BleedGopher
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per Pat:
As the Final Four returns to be played in a Minneapolis dome for the third time, we can acknowledge our naiveté on this issue, and also let visitors know that in spite of this, Minnesota has been every bit the State of Basketball in widespread interest as it has the “State of Hockey,” the notorious branding that has served the awfully named Wild of the NHL so well.
The number of occasions this has happened are countless: You meet a stranger, he asks where you’re from, you say, “Minnesota,” and the stranger replies, “You must be a hockey fan.”
Sometimes, I’ll nod. Other times I’ll offer this truth: “When and where I grew up, it might as well have been downstate Indiana. Basketball was winter’s king; hockey didn’t exist.”
As it was in Indiana, or Kentucky, or you name it, we had a one-class basketball state tournament that ruled the month of March:
Two weeks of districts, a week of regionals based strictly on geography, and then an eight-team state tournament, with brackets printed in all newspapers, and filled out by 99-point-four-four percent of Minnesotans above the age of reason.
Even my mother’s bridge club — all nine of them (eight players and that week’s host) would throw in a buck and fret the results. Any loss in Thursday’s quarterfinals and your bracket was busted, although we didn’t know that term until Dick Vitale and ESPN reinvented college basketball.
There was hockey in the Twin Cities, and Duluth, and on the Iron Range, and in the true hinterlands of northwest Minnesota.
Even Bemidji didn’t play hockey until the 1960s. The Lumberjacks had basketball, coach Bun Fortier and nearly annual trips out of Region 8 to the state tournament, and didn’t need another winter distraction.
There were four timeless events in Minnesota’s fabulous sports year of 1960, and not necessarily in this order.
The American League announced in October that Calvin Griffith’s baseball team would be moving to Minnesota; the NFL announced in January that Minnesota would become its 14th franchise in 1961; the Gophers qualified for their first Rose Bowl and were voted as national champions (both in November); and Edgerton won the basketball state tournament in March.
Fulda was in District 8. So was Edgerton. Then Luverne, the perennial district power, became the 1964 state champion, right after Marshall won it in 1963. The Tigers were close enough to be on the schedule once in a while. And then came Sherburn, 60 miles straight east, as the last one-class champion in 1970.
Four champs from farm country in the last 11 winters that we had solo state tournaments filling our ancient Barn.
Here in Minnesota we’ll tell visitors that George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers won six titles (not the five officially credited by the NBA), and you’ll discover we still embrace Bobby Jackson and Clem Haskins’ wonderful Final Four team of 1997, even if the record book and NCAA don’t agree. And today we can celebrate the greatest wealth of high school talent in this state’s history, aided by more far-reaching diversity in our high school programs.
And while Indiana still gets the romantic nods for the 1954 Milan Indians, state one-class champions, enrollment 161, and the inspiration for the Hickory Huskers of “Hoosiers,” we have this:
The 1960 Edgerton Flying Dutchmen, enrollment 94, and state one-class champions. Every Minnesotan still around who filled out a bracket can tell you the four Dutchmen who made all-tournament were Dean Verdoes, Dean Veenhof, Darrell Kreun and Leroy Graphenteen.
Well, the fifth starter was Bob Wiarda, and don’t you forget it.
http://www.startribune.com/basketba...-tell-if-you-take-the-time-to-look/508084062/
Go Gophers!!
As the Final Four returns to be played in a Minneapolis dome for the third time, we can acknowledge our naiveté on this issue, and also let visitors know that in spite of this, Minnesota has been every bit the State of Basketball in widespread interest as it has the “State of Hockey,” the notorious branding that has served the awfully named Wild of the NHL so well.
The number of occasions this has happened are countless: You meet a stranger, he asks where you’re from, you say, “Minnesota,” and the stranger replies, “You must be a hockey fan.”
Sometimes, I’ll nod. Other times I’ll offer this truth: “When and where I grew up, it might as well have been downstate Indiana. Basketball was winter’s king; hockey didn’t exist.”
As it was in Indiana, or Kentucky, or you name it, we had a one-class basketball state tournament that ruled the month of March:
Two weeks of districts, a week of regionals based strictly on geography, and then an eight-team state tournament, with brackets printed in all newspapers, and filled out by 99-point-four-four percent of Minnesotans above the age of reason.
Even my mother’s bridge club — all nine of them (eight players and that week’s host) would throw in a buck and fret the results. Any loss in Thursday’s quarterfinals and your bracket was busted, although we didn’t know that term until Dick Vitale and ESPN reinvented college basketball.
There was hockey in the Twin Cities, and Duluth, and on the Iron Range, and in the true hinterlands of northwest Minnesota.
Even Bemidji didn’t play hockey until the 1960s. The Lumberjacks had basketball, coach Bun Fortier and nearly annual trips out of Region 8 to the state tournament, and didn’t need another winter distraction.
There were four timeless events in Minnesota’s fabulous sports year of 1960, and not necessarily in this order.
The American League announced in October that Calvin Griffith’s baseball team would be moving to Minnesota; the NFL announced in January that Minnesota would become its 14th franchise in 1961; the Gophers qualified for their first Rose Bowl and were voted as national champions (both in November); and Edgerton won the basketball state tournament in March.
Fulda was in District 8. So was Edgerton. Then Luverne, the perennial district power, became the 1964 state champion, right after Marshall won it in 1963. The Tigers were close enough to be on the schedule once in a while. And then came Sherburn, 60 miles straight east, as the last one-class champion in 1970.
Four champs from farm country in the last 11 winters that we had solo state tournaments filling our ancient Barn.
Here in Minnesota we’ll tell visitors that George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers won six titles (not the five officially credited by the NBA), and you’ll discover we still embrace Bobby Jackson and Clem Haskins’ wonderful Final Four team of 1997, even if the record book and NCAA don’t agree. And today we can celebrate the greatest wealth of high school talent in this state’s history, aided by more far-reaching diversity in our high school programs.
And while Indiana still gets the romantic nods for the 1954 Milan Indians, state one-class champions, enrollment 161, and the inspiration for the Hickory Huskers of “Hoosiers,” we have this:
The 1960 Edgerton Flying Dutchmen, enrollment 94, and state one-class champions. Every Minnesotan still around who filled out a bracket can tell you the four Dutchmen who made all-tournament were Dean Verdoes, Dean Veenhof, Darrell Kreun and Leroy Graphenteen.
Well, the fifth starter was Bob Wiarda, and don’t you forget it.
http://www.startribune.com/basketba...-tell-if-you-take-the-time-to-look/508084062/
Go Gophers!!
