Young fans

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balds

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Many on here have lamented the "lost generation" of the 80's and 90's where kids grew up where Gopher Football was a complete non-factor, and how that was a major force behind modern lack of fan interest.

I'm happy to report that things might be changing. Last night after my son's first baseball practice (first grade), the coach asked the kids what they wanted their team name to be. Immediately 5 or 6 kids (out of 10) screamed GOPHERS! At the very least some anecdotal evidence that recent success is having an impact on our youth.
 

balds said:
Many on here have lamented the "lost generation" of the 80's and 90's where kids grew up where Gopher Football was a complete non-factor, and how that was a major force behind modern lack of fan interest.

I'm happy to report that things might be changing. Last night after my son's first baseball practice (first grade), the coach asked the kids what they wanted their team name to be. Immediately 5 or 6 kids (out of 10) screamed GOPHERS! At the very least some anecdotal evidence that recent success is having an impact on our youth.
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That's great but did he ask them who they hate? If they said Iowa you would really know that we got them.
 

As a 90's kid, there's very few of my friends that grew up watching the Gophers. Now with the team's success, more people are following them. Let's hope that it continues and we can pull in some extra followers/fans
 


Which going back to who was the worst coach?

Salem started them on the downhill slide. Holtz had a minor correction, but it was Gutey & Wacker that cemented the non-fans of the 80s & 90s.
 


Graduated high school in the mid 90's and nearly all the other kids in my class were Irish, Husker, Hurricane or Badger fans.
 

I was born in 1990 and pretty much all of my friends were all about the gophers. My family had season tickets until I went off to play college football myself, now that I'm done with college my brother and I have bought our own season tickets. In my opinion the kids that live outside of the cities have a lot more passion for the gophers because we're not as familiar with the cities, but as we all can tell that is all changing in recent years.
 

Winning solves a lot of problems - including selling tickets and getting a fan base (re)built. Never heard about Wisconsin football til the mid 90s.
 

I was a 90's child and I still loved the gophers, More so due to the fact that I thought Goldy was awesome and was a huge hockey fan. Took the PSU game in '99 to cement my love for gopher football.

There are definitely a few of us out there.
 



The metrodome and the '83 Nebraska game ruined gopher football for my generation. The Nebraska game was an especially heinous event because it was on tv, everyone saw it, and the media never stopped bringing it up until we kicked their <blank> in '13. It was the nadir of this program hands down. Nothing Brewster did even came close.
 

I am a child of the '80s and I'm just shocked that I'm still considered a "young" fan!
 

Young kid here, I can say that my school in general no one really pays attention to the Gophers and or college sports. But over the years I have noticed more and more Gopher stuff but its pretty small.
 

upnorthkid said:
As a 90's kid, there's very few of my friends that grew up watching the Gophers. Now with the team's success, more people are following them. Let's hope that it continues and we can pull in some extra followers/fans
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And recruits.
 



I first became aware of Minnesota football in 1949. (I was 9) The coach was Bernie Bierman. Minnesota went 7-2 that season, and finished 8th in the final AP poll and 3rd in the Big Ten. Only a loss to lowly Purdue kept Minnesota from a three way tie for first place in the Big Ten with Ohio State and Michigan. And it was a one touchdown loss to Michigan at Ann Arbor that kept us from winning the Big Ten outright. (We beat Ohio State 27-0) Prior to that season, Minnesota had won six national championships and was a perennial power. In that era one could run errands on a football Saturday without missing the game. The Gopher's broadcast on WCCO radio could be heard in all the stores. And most Minnesota kids dreamed of playing for the Gophers. I long for those days and hope that they will return.
 

Interesting topic (at least to me). It would be helpful if people would post not only when they grew up, but where.

As a kid in northern Minnesota in the late 70s and early 80s, Gopher football wasn't much of a topic and few games were on TV, even with cable. There were a few years where it was even hard to get the games on the radio unless you could find the signal on the evil neighbor. Much more Gopher stuff there now. I help as much as I can by sending my kids' outgrown stuff to my relatives who still live up that way.
 

I grew up in Burnsville. My first experience with the Gophers was the Dome opener in 1982 vs. Ohio, although I think we went mainly to check out the new futuristic stadium. In the summer of '85 while swimming at my neighbors he received a phone call. It was Lou Holtz telling him that he thinks he will have a good team this fall and it would be a good idea if he bought season tickets. He quickly conferred with my dad and they agreed to buy 4 tickets. I went to every game in the '85 season and most in the '86 season and was hooked. I've remained hooked, even during the late 80's-1997.

Kill has a huge opportunity. My son's only knowledge of Gopher football is that they are good, go 8-4 and go to a bowl game. If he can sustain/expand this for 5-10+ years he will leave this program as good and as popular as it has been in 45-50 years.
 

I was in high school through the meat of Mason's build 98-01, I think generally there were positive vibes from my peers towards gopher football during that time. They were at least better. I do recall the badger influence being there though. i think there's just a boatload of badger alums in the TC and their kids don't know any better.

What I will say is that I recall the downslope of Mason's time at the U, and I was a HS coach shortly after in 2007.
Mason did absolutely no favors with the younger HS kids around the metro or their coaches. I'm absolutely convinced kids were steered away from the U by coaches or even by reputation due to his attitude.
 

I'll have to admit that I didn't care at all about the Gophers growing up. Nobody in school cared, so I didn't care. It wasn't until I enrolled at the University that I fell in love with Gopher Football and Basketball.

Now my friends who went to other private colleges all keep up with Gopher Football, but they're like most Minnesota sports fans and only follow the hot team. Right now that is Gopher Football, the Wild, and the Vikings. The Vikings and Wild are the only staple in this town that people will watch regardless of success, and I bet they wouldn't survive if they were terrible for 10+ years.

I guess the question is what kind of fandom level are we trying to reach? The Wolves and Twins will have all the support they could want during playoff seasons. But they won't sell tickets during down years. The Wild and Vikings sell tickets even if they stink for 5 years in a row. If we're trying to reach Twins and Wolves levels, I think we're nearly there. If we're trying to reach Vikings and Wild levels, it's gonna take Rose Bowls and 10-15 years of 8-12 win seasons. We're gonna have to earn our way into that category by being consistently the best team or top 2 in town for an extended period of time.
 

gophmeister said:
The metrodome and the '83 Nebraska game ruined gopher football for my generation. The Nebraska game was an especially heinous event because it was on tv, everyone saw it, and the media never stopped bringing it up until we kicked their <blank> in '13. It was the nadir of this program hands down. Nothing Brewster did even came close.
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The Metrodome and 2003 Michigan killed alot of the students that were there at the time. Most people can only experience let downs like that so many times in their lives before quitting, the rest are called Gopher fans (or Viking fans)
 

Went to an east metro Catholic high school 2006-2010. Gophers had fans but were mostly an afterthought. Lots of Irish fans (I'll admit, I was one of them and still loosely am) and a smattering of Badger fans.

Five years later, it's completely different. There were only a handful of people I could go to games consistently with three years ago. Now have nearly a dozen people asking me questions about season tickets/tailgating (mostly recent U grads and grad students, but also some grads of other schools like Saint Thomas and Bethel). Plus a lot more buzz about the team in general - my younger cousin, tenth grader in Hinckley, is hooked. Kill is nearly universally popular around the state.
 

late 70s child in Milwaukee, the comments are right, Badger football was non-existent until they lucked out with Barry Alvarez. I grew up a Michigan fan, would have attended Ann Arbor if not for the exorbitant out of state cost and the fact that WI had that reciprocity thing with MN
 

Born in '95 in Bloomington, almost everyone I know was gophers fans unless they had prior family connections, but it was very casual fandom, no fanatics like there were for the Vikings or Twins.
 

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