Jersey Retirement Policy

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Gopherthewin

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Congrats to Trent Tucker for having his jersey retired last night. He is truly a Gopher great and continues to do good things in the Twin Cities community.

The U of M's "jersey retirement policy" change in 2004 states "only the jersey now is retired and not the number of the former student-athlete". Their reasoning for this is "to preserve a broad range of numbers that could be worn by current student-athletes on a team". Even though Trent Tucker has had his jersey retired someone can still wear his number because we want "to preserve a broad range of numbers that could be worn by current student-athletes on a team". Gopher hoops has a long history and now has only five players with "retired jerseys". Are we really concerned with running out of jersey numbers for our 13 student-athletes on the roster? To me this seems pretty lame. Why do we even put up a banner with "Trent Tucker 32" in the rafters then? Why not just "Trent Tucker" since we didn't retire his number?

Wondering what you all think of the U's policy?
 

Gopherthewin said:
Wondering what you all think of the U's policy?
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Policy is fine ... better to be optimistic that there will be lots of players in the future whose numbers will be retired. This way we avoid having triple-digits on the jerseys in 6-7 years. ;)
 

It is a pretty stupid policy. Of course, there are 5 banners for the women as well. FIVE freaking retired numbers, in what, 35 years of competitive basketball? I have been around this University and athletic department for almost 40 years, and have never heard of 4 of them. Ugh.

Minnesota and their never-ending quest to make people think girl sports matter.
 


I noticed that last night when they put that policy on the scoreboard. I think it is kinda lame, that they don't retire the number and only the jersey. It's not like the UofM has a lot of candidates or currently have any candidates on the team that will eventually have their numbers retired causing them to eventually run out of a variety of numbers. Either way, it was a nice ceremony for Trent last night.
 


It's my understanding that the four numbers that were already in the rafters (those belong to Hudson, Brewer, McHale and Thompson) were retired and are not worn. Am I incorrect in saying that?

I thought someone had already posted that the banners for Tucker and Skoog were there as honors to the players, but their numbers were not to be retired. Is this the reason that Trent Tucker's banner isn't formatted (name and number location) the way the other four original banners are? When they unveiled it, I thought it was absolutely crazy that it was different than all the others...
 

I think Minnesota is just trying to avoid a situation like this one in South Carolina:

http://www.thestate.com/594/story/675442.html

Personally, I feel it's a pretty sad statement if you have a five-star recruit that is really shallow enough to pick his school based on what number they will let him wear.
 

Agreed

Lamo ! It isnt like we are the Yankees and running out of good low numbers!
 




It's my understanding that the four numbers that were already in the rafters (those belong to Hudson, Brewer, McHale and Thompson) were retired and are not worn. Am I incorrect in saying that?
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Yes, you are. The four numbers that are "retired" will be honored, and will never be worn again, per my understanding.

I thought someone had already posted that the banners for Tucker and Skoog were there as honors to the players, but their numbers were not to be retired. Is this the reason that Trent Tucker's banner isn't formatted (name and number location) the way the other four original banners are? When they unveiled it, I thought it was absolutely crazy that it was different than all the others...
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I noticed the same thing, but I think it has more to do with the format of the picture than anything. That said, I thought it was very noticeable, and I quick snapped my head across to see whether there were any women's numbers that were formatted that way, which they were not. They just did it differently, and the only plausible reason is the way it fit the picture they used.

On a side note, I think retiring the jersey, as opposed to the number, opens the door for them to retire more jerseys, such as Burton, Breuer, maybe Leonard, and more. I think we've certainly seen an increase in the women's numbers because of that, and I would only assume they would probably follow suit for the men as well.
 

Three of Vo's four years were wiped out by the scandal. I see no way that he's ever considered, even though he was very dominant.

Go Gophers!!
 

Looooooooong-Sighted

Maximus said:
What happens in the year 2127? Retiring numbers is short-sighted.
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:) at the rate of 5 retired numbers per century we should be ok for a while! Maybe by 2127 teams will be using these stupid Smilie things. Who will be the first to have their Smilie retrired?
 




parkinglotgopher said:
It's my understanding that the four numbers that were already in the rafters (those belong to Hudson, Brewer, McHale and Thompson) were retired and are not worn. Am I incorrect in saying that?
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..."The University of Minnesota Athletics Department jersey retirement policy changed in 2004 so that only the jersey now is retired and not the number of the former student-athlete. This change was made to preserve a broad range of numbers that could be worn by current student-athletes on a team. It is now common practice at many institutions to retire the jersey and not the number. For those players whose respective number and jersey were retired prior to the policy change above, the Athletics Department will continue to honor them in both ways."
 

I think they made this policy so that they could retire whatever women's jersey they retired this year. I noticed two #13s hanging at yesterdays game on the girls' side. Lindsay Whalen and some other woman who I think they retired recently...

...and that's the most you'll ever see me talk about women's basketball.
 

They did it because like said above, only 5 jerseys have been retired in 113 years. They want to recognize more people. If you look at most schools they have this policy, Duke, UNC, etc all retire the jersey but not the number.

Also traditional basketball numbers are only the numbers that can be given on two hands for a foul call. If you look almost all basketball jersey numbers are between 0-5, 10-15, 20-25, 30-35, 40-45, and 50-55. So yes, you can use the other ones, but for the most part you only have 36 numbers that are typical...
 

If I remember, the jersey retirement policy came in 2004, so Ashley Ellis-Milan could wear the number 21, the same number as her aunt, Linda Roberts.

BTW, the women only have 3 retired numbers, 13, 42, & 44.

Whalen and Hunter both wore 13, Coenen wore 44, and Shudlick 42. Roberts was the first player to have a jersey retired.
 

BleedGopher said:
Three of Vo's four years were wiped out by the scandal. I see no way that he's ever considered, even though he was very dominant.

Go Gophers!!
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I had to look this up in the fan guide, it was 2 out of the 4.

Still not good. I thought they only voided one. I know those years were knocked out, but to me they don't have the same sting as the final four team. But I thought someone stated that Vo never graduated. So he would have that against him as well.

One thing I did not remember was Sam Jacobson being a freshman when Lenard was a Senior. I would have failed that quiz question.
 

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