BleedGopher
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per Rand:
Different versions of those teams are naturally compared against one another, but as Fleck said Monday in advance of spring practice opening Tuesday, "Comparisons steal your joy. If we compare this year to last year, anybody is going to find somehow, some way — wins, losses or any statistic known to man — where we didn't measure up. And it could be a failure. We're not going to allow that to happen."
If Fleck's Gophers succeed where those teams failed — and, you know, where a half-century of Gophers teams also failed — he will ascend to a different echelon.
Then again, none of those teams probably invoked a mantra involving bamboo in their quest to take another step.
"Grow higher" is the theme of this year's Gophers, Fleck said, and bamboo is the vehicle by which he is delivering the message because "it takes three years to build underground by the time it actually shoots to the top. Year 4 is where you see it shoot 90 to 110 feet in the air," he said.
This of course is Year 4 for Fleck in Minnesota, and he promised "you're going to see bamboo trees everywhere."
As for the house analogy Fleck has been fond of as a means of describing the stage of development of his program: This year is the installation of the windows.
"You can look out and see whatever it is you want to see. … However, different from last year — in which we didn't have any windows — we were picked sixth in the (Big Ten) West. That probably won't happen this year. Now we have windows the outside world wants to peek inside and see."
www.startribune.com
Go Gophers!!
Different versions of those teams are naturally compared against one another, but as Fleck said Monday in advance of spring practice opening Tuesday, "Comparisons steal your joy. If we compare this year to last year, anybody is going to find somehow, some way — wins, losses or any statistic known to man — where we didn't measure up. And it could be a failure. We're not going to allow that to happen."
If Fleck's Gophers succeed where those teams failed — and, you know, where a half-century of Gophers teams also failed — he will ascend to a different echelon.
Then again, none of those teams probably invoked a mantra involving bamboo in their quest to take another step.
"Grow higher" is the theme of this year's Gophers, Fleck said, and bamboo is the vehicle by which he is delivering the message because "it takes three years to build underground by the time it actually shoots to the top. Year 4 is where you see it shoot 90 to 110 feet in the air," he said.
This of course is Year 4 for Fleck in Minnesota, and he promised "you're going to see bamboo trees everywhere."
As for the house analogy Fleck has been fond of as a means of describing the stage of development of his program: This year is the installation of the windows.
"You can look out and see whatever it is you want to see. … However, different from last year — in which we didn't have any windows — we were picked sixth in the (Big Ten) West. That probably won't happen this year. Now we have windows the outside world wants to peek inside and see."
Is another growth spurt for Gophers football coming?
Follow the StarTribune for the news, photos and videos from the Twin Cities and beyond.
www.startribune.com
Go Gophers!!
