BleedGopher
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Reusse wrote two columns for tomorrow, the first edition (this column) and then a second edition version, which will likely be posted soon, and will certainly about the big win. Anyway, sometimes they update the link, so this may not be live tomorrow:
DeAndre Mathieu’s impact with the Gophers led to reflection on the history of junior college transfers with this basketball team. Several prominent JUCOs were mentioned in a Star Tribune blog, with the covenant that there were probably some prominent players missing from the list.
As it turned out, the forgotten included Ollie Shannon, not the best of the JUCOs but perhaps the most interesting.
In today’s game, Shannon would be referred to as a “volume scorer,” a generous label. Back in his two seasons at Minnesota, from 1969 to 1971, we looked at Ollie as the ultimate “gunner.”
Shannon had been a prolific scorer in New York City, finishing his high school days at the famed Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn. There was one item lacking from his résumé: a high school diploma.
This was discovered after he arrived at Cameron Junior College in Texas. His enrollment there had been arranged by North Texas State.
The lack of diploma meant Shannon couldn’t play, so he played pickup basketball and went to night school. He ran into Jerry Kindall, then a Gophers baseball assistant, at a gathering for Christian athletes.
Shannon went back East, settled in Fairfield, Conn., and did some coaching. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2001, at age 53. And you couldn’t refer to the JUCO history of the Gophers without a remembrance of Ollie Shannon.
http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/240668211.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue
Go Gophers!!
DeAndre Mathieu’s impact with the Gophers led to reflection on the history of junior college transfers with this basketball team. Several prominent JUCOs were mentioned in a Star Tribune blog, with the covenant that there were probably some prominent players missing from the list.
As it turned out, the forgotten included Ollie Shannon, not the best of the JUCOs but perhaps the most interesting.
In today’s game, Shannon would be referred to as a “volume scorer,” a generous label. Back in his two seasons at Minnesota, from 1969 to 1971, we looked at Ollie as the ultimate “gunner.”
Shannon had been a prolific scorer in New York City, finishing his high school days at the famed Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn. There was one item lacking from his résumé: a high school diploma.
This was discovered after he arrived at Cameron Junior College in Texas. His enrollment there had been arranged by North Texas State.
The lack of diploma meant Shannon couldn’t play, so he played pickup basketball and went to night school. He ran into Jerry Kindall, then a Gophers baseball assistant, at a gathering for Christian athletes.
Shannon went back East, settled in Fairfield, Conn., and did some coaching. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2001, at age 53. And you couldn’t refer to the JUCO history of the Gophers without a remembrance of Ollie Shannon.
http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/240668211.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue
Go Gophers!!
