Holtz Saw 'Gold Mine' at Minnesota

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It is hard not to wonder what might have been. I purchased my first season tickets then and had to initially sit in the north end zone. After Holtz left it didn't take long to improve my seats location though.

What really makes me so sad is that if Holtz hadn't left wren would now be talking about the glory days under him instead of under Mason. What might have been!
 

Lou got the gold and we got the shaft.
 

Scoff if you wish but first listen to Stewart. “When coach Holtz left in ‘85 that (first) recruiting class we had in South Bend, (the) majority of those guys were coming here,” he said. “They all switched (Minnesota commitments) and came to South Bend with coach Holtz (in 1986). You’re talking about a lot of great players. …We were able to have a national championship with those guys.”

Go Gophers!!
 

So the sanctions he left us with would have been more severe. Holtz left because he felt the heat of the NCAA. Just like EVERY OTHER STOP. He leaves just before penalties are handed down. He leaves with a clean image, and takes a dump on Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame, and South Carolina. None of those schools escaped sanctions after he left. None of them.
 



BleedGopher said:
Scoff if you wish but first listen to Stewart. “When coach Holtz left in ‘85 that (first) recruiting class we had in South Bend, (the) majority of those guys were coming here,” he said. “They all switched (Minnesota commitments) and came to South Bend with coach Holtz (in 1986). You’re talking about a lot of great players. …We were able to have a national championship with those guys.”!
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Holtz left and took those guys including Tony Rice while our admin picked the players' choice John Gutekunst over Bobby Ross who'd win a national title 4-5 years later at Ga. Tech. He was tearing it up at Maryland I believe before gutey was hired....can't remember any NCAA baggage.

Oh you Gopher football what-ifs.
 

Maximus said:
Holtz left and took those guys including Tony Rice while our admin picked the players' choice John Gutekunst over Bobby Ross who'd win a national title 4-5 years later at Ga. Tech. He was tearing it up at Maryland I believe before gutey was hired....can't remember any NCAA baggage.

Oh you Gopher football what-ifs.
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Besides Rice didn't Holtz take a few other recruits with him that turned out to be pretty good? Not to mention most of the coaches? I never had respect for that clown.
 

Parski1 said:
Besides Rice didn't Holtz take a few other recruits with him that turned out to be pretty good? Not to mention most of the coaches? I never had respect for that clown.
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When I talked to Lou about you, he said the feeling was mutual.
 




Good old Gutey. I never have seen a coach have too many men on the field one play and not enough a few plays later. What a joke.

Maximus said:
Holtz left and took those guys including Tony Rice while our admin picked the players' choice John Gutekunst over Bobby Ross who'd win a national title 4-5 years later at Ga. Tech. He was tearing it up at Maryland I believe before gutey was hired....can't remember any NCAA baggage.

Oh you Gopher football what-ifs.
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Holtz also said MN was a potential gold mine for the right coach when he left Notre Dame - at a news conference. The NCAA fallout on a charge Holtz gave or lent a small amount to a student was so slight here I don't remember the details - nothing like what came down in basketball. The Gutekunst hire was one of the worst in all the years I've followed the Gophers - it just killed the momentum, like air out of a balloon. Ross would have been a much, much better hire, but Giel, who brought Ross to campus, was undercut by players and a bureaucrat named Wilkerson, who sabotaged Giel's hiring process.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Holtz also said MN was a potential gold mine for the right coach when he left Notre Dame - at a news conference. The NCAA fallout on a charge Holtz gave or lent a small amount to a student was so slight here I don't remember the details - nothing like what came down in basketball. The Gutekunst hire was one of the worst in all the years I've followed the Gophers - it just killed the momentum, like air out of a balloon. Ross would have been a much, much better hire, but Giel, who brought Ross to campus, was undercut by players and a bureaucrat named Wilkerson, who sabotaged Giel's hiring process.
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Perhaps the reason hoax felt Minnesota was a "gold mine" when taking the job was the fact that in addition to all the "gold he could mine" was another natural resource with coins of gold to hand out was this dude named Luther Darville. Go back and check it out people, Lou hoax thought he had the gold mine and he thought one of his chief miners of that gold could also mint the gold and distribute the gold and the Luther Darville chapter of the lou hoax days provided the perfect cover for old "golden lou..." before he took a lot of his recruits to the "golden dome..." Old Lou hoax and Luther Darville were a great imitation of the "gold dust twins..."

; 0 )
 





imthewalrus said:
Perhaps the reason hoax felt Minnesota was a "gold mine" when taking the job was the fact that in addition to all the "gold he could mine" was another natural resource with coins of gold to hand out was this dude named Luther Darville. Go back and check it out people, Lou hoax thought he had the gold mine and he thought one of his chief miners of that gold could also mint the gold and distribute the gold and the Luther Darville chapter of the lou hoax days provided the perfect cover for old "golden lou..." before he took a lot of his recruits to the "golden dome..." Old Lou hoax and Luther Darville were a great imitation of the "gold dust twins..."

; 0 )
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This is a lot of innuendo with no substance. I'm not even sure what accusation you're trying to make. In english, please?
 


Great Plains Gopher said:
Holtz also said MN was a potential gold mine for the right coach when he left Notre Dame - at a news conference. The NCAA fallout on a charge Holtz gave or lent a small amount to a student was so slight here I don't remember the details - nothing like what came down in basketball.
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I looked it up, what they got Holtz for is actually pretty insane: he gave a player $250 to enroll in a class and he gave a recruit $25-40 when he lost his wallet on a visit to campus.

Luther Darville was the one who stole about $186,000 from the school and re-directed it to "needy students". It sounds like this was the reason for the post Holtz era sanctions.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-03-28/sports/9101280110_1_chuck-smrt-limited-sanctions-enforcement-staff

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-11-16/sports/8903100115_1_university-of-minnesota-administrator-luther-darville-james-lawton
 

station19 said:
http://shamasportsheadliners.com/
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Lou saw a chance to pick-up a paycheck for a couple of years until a better job came up. He broke his contract but Giel and the Administration saw no upside in trying to make him stay against his will. Why he decided to lie about it always mystifies but for the media 'When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Now as for Darville, "A jury last month (11/89) convicted Darville of three felony counts of theft by swindle despite his testimony that he gave the money to student-athletes and other students on orders from his superiors at the university. The prosecution contended he took the money for his personal use, and university officials denied knowledge of any such payments."

The story from S.I. :

Luther Darville, Minnesota's former acting coordinator of the office of minority affairs, doesn't merely stand accused of stealing money from the school and giving it to athletes and other minority students. Indicted in May on three counts of theft by swindle, he's also accused of spending on himself part of the $200,000 he allegedly stole from the school. Last year, while earning a reported salary of $42,000, he bought two expensive cars. The controversy over Darville, whom authorities are trying to extradite from his native Bahamas, has had serious repercussions at Minnesota and beyond.

Among many accusations made in the wake of his indictment have been charges of improper payments to Gopher athletes made at the behest of or with the possible knowledge of former Minnesota football coach Lou Holtz, who is now at Notre Dame. And last week, apparently concluding that athletics at Minnesota were out of control, interim university president Richard Sauer fired Paul Giel, the school's athletic director for the past 16 years...

According to a report by the university's auditing department, Darville is alleged to have siphoned money from the minority affairs office from 1983 to '88 and to have doled some of it out to 17 students, including nine athletes, in need of cash. According to Valdez Baylor, a former tailback on the Gopher football team, "Go see Luther" was the catchphrase among minority athletes in need. Baylor says he has told authorities he received as much as $5,000 over six years from Darville...

he St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch reported that LeRoy Gardner, a former Minnesota basketball player and academic adviser to the football team for three years, had told university officials that in 1985 Holtz handed $500 to Gardner and told him to give it to a player. Last week Minneapolis's Star Tribune quoted former Gopher running back Pudgy Abercrombie as saying that in '86 he had received clothes, rent payments and cash from assistant coach Jim Strong, now a Holtz assistant at Notre Dame. However, Abercrombie later recanted the account in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Holtz and Strong have denied making or knowing about any improper payments to Minnesota athletes.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067528/

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...rville-university-of-minnesota-theft-sentence
 

Thank you for the facts Iceland12...some shady things going on then for sure.

I remember that game against OSU. I believe Valdez Baylor got a handoff on 4th and 1 late in the game and was stuffed in what could have been the game winning drive.
 

Everybody wil know your name and everybody will also know...

everybody knows my name said:
This is a lot of innuendo with no substance. I'm not even sure what accusation you're trying to make. In english, please?
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That you know nothing about the lou hoax Luther Darville era of Golden Gopher Football. Old golden lou tarnished Golden Gopher Football during his tenure here and Luther Darville was just the tool he was so good at using to pave the place with "fools gold..."

By the way, what did you say your name was?

; 0 )
 

wattamess. i don't recall the situation being that bad but looks like it was.
 

Unregistered User said:
So the sanctions he left us with would have been more severe. Holtz left because he felt the heat of the NCAA. Just like EVERY OTHER STOP. He leaves just before penalties are handed down. He leaves with a clean image, and takes a dump on Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame, and South Carolina. None of those schools escaped sanctions after he left. None of them.
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While some penalties did follow, this is not why he left.
 


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