"New Deal in Gopherland"...a good read

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Whoever thinks the Vikings leaving town will help the gophers is simply dumb. I dont know how much I buy the geography thing being a huge factor. Wisc, Iowa, Penn St, and all these teams up north are all the same and they all find success. Cold and long winters. Plus minneapolis is such a fun location to be in. The U of M is just such a great atmosphere. Its not like these guys are going up to the boonies. The acedemics are good at the U. I think it comes down to three things. We need to keep our instate guys in. The outstate guys will come. They just do. Our best players seem to be oustate year in and out. (there are exceptions of course) But if we keep the Floyds, Hendersons, Ashleys (i know he never played), Laurinitis's and Fitzgeralds in house; it would make the gophers that much better. They just can't let these guys out. Comes down to winning. If a person has a chance to play for a Notre Dame, USC, or OSU who is gonna turn it down to play for a 1-11 or a 3-9 program with aspirations to making it to the pros. Only the die hards. And coaching. Get a good coach here things will turn around. Altough I LOVE brewsters enthusiasm. It can't be matched by anyone, he just isn't a good coach. Look at what the basketball team did. They somehow got Tubby here, all the instate guys committed to the U. Even our 5 star Royce White. Even though he never played, he wanted to They have won 20+ games every season since hes been here. They are a program on the brink of a being a great one. Im not saying a we neeeed a big name coach because that will be hard to get. But maturi needs to do his homework and find a good coach who is a winner.
 

Found another good story:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1071994/index.htm

My how things have changed, look at this part of the article (from 11/14/60):

"The Twin Cities on the banks of the Mississippi will have a new big league baseball team next year, and they'll have a team in the National Football League, too. Minneapolis and St. Paul are very enthusiastic about this because they love baseball and they love pro football, but last weekend the transplanted Senators and the football Vikings could have raced down Nicollet Avenue astride giraffes, with Nixon and Kennedy waiting at the finish line to kiss the winner, and no one in Minneapolis would have bothered to look around. The University of Minnesota was playing the University of Iowa. Nothing was ever so important as this."
 

If the Vikings leave, the state will move Heaven and Earth to get a new team here. Many of the anti-stadium people will be demanding a new stadium for the new NFL team. The Gophers might pick up some new ticket holders in the unlikely event that no NFL team moved in to replace the Vikings. But if it were percieved that the U was responsible for getting rid of the Vikings, this would be very, very bad for the Gophers.

In any case, blaming the Vikings is pointless. The Vikings are a fact that we have to deal with. It's like blaming the sun or the wind, you have to work with the realities that you can't change.
 

stevedave23 said:
Found another good story:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1071994/index.htm

My how things have changed, look at this part of the article (from 11/14/60):

"The Twin Cities on the banks of the Mississippi will have a new big league baseball team next year, and they'll have a team in the National Football League, too. Minneapolis and St. Paul are very enthusiastic about this because they love baseball and they love pro football, but last weekend the transplanted Senators and the football Vikings could have raced down Nicollet Avenue astride giraffes, with Nixon and Kennedy waiting at the finish line to kiss the winner, and no one in Minneapolis would have bothered to look around. The University of Minnesota was playing the University of Iowa. Nothing was ever so important as this."
Click to expand...

I know quotes like this are what make some want the Vikings to leave. But even if you exhume Nixon and Kennedy you will never be able to recreate 1960. Even if the Vikings leave, the Twins will still be here and so will the Wild and the T-Wolves. And the SEC will still be admitting African Americans. And the Gophers will still be the Gophers.
 

For the record, I wasn't posting that story to argue that the Vikings are the cause of the Gopher's woes. Just thought it was a neat article and illustrated how much the landscape has changed.
 


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