State needs to take hard look at 'U' football

Tim Brewster: scapegoat at U of M?

Lately we have seen in the news the following warning: "Some of the video you are about to see may be disturbing." It's in connection to the Michael Jackson (doctor) trial. It might be just as appropriate before the presentation of U of M Gopher football snippets.

We are at a very familiar place now - way too familiar. The Gophers have sunk to the kind of depths that it's a PR issue for the state. This isn't typical whining about a losing sports team. It should be dawning on everyone now that there is something deeply systemic that is wrong.

Sports voices like those on ESPN cannot simply report the scores of U games without being inclined toward wisecracks now.

The Sunday sports section of our Star Tribune devoted way too much space to the game against Michigan. Attention for this game was warranted but more in the context of commentary. To simply splash over the front page of sports the debacle that was the Michigan game was uncalled for.

I imagine this space allocation was pre-determined. That's how things happen with newspapers. As a reader you knew it was coming when you pulled the sports section out of that pile of pulp.

And there it was: the dreary headline and articles stating the obvious. Articles that might have begun with the warning: "Some of what you are about to read may be disturbing."

But it was all so obvious, there was no point paying attention to the details - the mundane game details of the 58-0 loss. The bigger picture was crying for attention.

It's an odd phenomenon of Minnesota history that the Minnesota Vikings pushed aside the Gophers pretty decisively. The baby boom generation decided the Vikings were their team. The Gophers seemed more a relic of a bygone era, you know, attached to old names like Bernie Bierman.

We had a vague grasp of how the Gophers were once great. We knew they weren't great anymore but they were decent. Today they're so lost they belong on a doctor's couch. Losing to Michigan 58-0 is an exclamation point.

Even more disturbing was the loss to North Dakota State, a school that isn't even full-fledged Division I. Not only that, they're from North Dakota!

We've lost to NDSU twice in the last several years and to U of South Dakota last year. And, South Dakota State came close to beating us. If my parents' generation had known we'd have to fight someday to try and beat the Bison, Coyotes and Jackrabbits, well my God. . .

Many boomers were college age when a very nice and capable coach named Cal Stoll came on the scene. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The program was no longer in a position to be in an elite class.

Murray Warmath had seen his share of glory but there was little glory to be felt in the Stoll years. A glimmer here and there perhaps, but nothing that could rival what the Vikings were building.

The Vikings went to four Super Bowls. Yes, we lost all four of them. But pro football had truly burst into the forefront, and the old "Big 10" had come to seem passe. It belonged to our parents' generation.

Don Riley, the unique columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press (who could get away with frequent un-PC comments), observed that the Big 10 had become "The Big Two and the Little Eight."

It was so true and rather odd: the predictable nature of how Michigan and Ohio State would play for the Big 10 title each year, as if the other teams were barely there.

Woody Hayes, the old-fashioned iron-fisted coach, ruled at Ohio State. Until he used his fist on a Clemson defensive player along the sidelines. I remember watching that game, seeing the incident which was somewhat obscured, and saying "he hit him!"

The broadcasters were at first reluctant to report what seemed obvious. I'm not sure they ever came out and said it during the broadcast. But in the days that followed, the excrement hit the fan for this throwback type of coach and he was shown the door, like the Jack Nicholson character in "A Few Good Men."

Bo Schembechler ruled at Michigan. We would tune in to the Rose Bowl each year expecting to see the Buckeyes or Wolverines. We couldn't so much as imagine the Gophers being in that warm Pasadena sun.

Stoll brought some outstanding individuals here like Tony Dungy and Rick Upchurch. Stoll eventually had a public clash with Athletic Director Paul Giel who was a product of the University of Minnesota's glory years.

Giel was guiding the Gophers into a new era which I don't think he fully understood. He seemed like a common salesman to me. I remember him coming to Morris to speak to the Chamber of Commerce once. That was a perfect milieu for him.

Not all was glum in the land of the Gophers because men's basketball under Bill Musselman became a phenomenon. Remember Ron Behagen and Clyde Turner?

Of course, Musselman had to skirt some rules and do some things with a wink. Apparently he was a notorious non-people person. He cooked up a regime that put us all on a sugar high for a while.

The boomers had no problem gravitating to this. But it totally crashed and burned. It did find new life later with the likes of Kevin McHale, but then we had Mitch Lee. Let's not get into the details of that. We might need another Michael Jackson type of warning.

Clem Haskins gave us another meteor streaking through the sky. Meteors flame out. I believe the Gophers' Final 4 appearance under Haskins is now being treated like it didn't even happen. What a business.

We had the Dan Monson hoops regime which sank into total mediocrity, a regime in which a win over the Long Island Catbirds might be considered a highlight. And now we have football and the level of mediocrity that goes well beyond the normal sub-.500 record.

This is such an utter trainwreck it threatens the U's overall reputation.

Can the University of Minnesota be trusted to manage itself? I remember when Jesse Ventura was jousting with Mark Yudof. Yudof was of course trying to get all he could from state coffers, quite to excess, and Ventura, getting irritated, said "for the amount of money the University is asking, maybe I should run it."

Hey, we never thought of that. Ventura made us think about a lot of novel things. Of course, it wasn't about to happen. But the missteps of U of M sports under the oddly clueless Joel Maturi make us take a new look.

The media haven't really wanted to call a spade a spade. They've been in an odd sort of PR mode. The commercial pressures on the old media are probably to explain. No one wants to be too "negative." It can be bad for business.

There was a time when the media would have come right out and said the emperor has no clothes. Today the media are restrained and try to show deference to the appointed leaders. They assume that Jerry Kill is "rebuilding." This assumes that his predecessor was at fault.

And, was that really Tim Brewster in the broadcast booth for Sunday's Vikings game against Kansas City? Good for him. He was made sort of a scapegoat. So the media brush him aside and are still trying to give every benefit of the doubt to Jerry Kill. Kill has a very unfortunate health distraction that encumbers him in a way that his rivals are not encumbered. It wasn't necessary to bring him here with that impediment.

The media are going to have to start changing their tune soon. Brewster must have done some things to irritate them, for them to have become so deferential to Kill.

Wishing Kill well with his health is a whole separate matter from rooting for the Gophers.

It will be very sad if the legislature or governor have to start doing the prodding. It will make us think again about the possible wisdom in the idea Ventura broached. Can we really trust the U to fully manage itself?

Look, no one cares if the athletes are allowed to "squeak by" academically. We all know many of these athletes come here with an agenda separate from academics and I don't blame them. Let them get by with the most minimal of standards.

Let them focus on sports, enjoy life and maybe get a crack at the pros. That's a big enough commitment in itself. The U doesn't need to put on airs of "academic superiority." No one is impressed by that.

The Jan Gangelhoff scandal was so pathetic. Let's set up sports so it's a separate division from everything else at the U. Let's set it up so the people with academic "airs" don't have any influence anymore.

People are smart enough to know what's going on. They know the U is an academic gem even if it has sports teams with athletes who don't choose to be bookworms.

If the U isn't interested in Division I football, maybe some other institution in Minnesota could be set up, I mean, if North Dakota can swing this with NDSU.

How about St. Cloud State? You laugh. But why not? It's a big institution in a big and booming city right in the middle of Minnesota. It has a new football stadium that could easily be expanded.

For sure SCSU couldn't make the jump with the resources it currently has. That's a laugh. It would need help. But it's an interesting possibility to consider.

SCSU wouldn't have any problem offering basketweaving classes to athletes. Maybe this is an idea that should pick up steam.

Click on the link below to read the post I wrote after coach Kill's seizure episode at TCF Bank Stadium:
http://ilovemorris73.blogspot.com/2011/09/coach-kills-health-distracts-from.html

- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com