing the season with 15 goals and two assists for 32 points. Hildebrandt, a junior, is a finance major with a 3.86 grade-point average. He received All-MIAC and All-MIAC Sportsmanship Team honors recently.