Introduction to the Awesome, the Above Average and the Truly Woebegone of Minnesota Sports, Or What I Did During My Coronavirus Vacation

Minnesota and Minnesotans are known for many things. Mostly, there’s the cold and ice and snow of our winters. They say that that keeps a lot of people from coming here. It’s what keeps the Twin Cities from growing too fast and getting too big. Then there’s our 10,000 lakes, though now of course we’re told that there are really 17,000 of them. And those, we’re also told, are the only reasons why anybody would ever come here in the first place—well, that and the parks that surround them, and our “big league” amenities like the Walker and the Guthrie and the Twins and Vikings. Stuff like that. Those are the things that keep us from becoming “a cold Omaha.” Minnesotans themselves are understood to be taciturn, stoic, ambivalent, passive-aggressive, “Minnesota nice,” a little woebegone. We accept—but grudgingly and not completely—that life isn’t always a bed of roses. Nobody said that life would be easy. It could always be worse.

So it is with our sports. We love-hate our sports. Sid Hartman recently wrote a column in which he quoted the old-time sportswriter, Dick Cullum, who characterized Minnesota sports fans as “Lose and Love It” fans. They’d rather lose and whine than win. But, you know, its not that our sports teams and athletes are bad. They’re pretty good. They’re above average. The Minnesota Twins have even won a couple of world championships! Of course, there were decades of truly woebegone baseball before and after. And, how about those Vikings? Their 0-4 record in the Super Bowl is the worst in National Football League (NFL) history, and it has now been 43 years since their last Super Bowl—the fourth-longest drought in the NFL. The Timberwolves’ 15-year drought since their last playoff series win ties them for the longest current streak in the National Basketball Association (NBA), and their 13-year drought of playoff appearances (2004-2017) is the third-longest in NBA history.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Gopher football team has gone 53 years without a Big 10 title and 59 years since a Rose Bowl appearance. The Gopher basketball team has won four Big 10 titles in 100 years, and two of them bear big asterisks—1972 was tainted by the infamous “basketbrawl” against Ohio State, and the 1997 title was in fact vacated for reasons we won’t go into right now.

But, there are always high school sports, and the really great thing about them is that somebody from Minnesota actually wins. 

Being a Minnesota sports fan often is a tough slog. But, being honest, that just makes the good times better. And, frankly, the negativity is sometimes more than the situation would seem to support. So, on the following pages, we will relive each year in Minnesota sports from 1900 to the present—the best, the above average and, yes, the truly woebegone; the slogging, and the good times. On balance, you may find that Minnesota sports aren’t so bad. Above average. Occasionally great. And, yes, of course, occasionally woebegone. Nobody said life would be easy.

Big League: Minnesota Sports 1960-1999

In 130 years of Minnesota sports, essentially from 1890 to 2020, the biggest single turning point occurred in 1960 when Minnesota became “big league.” Frankly, we think that Minnesota was big league previous to 1960 because we (principally but not only the Minnesota Gophers) competed at a national level, and not just regionally. But, of course, most people today don’t see it that way. Conventionally, the big leagues are MLB, the NBA, the NFL and the NHL and maybe the MLS and the WNBA. The PGA tour is big league. The Olympics are big league. Still, it’s awfully hard to say that the Big 10 and the ACC and the SEC and Notre Dame aren’t big league. On the other hand, the MIAC and the NSIC and the high schools are not big league. Mostly, they compete regionally, not nationally. 

Still, the fact remains that Minnesota sports changed forever, and changed for the better in 1960 and 1961. In 1960, it was announced that the Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings would be created and, then, in 1961, they played their inaugural seasons here in the Twin towns. The Minnesota North Stars followed in 1967 and 1968 to further establish Minnesota and the Twin Cities as big league. The Twin Cities became big league towns where the Twins, Vikings and North Stars enjoyed a most-favored status and the greatest fan loyalty. The investment in big league sports paid off with the Twins appearance in the 1965, 1987 and 1991 World Series, the Vikings playing in four Super Bowls from 1969 to 1976, the North Stars playing in the Stanley Cup finals in 1981 and 1991, and in the Lynx’ four WNBA titles in the 2010s.

But, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In this case, the reaction was a loss of interest in and loyalty to the Minnesota Gophers. Football attendance had peaked at more than 60,000 in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It dropped into the 40s in 1966 and the 30s in 1967, despite tying for a Big 10 title. 

The Gophers are almost unique among the original ten universities in the Big 10 in that the Gophers share their home market with those major league franchises. Iowa has no major league teams to compete with the Hawkeyes. Illinois has the Chicago Bears, Black Hawks, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox, but they’re two hours away from Champaign, home of the University of Illinois. The Indiana Hoosiers had to compete with the Fort Wayne Pistons until 1957, and has competed with the Colts since 1983, but even they (the Colts) are an hour up the road in Indianapolis. Michigan and Michigan State are 40 and 90 miles, respectively, from Detroit, home of the Lions, Tigers, Pistons and Red Wings. Madison, WI, home of the Badgers, is more than a hour’s ride from Milwaukee, and two hours from Green Bay. Northwestern, like Minnesota, competes with Chicago’s professional sports teams for the affection of Chicagoland fans and sports reporters. But, even in Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, where the big league teams are only about an hour away from their Big 10 college towns, the hometown university has its own media who show a consistent bent toward supporting rather than tearing down their college teams.

Here in Minnesota, sports fans and sports media alike have shown a clear preference for major league professional sports, and something of a disdain for the Gophers. In the case of the media--the Strib and the Pioneer Press, and especially the Minneapolis Strib--the disdain for anything to do with the local college has been just palpable and dispiriting. Apparently, we're supposed to love a bunch of horses asses who write about sports and disrespect those who play and coach at the college level. What a load of horse manure. This is a cross that Minnesotans and, especially, the Minnesota Gophers bear as a part of our embrace of the “big leagues.”

Minnesota sports changed some more, and changed for the better, with Title IX, as girls and women’s sports came online. Janet Karvonen, Kelly Skalicky, Coco and Kelly Miller, Natalie Darwitz and Krissy Wendell, Lindsay Whalen, Lindsey Vonn and many others have added their names to the list of Minnesota sports heroes. 

Minnesota sports changed some more—though, whether for the better is in the eye of the beholder—with the advent of free agency in our professional sports. For 100 years, pro athletes had been held in perpetual bondage thanks to the so-called “reserve clause” in professional contracts, which stated that the athlete would play for a specific team “this year and the next.” This clause was successfully challenged in court in the 1970s and, after playing for their team this year and next year, many would now be free agents. This drove up the cost of professional athletes, and it meant that poorer professional teams, such as the Minnesota Twins of Calvin Griffith, would have difficulty competing. Eventually, the “mom and pop” sports franchise was driven out of our games, to be replaced by much wealthier individual and/or corporate owners. Compared to the Calvin Griffiths of the world, they were better equipped to sign and pay athletes for their teams. They were also better equipped to demand more and more public support for their teams, meaning public subsidies for their stadiums. And, if a particular city didn’t pony up, then they would leave for another city that would.

Minnesota was threatened more than once in this way by the Twins and Vikings and the Timberwolves. Ironically, when the North Stars left town in 1993, it had nothing to do with the customary stadium extortion racket. It was not for lack of public support of the beloved North Stars. It was simply because the owner, Norm Green, was a greedy and incompetent bastard. No matter how much revenue his businesses produced, he could always spend more. And, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He was sued by a female employee for sexual harassment, and his wife announced that she would leave him unless he moved the team to another town. 

The first 40 years of big league sports in Minnesota, then, saw three World Series, four Super Bowls, two Stanley Cup finals, the arrival of three-plus major league teams, the departure of two more (the Lakers in 1960, and the North Stars), and the emergence of girls and woman’s sports, and Minnesota becoming “the state of hockey,” among much more. It wasn’t quite the best of times, nor was it altogether woebegone. It was above average. It could always be worse. 

The Times They Are A-Changin': Minnesota Sports in the 1960s

The Baby Boomers came of age in the 1960s and, man, they were a pain in the ass. Mainly, they refused to fight for their country like their fathers had done. Of course, not everybody was opposed to the war. Ten percent of the Boomers fought in Vietnam, and social scientists say that no more than ten to 15 percent of young Americans at the time were really hippies or radicals or anything like that. Sure, there was sex, drugs and rock & roll. But, for every hippie there were ten boys and young men who played football and basketball and other sports at school just like their daddy did.

Sports is, of course, a meritocracy. If you fail, it’s your own damn fault. And, so there was little sympathy in the sporting world for the communal values of the day, not even among the Boomers. Still, a few sports figures went native. The boxer Muhummad Ali, who was stripped of his heavyweight title for refusing to be drafted into the military in 1966, neatly tied together the two big issues of the day when he said, “Ain’t no Viet Cong ever called me nigger.” 

Even some white athletes affected the accouterments of the counter-culture, whether it was long hair or liberal opinions or what have you. Joe Namath and Bill Walton come to mind. But, for the most part, sports and country music remained the two places in America where one could escape from that idea, advanced by the Minnesotan, Bob Dylan, that “the times they are a-changin,’” and that they were changing in a counter-cultural direction. 

And, yet, the times they were a-changin.’ Sports continued the great restructuring that it had begun in the 1950s. The major leagues continued to expand into the south and the west. Television picked the winners and losers. The networks had loved boxing in the 1950s. Now, after several highly publicized deaths in the ring, boxing disappeared from the small screen. The Olympics went from a curiosity to a multi-million dollar business, thanks to TV coverage. ABC’s Wide World of Sports introduced Americans to exotica like, well, soccer, and to “the agony of defeat.” TV made superstars out of people like Arnold Palmer and Peggy Fleming.

But, locally, the big sports story of the 1960s was pretty obvious: Minnesota was now big league with the arrival of the Twins and Vikings in 1961. The NHL and the North Stars arrived in 1969. The Twins came to play respectable ball as early as 1962. It took the Vikings until about 1968. The North Stars? 1981? Meanwhile, Gopher football got one final taste of glory with a national championship in 1960 and a Rose Bowl victory after the 1961 season, but then decline set in. Another co-championship in 1967 was not enough to rekindle interest. The Gopher basketball team experienced a burst of hope mid-decade but then it, too, declined. 

#5 Season #6 Event Twins Storm Into the 1965 World Series, Lose to Sandy Koufax and the L.A. Dodgers 4-3 The Twins and Vikings made Minnesota “big league” in 1961, and the Twins were the first to enjoy success on the field. They became known for their “murderer’s row” of home run hitters—Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall, Tony Oliva, and more. After winning just 70 games in 1961, they won 91 in 1962 and 1963. They slumped in 1964, but added Oliva’s bat to the lineup, as “Tony-O” won the batting title and Rookie of the Year honors. It all came together in 1965 around the mercurial shortstop Zoilo Versalles. Identified in 1961 as a player of unlimited potential, Versalles had been erratic. And, yet, in 1962 he got a smattering of MVP votes. In 1963, he led the league in triples, won a Gold Glove and made the All-Star team. In 1965, he led the league in at bats, runs, doubles, triples, extra-base hits and total bases, and was a near-unanimous pick as MVP. Oliva won a second batting title and finished second in MVP voting. Killebrew, Allison, Mincher and Versalles all hit 20-plus home runs. Mudcat Grant won 21 games while Jim Kaat was 18-11, 2.83.  The Twins won the American League pennant by seven games. They faced the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers, 1963 world champions, with superstar pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, in the World Series. Well, the Twins beat Drysdale and Koufax in games one and two. But, they lost all three games in L.A. and came home needed to sweep the final two games. Grant beat Drysdale, and hit a three-run home run, in game six. But Koufax two-hit the Twins in game seven, and the Twins lost 2-0 and four games to three. Still, it was a wonderful season. The future looked bright. Even owner Calvin Griffith was beloved, a star of Twin Cities sports.

#7 Athlete Harmon Killebrew Harmon Killebrew came to the major leagues at 18 in 1954 as a highly-touted “bonus baby” and a second baseman. It took him awhile to hit his stride. He hit eleven home runs and .224 in 254 games in his first five major league seasons. Then, in 1959, he led the American League with 42 home runs. He also struck out 116 times, and it wasn’t clear whether he was better known for the HRs or the Ks.  In 1961, in his first year as a Minnesota Twin, he again led the league in taters with 46 and he hit .288. Yet, there were those strikeouts. In 1962, the Twins improved by 20 wins to a total of 91, and Killebrew led the league with 48 HR and 126 RBI. But, his batting average dropped to .243 and the strikeouts increased to a league-leading 142. By the time he was done, he had hit 40-plus home runs eight times and struck out 100-plus times in seven seasons. When he retired, he was second only to Babe Ruth in home runs in the American League, and he was second only to Mickey Mantle on the career list for strikeouts with 1,699. So, not everybody noticed that Killebrew cut down dramatically on his strikeouts as the years went by. Beginning in 1965, he struck out 100 times only once, and in 1969 he really put it all together. He led the league in HR and RBI at 45 and 140, and in walks with 145. He struck out just 84 times, he hit .276 and led the league in on-base percentage at .427. He was a runaway winner of the AL MVP. In 1970, he went 41-113-.271 with another 84 K, and he finished third in the MVP voting. In 1971, he went 28-119-.254 with 96 K. And, remember, he came up as an infielder and played a lot of decent third base over the years, though he finished up as a first baseman, of course.  The other thing people admired about Harmon Killebrew was that he was regarded as a quiet and a kind man. Somebody once asked him what his hobbies were. “Just washing the dishes, I guess,” he said.

#4 Team Minnesota Vikings 1969 Expansion franchises used to get nuthin.’ You had to suffer for awhile. And, the Minnesota Vikings did that. They won their first game ever, shocking the Chicago Bears 37-13 as Fran Tarkenton threw four touchdown passes. But, by the end of 1967, coach Norm Van Brocklin and Tarkenton were both gone, and the Vikings were 32-59-7. Then, in 1968, they seemed to turn it around, going 8-6 and playing quite respectably against the powerful Baltimore Colts in the playoffs before losing 24-14. Then, in 1969, they opened with a disappointing loss to Tarkenton and the New York Giants. Then, in week two, they demolished the heavily favored Colts 56-14 as new QB Joe Kapp threw an NFL record seven touchdown passes. Before they were done, they won twelve straight games by an average score of 29-8. In the playoffs, the came from behind to beat the L.A. Rams 23-20, then manhandled the Cleveland Browns 27-7. The Vikings were 12 to 13-point favorites to beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl IV. Instead, the Chiefs defense dominated and the Vikings lost, embarrassingly, 23-7. But, until Super Bowl Sunday, it was a glorious season for the Vikings and the making of the reputations of coach Bud Grant and the so-called “Purple People Eaters” (the defensive front of Eller, Marshall and Page). Mostly, it made a legend of coach Grant in just his third season at the helm.

# 4 Event The Vikings Demolish NFC Opponents,  But Lose First Super Bowl to Kansas City, 23-7 The Minnesota Vikings vastly exceeded any and all expectations in 1969. They were just 40-65-7 going into the season, and they relied on a third year coach and a new quarterback. Sure enough, they opened with a loss to their former QB Fran Tarkenton and his new team, the New York Giants. Then, in week two, they clobbered the Baltimore Colts 56-14, and they were off to the races.  They won in Chicago 31-0. They humiliated the Cleveland Browns 51-3 as Kapp threw three more TD passes. They bombed the Steelers 52-14. They beat the undefeated L.A. Rams 20-13 after leading 17-3 at the half.  But, in the first round of the playoffs, they fell behind the Rams 17-7. In the second half, they forced the Rams to punt for the first time and scored on their first possession. The Vikings went ahead 21-20 at 8:24 of the fourth. Then, Carl Eller sacked L.A. QB Roman Gabriel for a safety and Alan Page intercepted a Gabriel pass to effectively end the game. The Vikings then manhandled Cleveland for the second time this year, leading 24-0 at the half and winning 27-7. The Vikings were favored to win Super Bowl IV, but were able to run for just 67 yards and turned the ball over five times. The Vikings first half possessions ended in three punts, two fumbles lost and a missed field goal. They were 0-for-5 on third down and trailed 16-0. They got within 16-7 early in the third period, but that was the extent of the rally. What really grates in hindsight, of course, is that in four Super Bowls, the Vikings never really played any better than this.

Success for the Gopher football and basketball teams had come about four years apart, which is also how much time passed between the day when Murray Warmath decided to recruit African-American athletes from around the country and the day when John Kundla decided to do the same. What they, and we, didn’t know was that there was a very short window of opportunity for the Gophers to do so. The Gophers were able to recruit football stars like Bobby Bell, Carl Eller and Sandy Stephens and basketball stars like Archie Clark and Lou Hudson because their hometown universities were still segregated. But, those hometown universities quickly saw that schools with black athletes were winning and the schools without black athletes were not. Soon enough, they, too, had black athletes, and those black athletes no longer needed to travel a thousand miles from home into an unfamiliar land of ice and snow to play major college sports. 

#8 (tie) Event

Gophers Clobber #1 Iowa, 27-10

The 1965 World Series was the only sports event of the 1960s that could hold a candle to the Gophers 1960 football win over Iowa, 27-10. It featured #1 (Iowa) vs. #3. A national championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl were at stake. And, for the Gophers, revenge for a series of humiliations by the hated Hawkeyes.

Iowa coach Forest Evashevski was of course no stranger to the Minnesota Gophers. He played for Michigan—he caught a touchdown pass—in the Gophers 7-6 win to clinch the 1940 national title. Now, he was in his ninth year as coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes, where he was 52-27-4 with Big 10 titles in 1956 and 1958. The Gophers were 2-6 against Evashevski with five straight defeats. Iowa came to Minnesota on November 5, 1960, unbeaten and ranked #1, but a little bit banged up. They were in the middle of perhaps the toughest schedule in college football history, having beaten the #10, 6, 13, 12, 10 and 19-ranked teams. Now came the #3 Gophers, then a trip to #5 Ohio State.

The Gophers outgained Iowa 299-198 as each team turned it over four times. The Gophers scored two touchdowns after getting the ball on the 14 on downs after a bad snap on an Iowa punt, and again after recovering an Iowa fumble on the 19. Fullback Roger Hagberg caught a key 30-yard pass and later scored on a 42-yard run. The 27-10 Minnesota win moved the Gophers into the #1 spot in the AP poll.

Still, led by the baseball team with four Big 10 titles and a pair of national championships—and with football contributing its last two titles to this day—the Gophers got back into double digits with a total of eleven conference titles in the ‘60s. This would prove to be a trend. Baseball coach Dick Siebert was hired in 1948 by athletic director Frank McCormick (1932-1950). But, despite Siebert’s success, the McCormick era was not otherwise “good times” for Gopher sports. Setting aside just the football titles, in the 1930s and 1940s the Gophers had won just 14 Big 10 titles out of a possible 191.

And, so, as success for Minnesota Gopher football and basketball teams became more elusive, fan loyalty shifted to the new professional teams, and it never looked back. That meant that Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva and Fran Tarkenton and Alan Page are remembered as the superstars of Minnesota sports in the 1960s while Bell, Stephens and Hudson are but vague memories.

Hoops and Hockey

Early in the decade, the high school basketball tournament was still the toughest ticket in town but here, too, decline set in. By the end of the decade, attendance at the basketball tournament had declined for the first time ever after more than 50 years of steady growth.

It was due, at least in part, to the professional competition. It was due to the dominance of the Lake Conference, located in the western suburbs of Minneapolis, and to the notion that the small towns could no longer compete. But, more than that, it was due to the obvious decline in the caliber of play. A quarter-century earlier, the NCAA had resisted the move to deemphasize sports, but the MSHSL had been moved to implement stringent restrictions on the amount of basketball that Minnesotans could play. As a result, during the 1960s, no more than one or two boys won Division 1 basketball scholarships in a typical year. This was also the underlying reason for the Gophers’ continuing lack of success.

And, so, by the end of the decade, the high school hockey tournament had surpassed basketball in popularity. The small towns, especially those “up north,” could still compete in hockey. From 1957 to 1968, International Falls won five state titles, Roseau three and Coleraine Greenway two, and many of those boys grew up to play Division 1 hockey in college—many more than could do that anymore in the world of basketball.

#9 (tie) Event #19 Season “Cinderella” Edgerton Edges Richfield 63-60 in OT En Route to State Basketball Championship Metro schools had begun to dominate the state high school basketball tourney a little too much. From 1913 to 1939, they had won just six of 27 championships. In the 1940s, it was four; in the 1950s, six. From 1943 to 1959, it was 10-of-17. So, in 1960, Richfield of Region 5 was a heavy favorite, and they thrashed North St. Paul 60-51 in the first round, after leading by as many as 14. Austin was also favored and beat Thief River Falls 55-41. Meanwhile, tiny Edgerton came into the tournament unbeaten but largely unsung. Sure, they had beaten perennial power Mankato 73-44 in Region 2, but…. But, Edgerton played well in the first round, beating Chisholm 65-54. That set up a classic David vs. Goliath semi, Richfield vs. Edgerton, and the first-ever state tournament meeting of two players who had scored 1,000 career points—Bill Davis for Richfield, and Dean Veenhof for Edgerton. Things looked bleak for the Dutchmen when Veenhof fouled out with five minutes left and Edgerton up 50-46. Davis tied it at 56 and the game went into overtime. In the end, Edgerton scored just one field goal in the fourth quarter plus overtime but made free throw after free throw to pull out a 63-60 thriller.  Edgerton then defeated Austin 72-61 as more than 19,000 fans watched at Williams Arena. Edgerton was the smallest school from the smallest town ever to win a single class state title.

#9 (tie) Event #12 Dynasty The E-Dynasty Gathers Force as Edina Beats Warroad 5-4 for the 1969 State Hockey Title Edina was settled in the 1860s, and was a small farming and milling community as late as World War II. Edina was known as a bastion of racial exclusivity, as deed covenants sought to keep blacks and Jews out. In 1960, mayor Ken Joyce spoke out against these policies and the village voted in favor of inclusion. Edina’s population tripled to more than 30,000 during the 1950s. Edina high school was founded in 1949. Its first state titles were mythical football titles in 1952 and 1953. A boys golf title was its first official title in 1954. Its three-peat in boys basketball began in 1966 with just its fourth title.  But, after that, the titles piled up like so many sacks of flour, and today Edina leads all Minnesota schools with 186 athletic championships: 37 in girls tennis, 24 in boys tennis, 17 in girls swimming, 13 in boys hockey, twelve in girls golf, and eleven in boys swimming. Its most famous champions, of course, are its boys basketball three-peat in 1966, 1967 and 1968, and then its 1969 state hockey champions with their overtime win over Warroad and Henry Boucha. The basketball team was 79-1 over three years and won a state record 69 straight games. Meanwhile, the Edina hockey legend began in 1969. Fans loved Henry Boucha and tiny Warroad, while they were in awe of Edina. In the final, Edina led 4-2 when Boucha went down and out with blood draining out of his ear. Yet Warroad came back to tie it up and to send the game into overtime. Defenseman Skip Thomas scored at 3:09 of OT to give Edina the first of seven state titles. The tournament drew a record of more than 80,000 fans, and the hockey tournament surpassed the basketball tournament as Minnesota’s premiere high school event.

In the 1950s Minnesota’s sports heroes were Gopher gridders, high school hoopsters and Friday night fighters on the TV. In the 1970s, they were Vikings and Twins, high school pucksters and Olympians on TV. All of those changes—from the Gophers to the pros, from basketball to hockey, from boxing to the Olympics—all of them were packed into just a few years of the 1960s. Like it or not, Dylan was right.

#5 Leader

#5 Dynasty

John Gagliardi and St. John’s Win Their First of Four National Football Championships

John Gagliardi was St. John’s football coach for 60 years with a 465-132-10 record and 27 MIAC titles. His career total of 489 wins, including four years at Carroll (MT), is the most ever by any college football coach at any level. The Johnnies played in the post-season 24 times and his 1963, 1965, 1976 and 2003 teams won national championships in the NAIA or NCAA Division 3. 

Gagliardi won his first MIAC title in his first year at St. John’s in 1953, but then did not win again until 1962, when his 9-0 Johnnies die not get a post-season invitation. They repeated in 1963 and this time they got an invitation to the NAIA playoffs where, in the first round, St. John’s hammered Emporia State 54-0. They drew unbeaten Prairie View A&M, who was chosen by the Pittsburgh Courier as the black national champions and featuring future all-pros Kenny Houston and Otis Taylor, in the final. After watching their film, Gagliardi is reported to have said, “Well, they may be big, but at least they’re fast.” But, the Johnnies had outscored their opponents 29-5 and they, too, were pretty good. In fact, they defeated Prairie View 33-27 for their first national title. 

St. John’s returned to the top of the MIAC in 1965, and the NAIA could hardly exclude them, and indeed the Johnnies beat Fairmount State 28-7 and Linfield  33-0 for their second national title. The Johnnies gave up just 20 points in nine regular season games, and against Linfield they gave up just 28 yards rushing and each of their four starting defensive backs intercepted a pass. 

Still, the Johnnies were not yet the juggernaut that they would become, failing to win an MIAC title again until 1971. But, they won six conference titles in the 1970s, and won their third national title in 1976, beating Augustana, IL, 46-7, Buena Vista 61-0 and Towson State 31-28. St. John’s led Towson 28-0 before a furious Towson rallied tied the game at 28 with just 30 seconds remaining. But, Johnnies QB Jeff Norman threw a 56-yard pass to Jim Roeder, which allowed Norman to kick a 19-yard field goal on the last play of the game.

There were three more MIAC titles in the 1980s, then seven in the 1990s and seven more in the 2000s. The fourth championship came in 2003 with wins over St. Norbert, Linfield, RPI and then over perennial power Mount Union 24-6 in the final. Mount Union had won seven NCAA D3 football titles in ten years, including 2000 when the edged the Johnnies 10-7. The Johnnies led Mount Union 7-6 at the half, but pulled away in the second half as Blake Elliott gained 114 yards rushing and 51 yards receiving. His 51-yard run made it 17-6 in the fourth, then Mike Zauhar ran back in interception 100 yards for the 24-6 final.

1960

John F. Kennedy was elected president of the United States. Baby Boomers were anywhere from 14 years of age to, well, still waiting to be born. But, the young, charismatic Kennedy, compared to the old, grey and boring Dwight D. Eisenhower, seemed like a change from black & white to color, from an old world to a new and exciting world. If we had only known, Ike in fact had held back a tide of right-wing extremism and of militarism that had threatened to break loose in the 1950s. He was a great man and a great president. It would be 40 years before us young bucks would realize that Kennedy wasn't half the man that Ike had been. 

All of that aside, 1960 was the biggest year ever in Minnesota sports, even setting aside the announcements that the Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings would both begin play in 1961. Just what happened on Minnesota’s football fields and basketball courts was enough even without that, though that announcement added an air of anticipation and optimism to our sporting affairs. Minnesota Gopher football and baseball, U.S. Olympic hockey and Edgerton high school basketball all thrilled Minnesota sports fans in 1960. 

#16 (Tie) Season Minnesota Gophers Football 1960-1961 The Minnesota Gophers struggled to a 2-7 record in 1959. In 1960, they won their first seven games, including a 27-10 whipping of #1 Iowa. They lost to Purdue but got a share of the Big 10 title and the undisputed national title over 9-0-1 Mississippi. Murray Warmath won coach of the year honors. Guard Tom Brown was a consensus all-American and won the Outland Award as the top lineman in the nation. The national championship was awarded based on the regular season. So, the Gophers lost to Washington 17-7 in the Rose Bowl but hung on to the national title at 8-2. Mississippi defeated Rice 14-6 in the Sugar Bowl to finish 10-0-1. Even before the bowl games, the Gophers got just 17 first place votes in the final poll, while Mississippi got 16 and Iowa got twelve. Even Washington got two, and that was before they defeated the Gophers to finish 10-1.  In 1961, the Gophers opened with a 6-0 loss to Missouri, but they then won eight straight games, including against #1 Michigan State and #7 Purdue. A  23-21 loss to Wisconsin cost them the Big 10 title but, then, inexplicably, Ohio State turned down the Rose Bowl bid, so second place Minnesota went instead. This time, the Gophers took care of business, dominating UCLA 21-3. QB Sandy Stephens and lineman Bobby Bell both won all-America honors.

#13 Coach Murray Warmath In 1932, the Gophers had reached down into the deep south to hire Tulane coach Bernie Bierman as their new coach. In 1953, they tried a similar tactic, hiring coach Murray Warmath from Mississippi State. The difference was that Bierman was a Minnesotan, a U of M alum. Warmath was a true-blue southerner and a Tennessee grad. Warmath’s Gophers went 16-9-2 in his first three seasons. Okay. But, over the next three years, he was 7-20. Minnesota fans were not amused and demanded Warmath’s ouster. Meanwhile, Warmath decided he couldn’t win with Minnesota kids, and he started recruiting African-American athletes from the south who couldn’t play at segregated southern colleges. It worked like a charm, and in Warmath’s third trio of seasons, he went 21-6-1 with a Big 10 title and a Rose Bowl title. Another Big 10 title followed in 1967.  Southern colleges were soon integrated, however, and the Gophers talent pipeline dried up. In Warmath’s last three seasons, the Gophers were 11-18-2. Only now does his overall record of 87-78-7 begin to look pretty darn good. His 87 victories remains #3 in Gopher history behind Doc Williams and Bernie Bierman.

Honorable Mention Seasons U.S. Olympic Hockey Beats Russians, Wins Gold  in the First Miracle on Ice The U.S. national hockey team had done okay. It was 32-11-3 going into the 1960 games, with five silvers and a bronze and only twice out of the medals. It was not the massive underdog it is sometimes made out to be. On the other hand, the world had begun to feel the power of the Soviet hockey team. Ice hockey was first played in Russia in 1946, and the first games against foreign competition were played in 1948. But, it was only in 1954 that the Soviets sent a team to the world championships, and they surprised everybody by winning the gold medal—and, especially, beating Canada, 7-2. Canada had won 22 of 23 Olympic and world championship gold medals up till then. In 1956, the Russians shut out the U.S. and Canada to win the gold, while the U.S. shocked Canada 4-1 for the silver. In 1957, Russia again won the gold as neither Canada nor the U.S. participated. In 1958 and 1959, Canada beat the Russians to win the gold while the U.S. failed to medal. So, it seemed unlikely that the U.S. could do better than third in 1960.  Instead, the U.S. beat Canada 2-1 as goalie Jack McCartan, a Minnesotan, stopped 39 of Canada’s 40 shots. Then, they beat the Russians 3-2 as Minnesotans Bill and Roger Christian each scored two points and McCartan had 27 saves. Bill Christian and John Mayasich were the #2 and #3 scorers for the U.S. with 13 and 12 points, while McCartan was named the top goaltender.

#48 Athlete  Jack McCartan John William McCartan was not quite a “jack of all trades,” but he was a master of third base and of the goalie’s crease. He played baseball and hockey at the University of Minnesota, and helped the Gopher baseball team to their first-ever national title in 1956 with eight home runs and a .436 batting average. In 1958, he won all-American honors. The Gophers were 75-24-2 in his three years as a Gopher. But, he was even better at hockey and was by far the biggest star of the first Miracle on Ice, the U.S. hockey gold in 1960. He was a two-time all-American though the Gophers only went 28-26-2. But Marsh Ryman, the freshman coach at Minnesota and also coach of the 1959 U.S. national team, almost cost McCartan his spot in the 1960 Olympics. Jack Riley, coach at Army, who would also coach the 1960 Olympians, watched Ryman’s team play, of course, as Ryman chose to play goalie Don Cooper ahead of McCartan. Riley assumed, logically enough, that if Ryman wasn’t playing him, then McCartan must not be very good. So, Riley cut him from the national team. It was only later that Ryman told Riley that, in fact, McCartan was better. But, his team, he said, played better in front of Cooper because they knew he needed the help. Riley invited McCartan back for another tryout. The rest is history. McCartan stopped 39 of 40 Canadian shots, and the U.S. shocked Canada 2-1. Overall, McCartan made 134 stops and allowed eleven goals. He was named the top goaltender in the 1960 Olympics. He quickly got a tryout with the New York Rangers. He didn’t stick, but in one of his earliest NHL games he made a save, and one of his defenseman skated over to say, “Nice save on Gordie Howe.” “Who is Gordie Howe?” McCartan was reported to have said.

• The Gopher baseball team won the NCAA title, beating USC 2-1 in extra innings in the final as 2B John Erickson won the MVP award.

• Edgerton became the smallest high school from the smallest town ever to win a state high school basketball championship, defeating favored Richfield 63-60 in overtime in a classic final. Edgerton was the best ever at getting to the free throw line. In each of their eight post-season games, they made more free throws than their opponents shot. They scored just one field goal in the fourth quarter plus overtime against Richfield, and won. Their records of 82 free throws made out of 116 attempted stood for almost 50 years. Not only that, but the Richfield game was the first state tournament game ever to feature two 1,000 point scorers, Bill Davis of Richfield and Dean Veenhof of Edgerton. More than 19,000 fans saw Edgerton win their semi-final and championship games at Williams Arena.

• The St. Paul Saints hockey team won the championship of the IHL.

• And, again, Minnesota would be a big league city starting in 1961. Calvin Griffith announced that his Washington Senators would be moving to Minnesota and would become the Minnesota Twins. The NFL announced that Minnesota was awarded an expansion franchise and it would be called the Vikings. But, as the Twins and Vikings arrived in town, they passed the Minneapolis Lakers by as they packed up their things and moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles.

Year	Athlete of the Year	Team of the Year	Coach of the Year	Event of the Year
1960	1. Tom Brown, Minnesota Gopher football 2. Jack McCartan, U.S. Olympic hockey (silver medal) 3. John Erickson, Minnesota Gopher baseball	1. Edgerton basketball (27-0, state champion) 2. Minnesota Gopher football (8-2, Big 10 co-champion, national champion) 3. Minnesota Gopher baseball (34-7-1, NCAA champion)	1. Murray Warmath, Minnesota Gopher football 2. Dick Siebert, Minnesota Gopher baseball 3. Fred Shero, St. Paul Saints hockey (International Hockey League champion)	1. The Minnesota Gophers beat #1-ranked Iowa 27-10 to tie for the Big 10 title. 2. The Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings were both announced, and the Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles. 3. Edgerton edged Richfield 63-60 in OT en route to the state basketball title.

1961

1961 saw the Bay of Pigs invasion and a U.S. military buildup in Vietnam, both of them representing policies of the the new administration of John F. Kennedy. What could possibly go wrong?

The Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings brought major league sports back to Minnesota. Both won their very first games—the Vikings versus the Chicago Bears 37-13, the Twins and pitcher Pedro Ramos against the defending AL champion Yankees 6-0. Both went on to struggle in their inaugural seasons but fans seemed happy enough with their efforts. Twins owner Calvin Griffith and slugger Harmon Killebrew (46-122-.288) and Vikings coach Norm Van Brocklin were the early faces of their organizations. 

• But, the best team in town was still the Minnesota Gopher football team. They lost only to Wisconsin in the Big 10, finished second, but got the Rose Bowl bid anyway. They won their first and only Rose Bowl victory, dominating UCLA, 21-3.

#8 (tie) Event

#23 Athletes

Bobby Bell and Sandy Stephens Carry the Gophers to Their One and Only Rose Bowl Victory

For the first time in years, the Minnesota Gopher football season opened to high expectations. The Gophers lost their opener to Missouri, 6-0, however. But, they beat Oregon 14-7, and then six straight Big 10 opponents, including #1-ranked Michigan State 13-0 and #7 Purdue 10-7. Suddenly, the Gophers were ranked #3 at 7-1 with only a home date against 5-3 Wisconsin standing between them and a second straight Big 10 title at 7-0, while the best Ohio State could do was 6-0. Well, the Gophers could not stop the combination of QB Ron Miller to end Pat Richter. Miller completed 19-of-37 passes for 297 yards and two TDs, while Richter caught six of those passes for 142 yards. The Gophers were relegated to second place in the Big 10, but a few days later, the Ohio State faculty inexplicably turned down an invitation for the Buckeyes to play in the Rose Bowl. As a result, the Gophers got the invitation, which they cheerfully accepted. 

UCLA took a 3-0 lead in the first quarter, but the Bruins were only able to gain 108 yards in total offense while the Gophers ran up 297. Minnesota also had a 21-8 advantage in first downs. Sandy Stephens ran for 46 yards and two touchdowns, while completing seven of eleven passes for 75 yards. He was named the game’s MVP. This remains the Gophers only Rose Bowl win ever, and they have in fact now gone longer than any other traditional Big 10 team since this, their last Rose Bowl appearance.

Stephens was also a first team all-American, the Big 10 MVP, and fourth in Heisman Trophy voting. Tackle Bobby Bell was also a consensus first team all-American.  

• Duluth Central and Roseau won the state basketball and hockey titles, Roseau for the third time in four years, while Austin was named the mythical football champion for the fourth time.

Year	Athlete of the Year	Team of the Year	Coach of the Year	Event of the Year
1961	1. Sandy Stephens, Minnesota Gopher football 2. Harmon Killebrew, Minnesota Twins  3. Bobby Bell, Minnesota Gopher football	1. Minnesota Gopher football (8-2, Rose Bowl champion) 2 (tie). Minnesota Twins baseball        (70-90) Minnesota Vikings football (3-11) 3 (tie). Austin football  Duluth Central basketball (27-0) Roseau hockey          (21-3-2)  (all state champions)	1. Calvin Griffith, Minnesota Twins baseball 2. Warmath 3. Norm Van Brocklin, Minnesota Vikings	1. The Minnesota Gophers beat UCLA 21-3 for their only Rose Bowl victory ever. 2. The Minnesota Vikings defeated the Chicago Bears 37-13 in their first game ever. 3. The Minnesota Twins shut out the world champion New York Yankees 6-0 in their first game ever.