What Does It Take To Make A Toothbrush Holder For An Old Quad?

Funny you should ask, because I want to tell you what happened to me today when I went to get my six-year-old toothbrush splint replaced as it was beginning to fall apart.

First of all, I was to be at the outpatient hand clinic in the 2800 Building of the Abbott Northwestern Hospital complex. My attendant, Danyell, parked right in front of the building. My instincts kicked in and I hurriedly rushed to the outpatient clinic in the Sister Kenny building. Where I was told I was in the wrong building and I had to go back to 2800. That clinic is for inpatient patients and the 2800 Building is for outpatient hand therapy.

My original appointment was set for 12 noon. I got to the clinic with about five minutes to spare. They got me checked in and quickly assigned me to Teresa who helped me form the basic splint. That is the black part of this following picture.

After almost an hour with Teresa and forming the basic splint, I went back to the correct clinic in the Sister Kenny building and re-met a longtime acquaintance, Christina. She and I went on a great Odyssey over the next few hours! We went to the Occupational Therapy Department I have been in as a patient and visitor for many years. Christina did what she could, but we ran into a problem with riveting the straps to the split. The therapy department no longer has the capability to rivet; so, I mentioned the idea of going down to the maintenance department and see if they could help us. Eureka, we were greeted by several SEIU Healthcare MN members who took us back into their woodshop to see if they could help us get the straps riveted onto the splint.

It was about 1:45 and one of them said they punched out at 2 o'clock. A couple of them said I'll go punch out, but I'll be right back. They looked in every box they could find for the exact rivet I needed. That is when Jim went and got his own little rivet gun box with the exact rivet and four union members stayed for another half hour to get my splints made to fit on the splint. When they finished, I thanked them profusely and Christina and I were off to her clinic to finish the project.

The finished product looks like this:

The image from the other side looks like this:

As always, click on the image to make it larger. I am not sure what the final cost of a split like this will be; however, I can assure you it is in the hundreds of dollars range if not more than a four-digit number!

We were running late and Danyell's shift was way past 2:30 PM. When I got to the van, she was patiently waiting for me, as it was now just about 3 o'clock. She asked me if my blood draw went okay? That is when it hit me, I needed to go back to the main hospital lab and get my blood drawn. I was so proud of myself and finally getting my work done for the day, I forgot I needed to get a blood draw because another infection is starting and my doctor wants to check all of my blood levels.

I got back to the van and it was almost 3:30! The problem was besides her running on overtime was I had an appointment with my friend Mike Ross at 2:30 to help me fix my computer. I finally was able to call him and he had been sitting in my driveway for the last half hour! We had a discussion about what was going on and he agreed to come by tomorrow or the next day when I am here. He is my savior when it comes to keeping my computer running. He has been ever since we were friends in college in Berkeley in the 1974-'75 school year.

Back to my original point in writing this post was to show how creative problem-solvers and people who are committed to their work get things done. All in all I had a fun day despite everything that took longer than expected! Writing this post even went longer than I expected.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Today Would Have Been My Father's 83rd Birthday!

June 6 is an important day in our history because 48 years ago today Robert Kennedy was taken from us all too soon. I often wonder what the world and our lives would be like had the 1960s been different on so many occasions.

The 1960s brought tremendous amount of change for me as a young boy moving from five different communities and learning to adapt to five very different environments. It was also a decade in which my relationship with my dad changed dramatically as I grew up under his tutelage.

I have written about his birthday on several occasions and other times I wrote how he affected me as my mentor, coach and friend. I was my father's shadow in many ways and as I grew older I came to realize just what a wonderful relationship we had.

There was an alternate side of my father I did not know much about until much later. I choose to focus on the positive side of our relationship. That is why I miss him tremendously since he has been gone almost ten years already. I have several pictures of him at various stages of his life on my Screensaver and see him for seven-second intervals every so often.

Attached is my first photograph of him playing with me and teaching me how to blow bubbles in 1957 when I was only two:

Click on the image to make it larger:

Recently, I wrote a blog post that has become one of my most read ever about him coaching me in the summer of 1968 in Sibley, Iowa. After that summer, he accepted the track and cross country coaching job as well as a counselor position at Worthington State Junior College (WSJC) where he stayed for eight years until my family moved again where he took a similar job at Rochester Community College (RCC). He retired after seventeen years in Rochester. 

Several years ago, I was in Worthington in mid-September for the annual King Turkey Days celebration. I took some time and went to visit and give a brief speech for my long time friend Joel Krekelberg who was teaching a class entitled "Prevention and Care of Athletic Injuries." Krek as he is appropriately known in Worthington was teaching his students how to wrap ankles. Every time I get an opportunity to watch him deftly wrap an ankle is a treat because he is so good at!

After his class, I wanted to go over to the athletic building and see if any of my dad's track and cross country teams pictures were still there. We went over there and there were only a few photographs left. The athletic director was there and asked me if I wanted those photos because since track and cross country were eliminated from their sports options, eventually they would be thrown away when the football team pictures crowded them out. I gladly took them and want to share a couple with you now of my father's very successful track and cross country program in the eight years he ran the program that he took over when Bruce Traphagen turned over the program to Dad in the fall of 1968.

I am attaching a couple photographs and their yearly haul of trophies:

As always, click on the images to make them larger:

Some of you may recognize yourself or someone you know. One of the members of the track team, Jerry Schnyders, back row, second from right, I have known since we lived in Edgerton and played baseball together in the mid-1960s!

Roger Schipper who is on the far right in the second row lived with my family for a while when he first moved to Rochester to become the trainer at the Community College. Later, when he was finishing his student teaching, he stayed with Dave Bisbee and me in my first apartment in Minneapolis.

This is fun for me to look at old pictures of not only my dad but also friendships that have lasted many years. I wrote a lot about that in my book.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Stefen Curry Is A Monster!

If you stayed up late last night and watched the NBA Western Championship game, you saw one of the best performances in the second half by a single player in recent NBA history! Curry willed his team to victory by raining threes, driving the lane and even using the glass when appropriate in the second half and passing the ball like nobody has since Pete Maravich.

Curry had 36 points (13-24 FG, 7-12 3Pt, 3-3 FT), eight assists and five rebounds in 40 minutes during last night's 96-88 Game 7 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder. Curry put the finishing touches on an historic series comeback for the Warriors, scoring 15 points in the final period Monday to help his team advance to a second consecutive NBA Finals. 

As he has done time and time again this season, the MVP dominated in a must-win situation, nailing two three-pointers in the game's first five minutes and controlling the tempo throughout. The 36 points were Curry's most since he tallied 40 points off the bench in Game 4 of the Warriors' second-round series with the Trail Blazers.

He was simply dominant and fun to watch as the Warriors completely dominated Oklahoma City and their star Kevin Durant. It was worth staying up to watch history in the making. Especially when you consider Oklahoma City was up by 13 at one point in the first half, the comeback by Golden State was especially dramatic!

Very few teams have been down in a championship series 3-1 and come back to win three games to clinch a series. That includes not only the NBA, but also the major sports that play seven-game series like the National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Baseball (MLB).

Here is a photograph from last night's game:

His ever-present mouth guard seems to always be hanging out of his mouth even when he nonchalantly steps to the free-throw line and sinks two or three. However, his focus is always on the basketball. The intensity in his eyes is admirable and fun to watch.

I must admit I do not watch many NBA games during the regular season because they tend to always come down to the final few minutes and the stars take over in one-on-one matches and the games are decided by a couple points. The playoffs are different, especially for Game 7's because it is win or go home.

I much prefer watching college basketball because for the most part they are playing for the love of the game and not millions of dollars.

For example, Curry's contract is for $12 million this year. He will become a free agent after next year and certain projections are putting his new contract to be around three times that per year! Other sports have found paying certain players that much money has not worked out. It will be interesting to see what happens with him.  

This was a record-breaking year for the Warriors, as they became the first team to go 73-9! The record had been 72-10 held by the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

Now, it is on to the Finals against the Eastern Champions Cleveland Cavaliers and their star-studded cast led by Lebron James. Since Golden State has the better record they are the top seed and will get home court starting Thursday night.

I know it is a big deal in Cleveland since no major sports team from that city has won a championship in 52 years when the Cleveland Browns won the NFL Championship. That was before the Super Bowl era. That ranks them third among city droughts behind Ottawa back to 1927 and 89 years since winning the Stanley Cup. Second on the list is San Diego at 53 years when the Chargers won the old AFL Championship in 1963. That was also pre-Super Bowl era.

Many people are hoping the Cavaliers will win this Championship. Personally, I hope the Warriors win their second straight championship behind Curry's second consecutive MVP Award!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

One Pitch Can Change Everything!

One pitch can change everything from a walk off home run in the bottom of the ninth in game seven of the World Series to keeping a young Iowa junior high school team from going to the state tournament.

Iowa, unlike its neighboring states, of Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska has run its baseball program in the summer. The Iowa High School Athletic Association feels it is necessary so young boys can participate in their summer months and run track in the spring if they choose so. In Iowa, I could play four sports. I played baseball in the summer, football in the fall, basketball in the winter and ran track in the spring. I only did that one year as I started going to school in Worthington and commuted with Dad who had started coaching and counseling at Worthington State Junior College in September 1968.That was in my eighth grade year. We stayed in Sibley until our house was completed in February 1969.

The first picture I want to show you is when we were getting ready to go to the 9th District Tournament Championship game to qualify for the Iowa State Tournament:

The next picture is the rundown of our game as it appeared in the Sibley Gazette:

 

The next picture was our practice picture and does not have all the team members at practice.


I want to show you our team of student/athletes at our practice field, which doubled as a demolition derby on weekends at the Osceola County Fairgrounds. It was an all dirt field with very little grass in the outfield. My dad was our coach, bus driver, groundskeeper and third-base coach. He had to reinstall the pitching rubber every Monday after a demolition derby that weekend and performed any other tasks deemed necessary. He is standing on the far right. He also coached the high school team.

Our loss came on one pitch in the bottom of the seventh when Mark Huisenga hit a smash up the middle and the pitcher blindly snagged, which abruptly ended our rally and our season. It was a sad ride home that day.

Baseball was fun to play and watch. I miss being able to play catch with my dad with a baseball, football or shoot baskets with him teaching and mentoring me all the way.

The regulations that govern Iowa baseball state your birthday has to come before a certain day to be eligible to play on that team. We were lucky because our three best players all have the same birthday falling into the parameters in the rulebook. Bob Wahl, Dan Pomerenke and Mark Huisenga were those players.

I built lifelong friendships with that team and still keep in touch through Facebook with a few of them, their friends, sisters, wives and other people from Sibley. We only lived in Iowa for two and one-half years; but it was an active, carefree, fun existence for a young boy in a quiet, little town in northwest Iowa in the late 60s!


I often think about what other memories we would have made if that pitcher had not made that one pitch!

Now, I get my coaching and mentoring fun by watching the Minnesota Twins and the University of Minnesota's Gophers men's basketball team. Both of them have been hard to watch lately.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Another Gopher Basketball Season Is Underway!

Once again I am excited about the upcoming Gopher basketball season, as I have been going to watch since my first one in 1973 when I saw my first game with a good friend, Mike Johnson. After a brief stint of going to games in Berkeley when the conference was the Pac-8, I returned to Minneapolis and have had season tickets for almost forty years including season tickets when I was a student and tickets were six dollars!

The Barn will not be rocking tomorrow afternoon and not all the seats will be filled, but I still enjoy being in that old place and watching my favorite college basketball team! I have great seats sitting at almost midcourt in the front row right behind the broadcasters. Oftentimes people can see me while they interview the broadcasters at halftime.

Here is a great picture of the scoreboard several years ago my sister took from her seat about twenty rows up. Notice the balance scoring. You do not see that every day. In fact, I have never seen it again:

 As always, click on the image to make it larger:

The Barn was rocking that night as the Gophers were playing Michigan State. I do not know what year it was, but I do know it was during the Monson years.

Williams Arena has undergone a few changes since then. The most noticeable change is the lowering of the floor several inches. Other than that, I believe Williams is the second or third oldest college basketball arenas in the country! 

If you have ever been in The Barn during a close game or a major run by the home team you can attest to the excitement, energy and noise in that place. I love those nights in The Barn! It is those nights that get me through these frigid Minnesota winters!

During the 1996-'97 season which was officially wiped out because of all the NCAA rules violations of then coach Clem Haskins The Barn was especially loud as the Gophers had their finest season in history. They went to the Final 4 that year and lost the first game to Tubby Smith's Kentucky team which won the National Championship two days later.

Longtime Gopher fans will remember Coach Smith and his own downfall when he came and coached the Gophers.

Richard Pitino is entering his third year at the helm of the Gophers amidst his own allegations when he was an assistant for his father at Louisville. We will follow his situation and see what happens.

I wrote earlier how I had taken a break while I attended school at the University of California, Berkeley. When I arrived on campus in late 1973, I started researching the campus to find out where I could go to watch the Golden Bears basketball team play the likes of UCLA, USC and Stanford.

When I got to Harmon Gym, I was shocked it had thirteen steps into the front door. This was Berkeley, how could that be?

I went up to the Physically Disabled Student Program (PDSP) and asked my good friend, Ed Roberts why Harmon was not accessible? He told me it was on their list of trying to get all the old buildings on campus made accessible to students with disabilities. Ed told me if I wanted to get a ramp in the building with automatic door openers I should go to the Dean's office and ask how we can get it done. That was the beginning of my student activism on campus!

To make a long story short, that summer the University began construction of this ramp into the building. This picture is my father and me checking out the construction when my mom and dad made a road trip with me to get back for the upcoming school year. My uncle, Terry was stationed in McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento and he rode with us for the trip until we dropped him off at the base.

I like the look on my dad's face as he carefully inspected the work going on:

 

Again, click on the image to make it larger:

The ramp was finished by basketball season and I was able to see some of my classmates play ball for the Golden Bears that year.

Basketball has always and always will be my favorite sport. I am not only a fan, but a coach and student of the game. I often do coaching from my seat and amaze people who come to the game with me not knowing much about the intricacies of a trapping midcourt defense or beating a 2-3 zone defense.

After playing and watching basketball pretty much my entire life I find myself teaching my friends things I learned from my dad and Flip Saunders in my time at Golden Valley Lutheran College.

Here is a photograph of Flip and me at one of our games. It is still hard to believe he is gone!

Click on the image to make it larger:

I also used some of those techniques when I coached my nephew for three years playing Park and Rec ball in St. Paul when he was just learning the game. One of my players told me he really appreciated the game much more because of everything I taught him about playing and watching basketball.

Back to Williams Arena and the upcoming season. Last year was a disappointing year after winning the NIT in Pitino's first year. After going 17-15 last year, I am looking forward to the new recruits and watching the development of last year's players.

Go Gophers!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

March Madness Has Begun!

It is here in full force folks! The annual rite of spring for college basketball fans is well on its way to the battle for 65 teams to get into the Journey to the Tourney! Some teams have already punched their tickets to Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on April 4 and 6, 2015.

Some of the field has automatic bids by way of winning their conference tournaments. Most of them are the mid-major conferences with the big conferences holding their tournaments this weekend.

If you had not heard, Minnesota had to play Rutgers last night in the first round and won to play the last game tonight against Ohio State. FYI: Ohio State beat Minnesota earlier this year in overtime by two points. I hope the outcome is different tonight!

All of the prognosticators have their number one and number two seeds set for who will make it into The Big Dance. There are always upsets in every tournament and this year promises to be the same. It will just be a matter of which and when which big dawgs fall.

I am anxious to watch tonight's game to see if the Gophers can advance to play another day. The only way Minnesota is going to The NCAA Tournament is if they were to win five straight days! That is not going to happen. My guess is they will go to the NIT again this year. I have no problem with that because that means another game or two we would get to go to The Barn and watch them play again. However, I am not thinking that way right now.

I would love to see them put on another good show like they did last night. They are very capable of beating Ohio State if they play as well as they did last night. The only problem last night was Andre Hollins had no points. That is the first time he has been shut out since his freshman year in 2012! He has been very sporadic this senior year and hopefully he will have a good game tonight to go along with Joey King and Mo Walker who had excellent games last night!

Deandre Mathieu also needs to step up as a senior and play well. They are an experienced team now and have shown in their upset when at Michigan State they are capable of playing with most teams.

It will be an exciting weekend for college basketball fans. I hope your team does well. As always, Selection Sunday will determine who will be going dancing in April!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Minnesota 96 — Michigan State 90!

WOW! What a game! I have written about my affinity for my alma mater's Men's Basketball Team on occasion on this blog before, most notably when they won the NIT tournament last winter. That was a fun five-game run to a national championship in the second best tournament in the annual rite of college basketball's March Madness.

Now, I want to post my last post of February with the Gopher's big overtime win over #25 ranked Michigan State last night in the Breslin Center in East Lansing, Michigan. It was an extremely thrilling game when the Gophers looked like they were not going to win the game as they had a substantial deficit with only seconds to play in regulation.

With two three-pointers in the last 12 seconds, Carlos Morris had a chance to win the game with a free throw and could not convert to win the game 79-78. I do not understand how these young men can shoot three-pointers under pressure and cannot make free throws under equally pressurized situations!

Actually, I do understand and believe the three point shot should go the way of the dinosaur, but that is never going to happen because it makes game endings very exciting. There is a basketball axiom, "You live by the three and you die by the three." It is very true and everybody forgets how to shoot free throws because they are practicing their three-point shooting.

The Gophers have had a rough season losing six games by two possessions or less, so by beating Michigan State who is 19-9 this season, in the upper class of the Big Ten, coming off a four-game winning streak and playing at home against a statistically poorer team they thought Minnesota should be an easy twentieth win and fifteenth twenty-win season for coach Tom Izzo in his 20th season as the head coach in East Lansing.

Neither team shot free throws very well, as was evidence in the overtime when both teams missed crucial free throws and the missed free throw at the end of the game by young Mr. Morris.

I always have to remind myself when I watch college basketball games these student/athletes are only 18 to 22 years old. What ultimately won the game was their senior leadership shown by Andre Hollins and Mo Walker.

Click on the image to make it larger:

Go Gophers! At 17-12 on the season and 6-10 in the Big Ten conference they need to do well in their last two conference games against Penn State and Wisconsin to get a better seed in the Big Ten Tournament in two weeks in order to get to twenty wins to think about even going back to the NIT. That will not be an easy task since Wisconsin is leading the Big Ten and among the elites in the nation. Although, Wisconsin has shown they can be beaten because Iowa beat them yesterday.

Many analysts believe the Big Ten Conference is the deepest and most competitive conference in the country because any one team has not stood out as a dominant force since they all keep beating up on each other. The Big Ten Tournament will be an interesting and exciting five days to watch the first part of March Madness!
 
I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

COLOSSAL Is Tremendous

I did something last night I do not usually do! That's right, I missed game seven of the World Series! Instead, I went to a play with my cousin, Victoria Patrick. The Mixed Blood Theatre started a play entitled COLOSSAL, and guess what it was about?

Football, imagine that? Victoria invited me to see the premier of the play about a young, college senior who breaks his neck playing football! You can start to see the similarities already.

COLOSSAL is the story of a senior defensive back with promise to be a professional football player the following year. As you are waiting in the lobby for the free performance, you hear the team warming up and the adrenaline is flowing like the beginning of every football game as the players are shouting through their drills on a football field complete with green floor, yard markers, working scoreboard and bleachers. They transformed the theater into a football field. That does not happen very often.

As patrons came in, the team dressed out in full football equipment less the jerseys were going through their pregame warm-ups. It was if you are at a college football game sitting next to the field. The stage and audience became one. It was very well done. The closest I had been to a football field was the night I got hurt more than forty-three years ago.

The play was divided into four quarters with the fully functioning scoreboard facing both sides of the field. In fact, as the players, who were all actors, went through their warm-ups one of the players came down right in front of me, looked me in the eye and winked. It was obvious to all the actors I was sitting on the end of the bleachers.

The play has two actors playing the lead role whose name was ironically Mike. One of the actors, Toby Forrest plays Mike after the accident. Torsten Johnson plays Mike before the accident and David Deblieck plays Mike's father. A host of other fine actors and dancers round out the cast.

As the first quarter begins, the team runs several plays and some dialogue starts to take place. Part way through the second quarter (just like in my accident) Mike gets hurt trying to make a tackle. Again, just like my accident!

As the play unfolds Mike interacts with the pre-accident and post-accident character. Several of the characters are portrayed as they go through their lives both before and after Mike's accident.

You watch Mike as he progresses through the grieving process and how it affects not only him but all of those around him. In my opinion, it really is done very well.

Without telling you any more, I suggest seeing it if you know anyone who has had any kind of football experience, be it as a player, coach, spectator or victim of a football accident of any kind.

As theater critics would say I give it a two thumbs up!

You certainly cannot beat the price.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

My Dad

My Dad was born eighty-one years ago today! June 6 has always had a special meaning for our family as many events happened on June 6. Most notably, of course, was June 6, 1944 when the Allies stormed the beaches at Normandy and turned the tide in World War II.

Another notable June 6 was the night Robert Kennedy was shot on the fifth and died twenty-six hours later on June 6, 1968 just after winning the California Primary Election. If only he had taken the intended route out of the ballroom instead of being whisked away at the last moment through the kitchen.

I do not intend to discuss the latter two events; but rather discuss the life and times of my father who died of mesothelioma on July 23, 2006.

Like many children of my father's generation, he was born in the house on the family farm near Elkton, South Dakota on June 6, 1933. He took us by that farm a couple of times and the thing I remember most about that small farm was the artesian well that supplied that farm for many, many years. As far as I know, that well is still gushing out clean, fresh, cold water at a rapid rate. I remember looking out over the pasture and seeing three water tanks that had slowly been carried away by that well as the water pressure wore away the bottom of the tank and pushed it away from the well.

I am not sure exactly how long they lived on that farm before my grandma and grandpa bought the farm where Dad spent most of his early life growing up until he moved away to go to college. He used to tell great stories about his memories growing up despite all the tragedies they had to endure on that farm.

My dad was a runner. My grandmother made sure of that. My dad is the second of seven children born to Ben and Irene Patrick. When Grandpa Ben was plowing on May 27, 1942 he saw a storm coming from the West. He told dad's older brother, Murl, who was barely ten years old, and plowing with two teams of large draft horses, to take the horses in, unharness, curry down, feed and prepare them for the oncoming storm. Grandpa told Murl he would be in when he was done plowing. Grandpa never made it out of the field. A bolt of lightning saw to that. 

When the storm had passed and Grandpa had still not come in from the field, Grandma, pregnant with child number seven under the age of eleven, brought a couple of the kids out to see where Grandpa was. She found him going in circles, literally, fried to the tractor, and had to figure out how she was going to get him off the tractor and out of that newly plowed field.

She ended up driving to neighbors' farms eliciting help to get Grandpa off the tractor after they got it stopped. By that time, it was time to do the evening chores which included milking the cows, gathering the eggs and feeding all the other animals. Life was not easy in the good old days!

Three years later, baby Lorraine had seen the boys throw kerosene into the large round, old, gravity furnace in the middle of the basement. She thought she would do like her older siblings had done, except she did not know you had to flick the can to stop the kerosene from bringing a flame out and burning her. She died of the burns shortly after that.

By the time, my dad was twelve years old; he had lost his father and baby sister. I do not think he ever got over that. He did not, nor did the rest of the family, have time to grieve, as there were chores to do!

Murl, Dad, Leroy, Norris, Barbara and Dorothy all went to a small one-room schoolhouse through the eighth grade. After that, Grandma gave them a choice. The only two I know of are Murl and Dad's choices. As I understand it, when Murl was young he liked Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, and wanted to be the next Country and Western star! Grandma gave him this choice; you can go to high school or if you choose to stay home on the farm, I will give you a guitar and lessons.

Murl chose the latter and sang the old Country and Western songs his entire life, amassing an impressive collection of incredible, valuable guitars.

Dad's choice was this: you can stay here and help Murl and me run the farm, or you can go to high school and continue running. However, if you go to high school, you have to run everywhere you go, and when you are here at the farm, you have to wear a pair of five buckle overshoes.

Dad also chose the latter and became a member of a small five-man team from tiny South Dakota State College in nearby Brookings to win a National Championship in track and field in Abilene, Texas in 1953. Here is a picture of that team:

Click on the image to make it larger:

Kneeling: Russ Nash and my Dad
Standing: Jack Pearson, Leo Hammerich and Pete Retzlaff looking at the trophy with coach Jim Emmerich

Along the way, Dad ran everywhere. His siblings have told me they remember passing him in the family car on their way to high school as he ran the five miles into town.

I have a lot of stories I would like to tell you about my dad, but I see I have already written a long post. Let me finish with a story and a picture of my dad teaching me to bat left-handed. I was thirteen years old and we lived in Sibley, Iowa in the summer of 1968.

Dad was my coach, mentor, father and friend. He had some shortcomings, and I was occasionally on the short end of the stick, but not very often. We had a special relationship and I miss him every day. I am sure if you have lost a parent(s) you feel the same way.

Click on the image to make it larger:

I miss all the time we spent together. He will be teaching me again all too soon!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

7 Seed Versus An 8 Seed!

If you are following the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, you know tomorrow night's championship game matches two teams that were not supposed to be there according to the tournament committee who sets up seeding the brackets.

This year's tournament had many upsets and many great games! There were a record overtime games, with five overtime games so far, four of those happening on the first day. All in all, it has been an exciting tournament to watch even with everybody's brackets being busted to smithereens! I do not think anybody would have picked Kentucky or University of Connecticut, or as they are better known, UConn to win the whole thing. Warren Buffett's offer was safe after the second round.

But, I do not really want to talk about The Big Dance in this post. I would rather address that other tournament and who won it on Thursday night! That is correct, I want to take a few minutes and discuss our own Minnesota Gophers and their National Invitation Tournament Championship and what I believe it means to the program, the University, the head coach and recruiting for next year. A first-year coach has a 25-13 record, which is officially the most wins by a Golden Gopher basketball team, loses only three seniors, wins the NIT in only his second year as a head coach, has his mother and Hall of Fame coach/father cheering him on from right behind the bench is quite a feat!

But first, let me give you a quote from junior point guard DeAndre Mathieu who looked as he was close to crying as well as beaming a huge smile right after the game. "I can't stop smiling. It's like the best feeling. I know it's not the NCAA tournament, but this feels so good … Were going to all hopefully have a big summer and hopefully make a run in the big-boy tournament next year."

Granted, the NIT does not carry the prestige it used to before the NCAA tournament was expanded from 16 teams to 32 teams to 64 teams to 65 teams and now, 68 teams. However, you cannot take away a national championship trophy from this group of student/athletes, coaches, trainer and manager in this picture: 

Click on the picture to enlarge the photo:

It was fun watching the confidence and self-esteem build in these players as they won all five games in the tournament! It was especially fun to watch the underclassmen play three good games at Williams Arena as they came into their own.

There were times we wondered if they were going to make it to New York, but as each game developed and players came through in clutch situations, you could see them growing as basketball players. That is what a coach wants to see!

In the final game at Williams Arena, senior guard and team co-captain, Austin Hollins played a key role down the stretch to win that game and send them off to play at least one game in the Mecca of Basketball, Madison Square Garden (MSG). As it turned out, they narrowly beat Florida State in the semifinals in overtime 67-64 to go on and beat Southern Methodist University in the championship game 65-63.

Both games in MSG were hard-fought, back-and-forth, good games with several mistakes on both sides; but, in the end our Golden Gophers won a close game by only two points! It was fun to watch!

First-year coach Richard Pitino was only hired in April and did not have a chance to get a good hold on recruiting some top-notch players. Now, with a national championship trophy in tow and five of his top seven scorers returning, he has some positive building blocks to show new recruits.

I am looking forward to next year already. The Barn will be rockin' again come November. I cannot wait!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

March Madness Rolls Into April

March Madness is alive and well in both the men and women's college basketball tournaments! My bracket was busted way beyond repair when I picked the wrong early upsets like picking Ohio State over Dayton. Three of the twelve seeds upset the five seeds, and that has never happened before. I only picked one of them right. I had Michigan State winning the whole thing. That was in the NCAA Men's Tournament. But that is not what this post is about.

I want to talk about who is still playing basketball in April. If you are a Golden Gopher basketball fan like I am, last night's game was a real nail biter. Bobby Knight was the analyst and could not say a nice thing about the Gophers almost all night long. He really got on Richard Pitino for the way he handled the last play of the game and the last play in overtime.

On a side note, years ago I asked Coach Knight what he thought when he brought his Indiana teams into Williams Arena, better known in these parts as The Barn. He told me he loved playing in The Barn because his teams always beat the Gophers! I have another Bobby Knight/Bill Musselman story but that is irrelevant to this post!

I want to talk about how there are only two Big Ten teams playing yet in April. Wisconsin is in the Final Four. The other Big Ten team to be playing for a national championship is our own Minnesota Gophers tomorrow night in Madison Square Garden for the National Invitation Tournament (NIT).

Granted, the NIT is not The Big Dance they wanted to be playing in, but with a win tomorrow night they can still hang another national championship banner in Williams Arena!

Had they gotten into the NCAA Tournament, they would have been a low seed and probably be watching that Final Four like every other team in America except for Florida, Kentucky, Wisconsin and the University of Connecticut, better known as UConn, on Saturday.

I think playing these extra five games has helped the Gophers tremendously! The younger players have five more games of experience in which to build their confidence. Joey King has played very well and you can see the self-confidence building in his game. DeAndre Mathieu has shown the entire country just how quick and fast he is. I have watched him grow into a very good point guard, which the Gophers have needed for a long time. Mo Walker has also shown a tremendous increase in his presence around the basket and his ability to shoot from outside the Paint. Andre Hollins has also shown what he is capable of doing on any given night. He still needs to be consistent, and hopefully that will come in his senior year. I am anxious to watch them play next year.

Whatever happens tomorrow night the Gophers can call coach Richard Pitino's first season a successful one. Granted, they didn't make the NCAA Tournament, finished only 8 and 10 in the Big Ten conference, but could end up with a 25 and 13 record and a national championship. That spells a successful first year for me.

Another fun part of watching the game last night was how much the announcers talked about and showed Rick Pitino during the game. It was fun to see him sitting behind his son watching him cheer for the Gophers. I am sure there will be more of that tomorrow night in the National Invitation Tournament Championship Game in Madison Square Garden in New York City! That is fun to say!

Go Gophers!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike Patrick U of M '80 Basketball Season Ticket Holder for thirty-three years!

The Barn Was Rockin' Last Night!

As my longtime readers know, I love watching good college basketball! The energy, quickness, emotion, determination and skill is fun to watch! Especially, when you have great seats like I do In one of the oldest and most storied arenas in the country; Williams Arena is affectionately known as "The Barn."

When Ohio State University’s Men’s Basketball Team came to The Barn last night they were rated Number 11 in the country. The Gophers are not rated in the Top 25. The way the Gophers shut them down, the Buckeyes look more like they would be rated Number 11 in the Big Ten!

The crowd was into it, and when you get more than 14,000 people cheering your every move, you seem to play better. At least, that is the home court advantage theory. This is new Gopher coach Richard Pitino's first win over a ranked team in his first season as Gopher coach.

Pitino outcoached Ohio State's Thad Matta too. At least that is my perspective. He did a good job in switching defenses and exploiting Ohio State's weaknesses on the offensive end.

Of course, it always ends up the players need to execute what it is the coach wants them to do. It seems Coach Pitino had a good game plan, and despite poor shooting through much of the game by Minnesota's excellent backcourt, the Gophers had the Buckeyes down by 13 points with just a little over five minutes to go in the game. Final score: 63-53 and Minnesota had a signature win in the Big 10 Conference.

If you are not a sports fan or following all the conference realignments going on in the NCAA these last several years, the Big Ten has 12 schools and will expand to 14 next year when Rutgers and Maryland join the conference. They are still going to call it the Big Ten! Go figure. It is all about money!

The electricity in The Barn last night was as exciting as last year when the Gophers upset then Number 1 Indiana and the crowd rushed the floor like nothing I have ever seen at Williams Arena.

If you have ever been to a Gopher basketball game in Williams Arena, you know how exciting it can be during a close Big Ten game in January, February and early March!

My mom watched the game, and commented on how many times the announcers made reference to the atmosphere and fun it was to watch a game in the venerable old arena. Williams Arena has undergone major renovations since it was built in the late 1920s, and remains the fourth or fifth oldest arenas in the country with the charm like that of Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas where the University of Kansas plays. I also got to see a game between Missouri and Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse, and it was a real treat!

It remains one of only three raised courts in the country and has so much charm of going into an old, structurally sound, venue that just draws you in. I have had season tickets since I was a student in the mid-1970s, and it is nights like last night that keep me in Minnesota in these cold winters.

I must admit I was skeptical about how the season was going to go this year after losing several seniors and firing Tubby Smith; but, I have seen steady improvement in the team so far this season and last night was the one that has me believing the Gophers can close out a big game over a good team and will make the Big Dance field of 64 for March Madness! That is always a fun month. That is, if you like college basketball like I do.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Talk About A Great Christmas Story

It was almost a year ago already when Owen Groesser was featured on SportsCenter, but the story does not seem to go away. They played it again today and it seems to be a story that keeps on giving and giving.

If you have not heard the story about young Owen and his heroics on the basketball court last January, it is a heartwarming story of not only a boy with Down syndrome, but a story of sportsmanship, teamwork, hard work, dedication and the love of my favorite sport, basketball. It is also about the power of Twitter and how powerful that medium has become in a fairly short time.

In fact, the Twitter # (hashtag) became so popular it caught the attention of Scott Van Pelt who put the story on his SportsCenter Top 10 Stories of the Day at Number 10. The next night, it was the Number 1 Story! I do not have a Twitter account yet, but I am thinking it may be time to get one!

I was not able to download the SportsCenter original video, but I have a video from the local TV station in Rochester Hills, Michigan I believe you will appreciate:

Just click here:

If that does not bring up the story, try this link: http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/sports/eighth-grader-with-down-syndrome-hits-memorable-three-pointer-in-first-game

Once you watch the expression on this boy's face, you will be hooked! He was in another world, and it was wonderful to see how excited he got as he was interviewed with his father. In one interview I watched as the mother and father were interviewed. I do not know who was more excited, young Owen or his parents? Describing the games brought both parents to tears.

It is wonderful stories like this that make me excited to do this blog. I have often said, "I never know where my inspiration will come from to put up a post." I certainly did not expect to be posting this story on Christmas Eve.

I want to close by wishing all of my Christian friends a Merry Christmas tomorrow. I would like to leave you with my favorite Christmas lights display. Enjoy because a lot of effort went into this person's expression of the holiday spirit:

Click on the image to make it larger:

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike 

P.S. When did the pound sign become a hashtag? And, what is it for?

Concussions In Football

Last night the CBS Evening News ran a story on four thousand former NFL players and their surviving family members about suing the NFL owners for their lack of knowledge, sharing of information and general lack of interest in the health of their players and former players. The focus was on concussions.

Imagine that, labor suing management over health related issues in the workplace. They discussed several players, their untimely deaths and the preponderance of concussions in the NFL going back decades. If you saw the story, I would bet you stopped to ask yourself, "I wonder if that is why I continue to get these migraine headaches now I am in my 40s?" That is, if you played football starting before you could read, up to junior high, high school, college or even professional football.

When the issue of what is commonly referred to as concussion syndrome has started to raise its ugly head in these last few years, it has forced all of us who ever had anything to do with football to stop and question the validity of the issue.

I am pretty sure I suffered a concussion when my head hit the ground after my accident. I do not remember if any attention would have been paid to a concussion while I was in Sioux Falls since there were more pressing issues we were dealing with.

In doing some research for this post, I came across an article from Business Week.com about Junior Seau, the former standout linebacker for the San Diego Chargers and New England Patriots. Seau committed suicide in May 2012. He was not alone in former NFL players who have killed themselves as they suffered from brain injuries many people are wondering if they  were linked to their on-field hits over long careers.

In the CBS piece, one of the players who has passed away from dementia and had a long career as an NFL lineman showed a brain the size of a child.

Gregg Dovel of CBSSports.com paints and even grimmer picture for what is happening to the lifespan of NFL players. You can read his article by clicking here. His article appeared December 23, 2010; well before all of the concussion syndrome discussion had started. If this link does not open, cleck on this URL: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/14477196/nfl-is-killing-its-players-and-league-doesnt-care

The fact remains, young boys and girls are playing football at an early age in equipment that may not be adequate to protect their young and growing brains. We are learning so much about the human brain these days, it puts research that may have been done even today in the dark ages, figuratively speaking.

Jarrett Bell of USA Today.com claims in an article updated May 9, 2012 just the opposite.  He concludes NFL players live longer lives than the average person. You may read his article by clicking here. Several former players dispute his results. If that link does not take you there, try clicking here: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/story/2012-05-08/Study-shows-NFL-players-live-longer/54847564/1

I loved playing football. I made lifelong friends playing football, basketball, baseball, track and every other activity I took part in before my accident. I do not regret playing football, I regret every day of my life getting hurt playing football!

The game is changing. The players are getting bigger, stronger, faster and the equipment is not keeping up. Changes are made in the rules all the time to protect the players and make it a safer game. That does not mean you cannot get hurt playing football. It simply means the odds are cut down some when the equipment is safer.

About every adult I know who played football while they were younger has a football injury of some sort. I believe most of them would tell you the same thing I did about how they enjoyed playing football. Once it was not fun anymore, they stopped playing.

Some of us just stopped our careers before we planned to call it quits.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

The End Of An Era

Imagine you are Karen Aho and you recently married Tom, the love of your life. You are having a conversation about having a family and he asks you how many children you would like to have? Would you say, "four, five, six, seven, — no, let's have fifteen, and twelve of them will be boys who love to play football"?

She goes on to say, "In fact, let's space them apart so we can go to a high school football game every fall Friday night for about a quarter of a century. Yes, let's do that!

"We'll name the Alpha male 'Steve' and have him so he can start playing in about 1989, and go to 'Seth' the Omega will finish in 2012. Yes, I like that!

"Twenty-four years of high school football games, Homecoming dances, parades, countless highs and many lows, winning seasons, losing seasons, even five of them good enough to go and play college football. That is how I want to spend about half of our married life. Yes, Tom, sign me up!"

Does that sound like something a Hollywood screen writer could come up with? I do not think so! But yet it happened in a small consolidated school in Central Minnesota at Dassel-Cokato High School. Read more about the Aho family and their amazing story by clicking here. That Yahoo! Sports article leads you to a good article from the Dassel•Cokato Herald Journal, which you may reach by clicking here. The family picture appears in both articles. The article shows the years the boys attended DCHS. Since I was there in 1989 and 1999, I wonder if Steve or Joel remember anything I said in my assembly?

It would not surprise me if they did remember something. Just today, I came across a woman who remembered my speech from a presentation at her company sixteen years ago!

It is a story of commitment, family, teamwork, mentoring, communication, love and so many more positive family values. This was a fun story to learn and write about. I first learned about the Aho family watching the news last night.

I laid awake thinking about the family and all the lives the boys experienced, including all the other sports they competed in and thought about just what I was going to write. Turns out, as I read what I have just written was not at all what I was going to write. I wonder how many writers experience that phenomena?

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

I Feel Bad Today

Let me start this post by saying, "I LOVE BASEBALL! I loved playing the game. I love the strategy, I love watching good baseball, even if it can go rather slowly sometimes. In the matter of one swing, a whole game, series or even an entire season can be changed."

I feel bad because I will not get to watch three more games of the American League Championship Series (ALCS) because the Detroit Tigers swept the New York Yankees in four straight games. I feel bad because two hundred million dollars cannot buy a pennant let alone the World Series. Actually, I don't feel bad about that at all, I rather like it!

If you know me, you know I do not like the Yankees and the way they acquire the best talent by having the deepest pockets in the largest market, and they are expected to win the World Series every year because they put the most talent on the field every year with a team payroll over two hundred million dollars! I believe that takes away from the game.

I am glad to see Detroit sweep the Yankees with a former Minnesota Twin, Delmon Young, play such an integral part and was named the MVP. I did not like to see him go, but I hope he gets his ring now.

I know there are Yankee fans out there who disagree with me, and that is okay. They are by far the most successful sports franchise in all four major sports, MLB, NFL, NBA and the NHL. They have been buying championships since they bought Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars on January 5, 1920.

I like to see the underdog win, and Detroit was definitely the underdog in this ALCS. The Tigers won every aspect of the game and never trailed in the four-game sweep. The vaunted Yankee hitters only batted .188 as a team. That is the worst team batting average in Major League Post-season History! That is extraordinary!

I know their Captain, Derek Jeter, and their best player, went down with a broken ankle in Game 1, but very few of their other players stepped up at all, let alone critical times in any of the three remaining games. To top it all off, the ace of their pitching staff, C.C. Sabathia, was knocked out in the fourth inning. That was not supposed to happen either.

Now, I am going to watch Game 5 of the National League Championship Series and see if San Francisco can come back on the defending Champion Cardinals, or if Detroit will play St. Louis in the World Series. Such a dilemma to have while the Yankees clean out their lockers and head for the golf courses in Florida, or the winter leagues in the Caribbean.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Git 'er Done!

A friend sent me these pictures and their story a while back, and I have been wondering how I could use this inspirational story of giving and helping a camp for kids. I think the story is truly quite amazing! In this season of giving, I want to share a story about how a group of Canadian farmers set a world record for harvesting a 160-acre field in just ten minutes and fifteen seconds!

They used one hundred combines, and took just one swath through the field. Notice all the grain trucks ready to take the harvest once they finished.

Click on the images to make them larger:


You can learn more of the specifics on this 2006 harvest by clicking here. The link will also take you to the YouTube videos of the harvest.

I believe there are two reasons I found this story compelling:

1. I love stories of cooperation and communities coming together to accomplish extraordinary things because there were so many stories like this when I got hurt of people in Worthington and the small towns in the surrounding area. People came together and raised a good deal of money which helped pay to put air conditioning in our house, built a ramp into the house, paid for two vans and helped pay for several other items our insurance did not cover.

2. My dad and I helped harvest the small grain at both my grandmother and uncle's farms for several years before my accident, so I have a special affinity for farmers and harvesting. I miss those special times!

To quote John, Paul, George and Ringo, "We get by with a little help from our friends!"

Have a great 2010 everyone!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike