Bernie Bierman just got hired and my father was born. He listened to Gopher fb games on the radio in 1940 and 1941 and has been a diehard Gopher fan ever since. He went to college at Augsburg, just blocks from the Gopher campus, and went to games often, and when he began teaching and coaching high school football, he took his players to watch the Gopher's in 1960. I was born in 1967, so I've theorized that my father's birth brought in the Golden Era of Gopher fb and my birth brought in the end of it. lol I've had 2 girls so maybe I need to have a son before the Gophers can win another Natl or B1G conf title? But either way, I was born with Maroon and Gold blood flowing through my veins. I don't ever remember not being a Gopher fan? Heck, I think I have a vague memory of watching the 72 Gophers BB team? I watching the Vikings and Twins, sitting on the floor with my father on the couch, and remembered that all of mine and my father's favorite players were former Gophers. I suffered through 3 Super Bowl losses, don't remember the 1st one, and the Twins never won anything back then, either. And very few of my high school classmates were Gopher fans, but I never stopped loving them. My high school team made one trip to the high school basketball state final, I was very young at the time, but my father was a coach and so we stayed in the same hotel as the teams, and I remember, being 4 foot nothing, and getting into an elevator with Randy Breuer, a Sr in high school at the time and looking up at him like he was a giant. My high school team was the only one to ever have a lead at halftime against Breuers Lake City Lakers. Then there was the Herb Brooks led hockey team that led to the 1980 Miracle on Ice, and soon after that the Gopher BB Big Ten Title in 82. Now the simple fact is, that not much to brag about happened between 83 and 86 when I graduated HS. But I joined the Army, and found myself in a battalion with something like 40% Minnesotans, and so when sports came up, if one of us didn't know how to defend Minnesota sports, someone nearby did know how and got involved in the discussion. And as much as I was born with Maroon and Gold blood flowing in my veins, as much of a huge Gopher fan as my father was, to be honest, he never told me everything he knew about the Gopher's history, so I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but at the age of 19, I was a huge Gopher fan, yet I didn't know that they had ever won a Natl Title in football, or baseball, I only knew about a couple of Men's hockey titles. I also didn't know about the Mpls Lakers. But all of those fellow Minnesotans I was in the Army with slowly started to educate me about some of those things, and then the Twins won the World Series in 87, and then I found a book about Gopher football history, called the Gopher Sketchbook I think, and finally learned about the glorious history of Gopher football. That was about the same time that I was getting really into following Clem Haskins and his first group of recruits, they were starting to win games. I was stationed in Germany and found a stand that sold hats with team themes, and it was a very significant memory, because he said he had every pro and college team out there, yet he didn't have a Gopher hat, and I had to get him to special order one for me. And while I was doing this, I told him the Gophers were going to surprise some people that year, that was 1989, and I was right, they ended up making the sweet 16. I remember that vendors reaction to my initial request and then his responses after that, as he finally started hearing about the Gopher's, beating #1 Illinois I think was one of their big wins that season. Made me feel like I was the only true believer in this underdog team. The next year I was stationed in Louisiana and got to go to the Elite 8 matchup with Georgia Tech, and that journey, following the Haskins original recruiting class go from 2 conf wins in 87 to the Elite 8 in 1990 is probably what transformed me from just someone born to be a Gopher fan, into someone who truly wanted to be a Gopher fan out of choice. I've never once regretted that choice.
And if I had a little better luck, I would have gotten a chance to play for the Gophers. The U was the only school I ever wanted or would have played for. I would have walked on vs taking a scholarship anywhere else. But I wasn't a superstar, so I guess its easy to say that, lol. But I've always loved Minnesota and felt a connection to the state and would have felt an immense deal of pride had I been honored to have played for them. Granted my sport was golf, not football, but to me that didn't matter. I played a round with Tom Lehman once, and would have been proud to try to follow in his footsteps.
So I fell in love with the Gophers while thinking that they had never really won anything, and was blessed to find out after the fact, that they had won a ton, after I had made the choice to fully embrace the Gophers as my one and only team. I was raised up as a Twins, Vikings and North Stars fan, and later adopted the T-Pups and Wild, but since 1990 have never cared as much about all of them as I have the Gophers, because the U will never pick up and move, and the players that play there, choose to play there of their own free will, choosing Minnesota over hundreds of other options, and the U tries to help people out, while the pro teams only look out for themselves, that's the players and the ownership, etc., I mean, yeah, there are exceptions, but for the most part its a very selfish business with very little loyalty.
And part of the reason why its been easier to care less about the Vikes and Twins and T-Pups and Wild, etc., is because in the 70s and 80s, those teams or the teams they competed with seemed to have lots of Gophers playing for them. Since 1990, that has been less and ess the case, with the exception of the Wild and the NHL which is filled up with former Gophers. But is there a single player who played for the Gophers for more than one season in the NBA? Even Flip Saunders is no longer with us. Mason finally got a few players into the NFL, but before he got here, Minnesota players were almost non-existant in the NFL, and for every player added to NFL rosters, one less played for NBA teams. And after Molitor and Winfield retired, there was not a lot of Gopher presence in the MLB, either. The 70s and 80s were just a glorious period for former Gopher's in the pro sports.
Well, I am sorry for writing a book, or a full chapter at least, but it was a question that really brought up tons of great memories for me.
