Trial makes 'U' look like Sisyphus again

University of Minnesota athletics has been a pretty tough sell ever since the Minnesota Vikings came into being. Most of us boomers have to read retrospectives in the media (with those glorious black and white photos) to realize what it might have been like when Gophers sports, especially football, were big-time.
The boomers became drawn to the Vikings.
There have been spurts when "our beloved rodents" (as scribe Patrick Reusse is known to call them) have burst into the forefront. The problem is that these surges seem almost to require an oddball, obsessed and/or ethically challenged coach to be handed the reins. These individuals end up departing with a mess to be cleaned up.
We were all certainly reminded of those damaged goods this past week. Gopher athletics made the news in a way that pushed the booze-at-TCF Stadium topic out of the picture. In a huge distraction, which U of M President Robert Bruininks needed like a hole in the head, the Tubby-vs.-Jimmy trial reached its conclusion.
The loser: our venerable U of M. The winner: the common working folks of America.
Let's write a country music song about this one. The U fired all its Howitzers and activated the massive brains of its 'A' list attorneys, but our legal system meted out justice fairly anyway. And the guy who won, who shares the same last name as this writer, carries the banner of common folk who feel they've been dumped on by the powers that be in their lives.
The University should back off now, pay Mr. Williams the designated amount (really small change in the scheme of things), fire its athletic director, take a deep breath and begin another one of those "new chapters."
Bring in a new athletic director who will immediately be hyped. And maybe there will be a short-term sugar rush among the state's sports fans - we've been through this so many times - that will put a few more fannies in the seats for a while.
But Division I athletics has been such a rough go for our U as it competes in a thicket of highly-energized programs all over. Many of those rival programs may feel more incentive to succeed.
In many cases the incentive might come from having closer geographic rivals.
I have written before that it would be wonderful if St. Cloud State University could get its program elevated to where NDSU is. The awareness and enthusiasm about Division I football would permeate our state a little more.
Our Gopher football team actually lost to NDSU two years ago. It's bad enough that there's a newspaper empire based in Fargo - Forum Communications - telling Minnesotans who they should vote for in Minnesota elections. (It has a company-wide endorsement policy.) Now we might have to accept back-seat status to North Dakota football. It's really not acceptable.
So I agree fully with the tenor of Jim Souhan's comments in the Thursday Star Tribune. Souhan finally started to state the obvious about the U's sports shortcomings.
The catalyst was the Smith-Williams trial and its totally non-nuanced outcome. The U lost. In the rubble of that, the U maybe, just maybe, can begin to chart a more constructive course, grooming its revenue sports in a more methodical way. Souhan described Joel Maturi as "an athletic director who doubles as a naive bystander." Souhan further observed that "Maturi is overmatched, (and) he exercises little control where control is most needed."
It's hard to have eyebrows raised over this because the U seems to have been like Sisyphus for a long time now.
There's a nonstop tug of war in the rhetoric. The U of course has a fundamental mission that is wholly separate from sports. But when you choose to be part of the Division I jungle, there is a framework of demands and expectations.
Jimmy Williams was a reminder of the storied Bill Musselman era. The U made a commendable effort to win by hitching its wagon to the driven but eccentric Musselman, who seemed to have way too much caffeine in the morning.
Williams was down on the totem pole of course. As in all organizations, a person at his subordinate level comes to reflect the traits of the person he answers to. It's among the most understandable human traits. People reflect the philosophy, attitude and ethics of the person who steers the ship.
The people immediately under Richard Nixon seemed to all turn into miserable scoundrels because. . .
Well, that matter certainly got disposed. Jimmy Williams under Musselman worked hard but may not have respected the rulebook in an optimal way because. . .
Again you can fill in the rest of the sentence. That was so long ago. Is it fair for Williams to be tarred by that episode so long after the fact?
I think most Minnesotans were puzzled at the bombshell announcement of the end of the Williams lawsuit - "stunning," according to the front page Star Tribune article. The U was dealt a $1.25 million loss. All because Maturi thought there might be some public relations issues in connection with Jimmy coming back.
In my view, there was public relations value in bringing back a vestige of the Musselman era - an era prompting feelings of nostalgia among boomers like me (as long as we exclude those images of the fight with Ohio State in basketball). Why do you think Musselman - RIP - was tapped to be the first-ever Minnesota Timberwolves coach?
Many of us discovered modern Division I basketball thanks to the likes of Clyde Turner and Ron Behagen. No, we aren't proud of any NCAA violations that might have occurred, but the U had no monopoly on such indiscretions. And the indiscretions of that bygone time ought to be buried back then.
A guy like Williams should be allowed to continue his career. The most logical stance would have been to say "it's Tubby's (Smith) program, he'll hire who he wants and he'll take full responsibility for the ethical performance of the program."
But that would have made too much sense.
People with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, employing bureaucratic logic, threw a monkeywrench into the process. We got dragged through a pointless legal process in which attorneys made money, and the U's athletic programs gained no dividends. Tubby Smith has a bad taste in his mouth. How could he not? We once again had to open our Star Tribune and see a sports columnist excoriate the U's athletics.
Sportswriters actually like an excuse to do this once in a while. But it's an all-too-common refrain.
What would it take for St. Cloud State to make that jump to the top rung (or close to it)? Competition can solve a lot of things. An in-state football rivalry would be so refreshing. We would wonder why we couldn't have had this all along.
Competition might force the U of M to realize that its teams should be more available for TV viewing around the state. Our family watches Mediacom so we don't get the Big Ten Network. We have to settle for an occasional Gophers game on ESPN or ESPN2.
But because those ESPN games are so spotty, we have slowly lost interest in Gopher sports; that's the worst part.
If the best the University can do is to offer booze to certain elite customers at TCF Bank Stadium, that's sad.
Tim Brewster is now recruiting for a team that has to sell recruits on playing in some cold-temperature games. We all thought the Dome would solve that. But then, the Dome because passe. That's called marketing.
And I'm not sure marketing can solve all the U's athletic woes now.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com