gopherdudepart2
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All of those things you said are true with this caveat
Coach Mason was the first to suggest that Minnesota needed there own on campus stadium and he was pretty adament about it with administration in Morril hall, specifically President Yudoff and the vice president Moten-Brown back I want to say 2004 to 2005 time frame. If I remember correctly the coaches were pretty annoyed back in December of 2004 that they were trying to set up recruiting visits to the Metrodome, had trouble getting access and when they did the stadium was set up for a tractor pull instead of the football field being there. He trumpeted pretty loudly that why should Minnesota not have what everyone else in college football and the Big 10 have on college game day saturday. Why should we be short changed of what college football is all about, and of course that the on campus stadium would help recruiting overall.
This was not a very popular opinion at the time of the folks in central administration in Morril hall. That and state legislators were still trying to push the shared stadium concept with the Vikings at the State Fair grounds, and Vikings owner Red McCombs wanted all of the Gopherrs parking revenue and concessions as a revenue source in the shared stadium they were pushing at that time at the legislature.
That being a politician and vocal proponent of the stadium to the legislature, and coach Mason having that golf outing and with getting the president of TCF bank and CEO on board in being the title sponser for the stadium after a goal line club or golf outing in Arizona had a lot to do with finally getting the on campus stadium ball rolling.
I believe Lou Nanne would even confirm that this schmoozing event on the golf course convince the president of TCF to take on the role as title sponser for the on campus stadium.
This was of course after the T Denny Stanford lead donor fiasco story broke and when Sanford and Maturi held that press conference. TCF stepped up after T Denny basically wanted complete control on stadium design and costs.
All of the people that put effort in to getting the stadium obviously deserve credit even AD Maturi played a big roll, but to say that coach Mason had little to do with TCF stadium getting built would be re-writing history. I too would have liked coach Mason to get the chance to coach in the new stadium just to see if things would have gotten better. By that time his relationship with AD Joel Maturi was pretty sour and they were getting little to no money in the recruiting budget or to hire and retain good assistant coaches that were leaving. After coach Mason did not interview for the MSU job and then he was turned down for the Ohio State job things were not going well. He never seemed the same and obviously tired of the Minnesota situation, small Gopher Metrodome crowds(full of Bucky and Herky fans), constant complaining about non-conference games, tough recruiting cycles, budgets and the bad relationship with Maturi not being able to spend much in hiring assistants and of course being what seem unwilling to promote the program to the State or the HS coaches.
It was probably time both moved on after the TTU fiasco and the stagnation that had become the Gopher program, the 2007 season said a lot about how stagnant things had gotten.
Coach Mason was the first to suggest that Minnesota needed there own on campus stadium and he was pretty adament about it with administration in Morril hall, specifically President Yudoff and the vice president Moten-Brown back I want to say 2004 to 2005 time frame. If I remember correctly the coaches were pretty annoyed back in December of 2004 that they were trying to set up recruiting visits to the Metrodome, had trouble getting access and when they did the stadium was set up for a tractor pull instead of the football field being there. He trumpeted pretty loudly that why should Minnesota not have what everyone else in college football and the Big 10 have on college game day saturday. Why should we be short changed of what college football is all about, and of course that the on campus stadium would help recruiting overall.
This was not a very popular opinion at the time of the folks in central administration in Morril hall. That and state legislators were still trying to push the shared stadium concept with the Vikings at the State Fair grounds, and Vikings owner Red McCombs wanted all of the Gopherrs parking revenue and concessions as a revenue source in the shared stadium they were pushing at that time at the legislature.
That being a politician and vocal proponent of the stadium to the legislature, and coach Mason having that golf outing and with getting the president of TCF bank and CEO on board in being the title sponser for the stadium after a goal line club or golf outing in Arizona had a lot to do with finally getting the on campus stadium ball rolling.
I believe Lou Nanne would even confirm that this schmoozing event on the golf course convince the president of TCF to take on the role as title sponser for the on campus stadium.
This was of course after the T Denny Stanford lead donor fiasco story broke and when Sanford and Maturi held that press conference. TCF stepped up after T Denny basically wanted complete control on stadium design and costs.
All of the people that put effort in to getting the stadium obviously deserve credit even AD Maturi played a big roll, but to say that coach Mason had little to do with TCF stadium getting built would be re-writing history. I too would have liked coach Mason to get the chance to coach in the new stadium just to see if things would have gotten better. By that time his relationship with AD Joel Maturi was pretty sour and they were getting little to no money in the recruiting budget or to hire and retain good assistant coaches that were leaving. After coach Mason did not interview for the MSU job and then he was turned down for the Ohio State job things were not going well. He never seemed the same and obviously tired of the Minnesota situation, small Gopher Metrodome crowds(full of Bucky and Herky fans), constant complaining about non-conference games, tough recruiting cycles, budgets and the bad relationship with Maturi not being able to spend much in hiring assistants and of course being what seem unwilling to promote the program to the State or the HS coaches.
It was probably time both moved on after the TTU fiasco and the stagnation that had become the Gopher program, the 2007 season said a lot about how stagnant things had gotten.
