Our third-seeded Tigers got past #2 Minnewaska to reach this level.
That's exciting, but now we're dealing with the "excitement" of a too-long winter with its storms. Many years ago people talked about how we always seemed to get a blizzard at the time of the state tournament. These days very few people even pay attention to the state tournament. This is not to criticize the current arrangement, as surely it is fairer. But state hoops does not galvanize the public at all, not like in the old days.
Forget nostalgia though. There was no point in seeing Edina play Hayfield. Remember how Edina was dominant for so long? The Hornets. Bob Zender, a guy destined to be at the end of lists all his life. Morris made state in the one-class system back in 1955. Really that was kind of a "Hoosiers" story (the movie) but we got killed in state by a metro school. That was the problem back then.
Just a question: Did Gene Hackman end up with the girl (Barbara Hershey) in the movie?
Tigers 90, ACGC 65
Bring on March. On the second day of the month, the orange and black crew took care of business pretty convincingly as they reached 90 points. Surely it was convincing in the second half. Not at all in the first half. But we won 90-65 over the Falcons of Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City.
The Falcons were No. 6. The location was here, a situation we'd like to see more often, eh? It's debatable whether the UMM P.E. Center is really a "home court" for us. It's called "the big floor."
My, the Loge name stays most prominent in our hoops scene. The recent death of Ed Schultz reminded me of Jackson's father Kevin. Ed was on the scene as media person when our Tigers played Staples-Motley at Concordia-Moorhead in 1995. It was an epic loss for our heralded Tigers of that era. You can watch the whole game on YouTube today. You might even see me in there. I was close to the court with camera. I'll never forget the fine bratwurst at the concession stand.
Kevin's son Jackson was super in the win over ACGC. Coach Torgerson is in his second generation now. I'm not sure his coaching tenure will ever end. Reminds me of the old song with the lyrics "rock and roll is here to stay, it will never die." Just substitute Mark. I have never been impressed with his pure coaching ability.
Jackson Loge pumped in 43 points in our win over the Falcons. Kudos to Jackson. The Tigers worked effectively getting the ball inside. We sure needed time to get our engines revved up. Would you believe we trailed at halftime, 37-36? I'm sure fans were supremely nervous. Would this turn out like the playoff opener of a few years ago when our Tigers, seeded No. 1 and playing at home, lost to No. 8 seed Paynesville? Well, no.
We revved up the engines coming out of halftime and buried the stunned Falcons. We buried them to the tune of 54-28. Makes you wonder what was missing in the first half. Jackson stood out with scoring but Jaret Johnson also had his notable point total of 22. Johnson starred from 3-point range with his four makes. Zach Hughes made a '3' too.
Here are the other Tiger point-scorers: Jaden Maanum 4, Hughes 3, Cam Arndt 8, Cameron Koebernick 2, Kevin Asfeld 2, Durgin Decker 4 and Thomas Tiernan 2. Loge and Johnson were a 1-2 punch in rebounds too with 15 and six respectively.
Our overall record got pumped up to 18-8. We resolved the doubt over whether the game scheduled for today will be played. Bad weather or good, these days I would find such trips for post-season sports to be a little exhausting. Really good bratwurst could keep me fired-up. Popeye had his spinach.
 |
| Perry Ford |
We were stunned to learn of the passing of Perry Ford, former UMM men's basketball coach. It subdues our normally intense sports-related thoughts this time of year. The games don't seem so important. Perry coached for a fair amount of success at UMM.
A lot of us could sense even then that the writing was on the wall re. the challenges lying ahead for Cougar sports, about how a change in conference affiliation was probably coming. The message was no longer subtle when Jim Severson was here.
Coach Ford was a masterful recruiter and PR guy. Morris legend has it that Perry once applied for the athletic director job at the high school. I accept that as fact, even though in a conversation I had with a Morris civic leader at that time, I was told "don't say anything about this." I know just what the guy meant. What he meant was that Perry being AD would be too good to be true.
Perry was a fireball and an idealist.
It's not like he was any sort of outlier, don't get me wrong. How can I explain this? To start, there was a firm and unyielding orthodoxy with our public school. It's not that anyone would have objected to Perry himself - how could anyone? - but here's the deal: part of any hiring package would almost certainly have involved Perry getting a head basketball job along with AD. Therein was the problem, because the orthodoxy held that Mark Torgerson would be boys basketball coach and Darcy Winkelman would be girls. And you'd better go along with that if you know what's good for you.
I sat at a winter sports banquet/program once when the name of the Dairy Queen was invoked. Strange times. I suspect it's all buried in foggy reflections now.
Perry Ford and his tenure at UMM are remembered in a blog post that yours truly wrote in 2013, November. It's on my "Morris of Course" blog site. The post largely covers my experience of leaving the Morris paper. My memory of Perry must have been pretty high in my thoughts. The headline for the post is "Joys and difficulties within community newspaper." Here's the link and thanks y'all for reading.
http://morrisofcourse.
The image I keep of Perry, is of him standing next to a young man named Curt Rees with Curt dressed in Elvis Presley suit, bellbottoms and all. The occasion was "Midnight Madness," the start of hoops practice. "Elvis" in his white outfit splendor shared a few words over the P.A. system. Coach Ford supervised, acting like he didn't want Mr. Rees to get too carried away!
Because Midnight Madness was close to Halloween, many young fans showed up in costume. There was a little gremlin fellow who I photographed with his arm around the shoulder of Chuck Grussing, the campus security guy. Chuck says he doesn't remember that photo but I do. Obviously I miss those times when I'd make the rounds as press person. But I'm just too old.
I remember Perry's sense of humor. I remember calling him once for a routine post-game interview. After getting set at the start by noting the final score, I proceeded to say "OK give me the salient facts." Perry sort of sniffed, saying "salient. . .(expletive)."
Such are the nuggets tucked away in my memory, just like in 1995 when Staples was the giant-killer and turned back the vaunted Tigers at Concordia, Ed Schultz at courtside. No one can take those memories away from me. Incidentally we should not have lost that game. Why is it that when I share an opinion like that, people around town dislike me, harass me, try to insist I'm stupid, mock me? Could it be politics?
Our Tigers of today will resume on Monday unless weather unleashes its March fury again. Well, good luck. I can listen with "live stream" on radio. That didn't even exist in 1995.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment