BleedGopher
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per PennLive:
These are two outsized egos colliding, which happens all the time in college football. Just not out in the open for everyone to see.
But, hey, that’s Minnesota: Drama. Chaos. Scandal. If you trace back through the archives, it’s practically a school tradition.
A good starting point is 1962. That’s the last time Minnesota football won the Big Ten and went to the Rose Bowl – 56 years ago, the longest drought of any Big Ten team.
Since then, you can tick off all the various explosions that have blown up at Minnesota. Being a Big Ten lifer, I’ve seen them all. Other B1G schools have had their embarrassing or shameful moments. Minnesota has practically lived in continuous public discord:
• 1972: Coached by the borderline-insane Bill Musselman (father of former NBA and current Nevada head coach Eric), the Gophers started a brawl with 36 seconds left in a 50-44 game they were about to lose to Ohio State in Williams Arena. Forward Corky Taylor hammered OSU center Luke Witte to the floor, extended his hand to help him up, then kneed Witte hard in the groin.
There ensued a total melee in which Witte was stomped in the head by forward Ron Behagen as he lay writhing. Future NBA forward Jim Brewer and future MLB outfielder Dave Winfield also punched OSU players, three of whom went to the hospital.
• 1986: Jim Dutcher resigned as basketball coach when three of his players were accused of raping a young woman after a game at Wisconsin. The players were thrown out of school by the university president – even though all three were acquitted in a trial months later.
A subsequent Big Ten investigation found that Dutcher’s teams had the lowest graduation rate for entering freshmen (9 percent) of any in the league.
• 1999: An athletic department tutor admitted to writing over 400 pieces of course work for Clem Haskins’ Minnesota basketball players during a 6-year period. The story got Haskins fired and won a Pulitzer Prize for St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter George Dohrman.
• 2015: Athletic director Norwood Teague was forced to resign after he groped and sexually harassed two women from the university president’s office while intoxicated at a retreat and also sent graphic text messages to one of them.
• 2016: Richard Pitino suspended three of basketball players for the remainder of the season after they starred in a threesome sex tape tweeted out by one of the players.
• 2016: The aforementioned case revolving around 10 football players accused of sexual assault near the end of the season. Claeys was fired after expressing public support for the players. Nine of the 10 filed suit against the school in June asking damages of $5 million each, claiming they were wrongly suspended or expelled.
• 2018: Center Reggie Lynch was tossed off the basketball team and then out of school after sexual assault allegations. Though he initially appealed the expulsion, Lynch later dropped the appeal and accepted it.
I’m not even sure I have it all, but I guess that’s enough. Although, at Minnesota, enough is not a term easily defined.
Anyway, if Fleck can manage to row his boat through the Land of 10,000 Lakes to a Rose Bowl, we’ll then know he’s special. Though, it appears he already knows this.
https://www.pennlive.com/sports/201...io-rant-on-pj-fleck-nothing-new-at-the-u.html
Go Gophers!!
These are two outsized egos colliding, which happens all the time in college football. Just not out in the open for everyone to see.
But, hey, that’s Minnesota: Drama. Chaos. Scandal. If you trace back through the archives, it’s practically a school tradition.
A good starting point is 1962. That’s the last time Minnesota football won the Big Ten and went to the Rose Bowl – 56 years ago, the longest drought of any Big Ten team.
Since then, you can tick off all the various explosions that have blown up at Minnesota. Being a Big Ten lifer, I’ve seen them all. Other B1G schools have had their embarrassing or shameful moments. Minnesota has practically lived in continuous public discord:
• 1972: Coached by the borderline-insane Bill Musselman (father of former NBA and current Nevada head coach Eric), the Gophers started a brawl with 36 seconds left in a 50-44 game they were about to lose to Ohio State in Williams Arena. Forward Corky Taylor hammered OSU center Luke Witte to the floor, extended his hand to help him up, then kneed Witte hard in the groin.
There ensued a total melee in which Witte was stomped in the head by forward Ron Behagen as he lay writhing. Future NBA forward Jim Brewer and future MLB outfielder Dave Winfield also punched OSU players, three of whom went to the hospital.
• 1986: Jim Dutcher resigned as basketball coach when three of his players were accused of raping a young woman after a game at Wisconsin. The players were thrown out of school by the university president – even though all three were acquitted in a trial months later.
A subsequent Big Ten investigation found that Dutcher’s teams had the lowest graduation rate for entering freshmen (9 percent) of any in the league.
• 1999: An athletic department tutor admitted to writing over 400 pieces of course work for Clem Haskins’ Minnesota basketball players during a 6-year period. The story got Haskins fired and won a Pulitzer Prize for St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter George Dohrman.
• 2015: Athletic director Norwood Teague was forced to resign after he groped and sexually harassed two women from the university president’s office while intoxicated at a retreat and also sent graphic text messages to one of them.
• 2016: Richard Pitino suspended three of basketball players for the remainder of the season after they starred in a threesome sex tape tweeted out by one of the players.
• 2016: The aforementioned case revolving around 10 football players accused of sexual assault near the end of the season. Claeys was fired after expressing public support for the players. Nine of the 10 filed suit against the school in June asking damages of $5 million each, claiming they were wrongly suspended or expelled.
• 2018: Center Reggie Lynch was tossed off the basketball team and then out of school after sexual assault allegations. Though he initially appealed the expulsion, Lynch later dropped the appeal and accepted it.
I’m not even sure I have it all, but I guess that’s enough. Although, at Minnesota, enough is not a term easily defined.
Anyway, if Fleck can manage to row his boat through the Land of 10,000 Lakes to a Rose Bowl, we’ll then know he’s special. Though, it appears he already knows this.
https://www.pennlive.com/sports/201...io-rant-on-pj-fleck-nothing-new-at-the-u.html
Go Gophers!!
