I am a gearhead, or as they say across the pond, a "petrolhead." While this ostensibly disqualifies me from writing a movie review, my British friends think otherwise. Particularly if I am writing about British films. The flim you need to watch is called This Sporting Life from 1964. It is a classic of the […]
Simulated Madness
February 20, 2008 by
Who could forget the game last December when Douglas Stewart, the low-scoring walk-on from Minneapolis, stepped out from the shadows of his all-conference teammates to lead the Annapolis Fightin’ Crabs to a national championship? You’re forgiven if you don’t follow the defending champs; they don’t, alas, exist in the realm people persist in calling the […]
Go{pher} Broke
October 16, 2007 by
University of Minnesota Athletics Director Joel Maturi is a triple-A battery of a man. Walk into his office at the Bierman Athletic Building on the East Bank and he leaps out of his chair and shakes your hand as if you’re about to parachute out of an airplane together. Trim and fit at 62, Maturi […]
Marathon Man
March 26, 2007 by
Beyond a long window that offered a panoramic view of the Minneapolis skyline, the end-of-the-workday exodus was already under way. Traffic was snarled on the streets stretching all the way downtown. Dave St. Peter had his back to the window, and he was looking and sounding like a man whose day was just getting started. […]
As It Was Meant to Be Played
February 26, 2007 by
I sat in a lawn chair in the middle of frozen Lake Nokomis, nibbling on chicken kabobs and sipping a tequila slushy, thinking, How serious can this pond-hockey thing be? A minute after the puck dropped in my first game, I immediately regretted my warm-up smorgasbord. This pond-hockey thing was apparently very serious. We were […]
The Man & The Woman on The Hill
September 22, 2004 by
A red sun is setting over the lake, its hue cast through the shutters of a rustic living room where a small television atop a white wicker stand is tuned to a Twins game. “Get some hits, damn it,” seethes the increasingly agitated sports agent on the wicker couch. “Crying shame.” The agent glares at […]
The Long Bomb
September 26, 2003 by
The last time our Golden Gophers won a Big Ten football championship, none of this year’s players had been born. It’s possible that some of their parents hadn’t either. In 1967, we had a shifty quarterback named Curt Wilson, a bruising fullback from South St. Paul named Jim Carter, and an All-American defensive end in […]
The Missing Links
August 22, 2003 by
A green sign on the east end of the National Sports Center in Blaine beckons young golfers with a verdant 18-hole putting course called “Tournament Greens.” On a late July afternoon, the course crawls with boys and girls as young as six years old practicing their putting. They wear lime-green T-shirts that advertise the Southwest […]
Stranded On Third
June 27, 2003 by
I feel like throwing up: Willie Mays is screaming at me. He’s slammed the brakes on, and his sports car is screeching to a halt, and he is throwing me out. I feel nauseated, even though I’m perfectly aware of the fact that the “Say Hey Kid” of yore has famously turned into the Say […]