Dear Reid,
I guess you could say Gopher fans responded a little bit negatively to your decision. But can you resent them for that? Most of the time people react in the worst of ways to the people they actually care about because the emotional stakes are a little bit higher. Is it so bad that so many Gopher fans reacted to your decision the way they did? I didn't see too many Stanford fans applauding your decision. That's just what it is though: your decision. Growing up a loyal Gopher fan I couldn't wait until the day I could attend the U of M and watch the Barn erupt on any given cold winter night. Yet when decision time came I was thrown a curveball. I never thought I would get into any schools academically rated higher than the U of M, and then I got a letter of acceptance from UW-Madison, where I currently go. Looking back I don't regret passing on the chance to go to the U because Madison opened doors for me that the U never would've, much like Stanford might for you. I had never been out of the 612 before I left for Madison. Minneapolis was all I knew, and so leaving was a chance for me to grow as a person. Yet I never go to many Badger basketball games (I was present for the buzzer beater vs. Michigan last year, best game I've ever been to), because it doesn't do it for me. The Kohl center isn't the Barn. The Badgers aren't the Gophers. And no one has any MINNESOTA pride. So I guess my rhetorical question is this: Will people in Palo Alto know about Broadway Pizza when you brag about how great there food is? Will those snobby San Francisco kids (Trust me I know a few) degrade the place your from and tell you Oakland probably has more going on? Will there even be more than 6,000 people at your games? Will your friends back home stay up until 1am to watch you play Oregon State to the wire? Will people in Minnesota even care who you are when you land that business job in San Francisco or Boston or Dallas? You don't do it for other people. You did it for you, just like I did. But sometime, somewhere, you're going to realize that no city compares to Minneapolis. This isn't supposed to be a shot at you, because you DID handle your situation with class, and you ARE a smart young man, and you WILL do great things. But you could've done those great things for YOUR city. Was the resume boost really better than the glory? Best of luck at Stanford, I do hope you succeed. When you and Tyus come back to Minnesota to raise your families though, just don't wear Duke or Stanford gear to the Barn when you take your kids to games. We don't need anyone else to tell us that there are better options, we know it isn't true.
Proud Gopher fan, UW-Madison student, future Minneapolis resident, and a bigger fan of Josh Martin (Bothel, WA), than Reid Travis (Minneapolis, MN)
Again, best of luck. No hard feelings.