If you look closely on the front page of Friday's Post Bulletin, you might find a small, simple section titled "Tink Larson returns to coaching this spring." It goes on to say that Larson is the 12th winningest coach in Minnesota High School baseball history with a record of 400-265 and that he will be taking over for Todd Mann, who is also the school's athletic director. There's nothing wrong with the article. It's all factually accurate and fair. But it's grossly incomplete. To compensate for what it lacks, I'll share with you the Legend of Tink Larson. I don't know it all, but I know enough. Here is what I know.
The Legend of Tink Larson started long ago, well before I was ever born. My dad used to relay stories of Tink's greatness on the diamond when he was just a high schooler playing in Kasson. As with any good legend, Tink's began because he was the best at what he did. He dominated the competition. But that's where many great legends end. Tink's is just beginning.
At some point, Larson moved to Waseca and made it his home. He developed their baseball program into what it is today. Yes, he has 400 high school wins under his belt, but that says nothing about the fact that he coached the town's VFW, American Legion and amateur teams too. In the same year. And those are only the ones I know for sure. Think of the time Tink spent at the ball park coaching four teams. Four hundred wins? That's nothing. That's not even the tip of the iceberg. The guy probably has a 1,500 if you count them all up.
With all the time that would take, it's not surprising that Tink adopted the field like a son (by the way, his real son Mike is a major league scout.) He spent countless hours manicuring the outfield, grooming the infield to perfection. There's even a rumor floating around that when his dog died, Tink buried it behind home plate. The dog was aptly named Killebrew.
Somehow, Tink finds time to be everywhere that baseball is. More than once when I was playing baseball at Iowa State, I saw him standing by the dugout during batting practice. He couldn't get there early enough, or stay late enough, for his liking. Any year the Rochester Royals amateur baseball team makes the state tournament and Waseca is eliminated, the Royals use Tink as a "draft pick" just to have him and his experience in the dugout.
But every legend has a truly mystical aspect. Some story that people will hear years down the road and brush off as exaggeration. Tink's mystical story is that to this day, he still plays ball.
I don't know how old Tink is, nor do I want to wager a guess. But he's older than my father, and my dad is 57. Tink doesn't play every day. He's not even a regular substitute. But when his amateur team is short on players, don't expect them to forfeit. Expect Tink Larson at first base. And he's not an easy out at the plate. He might be an old man of 60, but the kid can still hit.
Add all this up, and you get a legend. The Legend of Tink Larson. And it will live on. Through stories told over beers while the lights still illuminate baseball fields in the hours after a game. One of those fields will undoubtedly be the ball park in Waseca. It already has a sign over the entrance that reads, "Tink Larson Field."
The Vikings offensive coordinator position is proof positive that you "don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." For the entire second half of the season, and especially the last few games, Scott Linehan was second-guessed and criticized for every mistake he made...and "mistake" is a relative term.
If Randy Moss would have rolled right and thrown a touchdown to Marcus Robinson, Linehan would have been praised for his offensive brilliance. But as it is, Moss tossed the ill-advised pass that was picked off in the end zone, and Linehan's lynching was on.
A fake field goal here, a poorly timed end-around there, and next thing you know, Linehan was on the chopping block. He was the reason our offense was struggling. Our defense flat-out stunk, but the offense should be carrying the load. There was one problem...Scott Linehan.
And then he left. He signed a three-year deal with the Miami Dolphins that nearly tripled his salary. And after he was gone, Vikings fans suddenly realized that this guy was the best offensive coordinator in the league. He's a future head coach in the NFL and man oh man, did we screw up by letting him go.
What?
Where did this change of heart come from? I have one hyphenated word for you: group-think. Some pack of fans, probably a talk radio personality or two, decided they disagreed with some calls Linehan made. These fans started the lyching process and once everyone else got wind of their beliefs, it quickly became law.
Had rational heads prevailed, Linehan would have been respected for the solid offensive coordinator that he is right from the start. He probably still would have shipped off to Miami--and who can blame him--but at least Vikings fans wouldn't be acting like the Republican's portrait of John Kerry.
The lesson here is simple. Watch football. Eat popcorn. Drink your beverage of choice. And most importantly, think for yourself.
In a game against Southland in which Elgin-Millville head girls basketball coach Clark Olstad kept his starters in "too long," the Watchmen scored more than 100 points and destroyed the Southland Rebels. Since then, Olstad has taken some heat. The coach kept his starting five in as a way to position superstar Katie Ohm to break the all-time Minnesota high school scoring record at home rather than on the road. So the question is whether the decision to leave his starters in was ethical.
Personally, I've never been upset at a team for running up the score on me. I figure if they are my competition and they are that much better than me, it's a good indication that I need to get better. I don't want my feelings to be coddled into making me believe I'm only ten points worse than a team if I'm really 75 points worse. I can handle knowing I'm not as good. I can't handle the condescension that comes with an opponent pretending they aren't much better than me, just to save my feelings.
There are some things I take exception to. Thinks like cheating or playing dirty. But running up the score? All that means is I need to improve so the opposing team can't do it anymore.
Do it for the Towel-Wavers I'm really not so crass as to think my standard is the one that should be applied in all situations. If I had been in that gym in Adams, MN the night of the blowout, I'm sure I would have been cringing and thinking, "What is he doing? Get those starters out of the game." But the reason wouldn't have been because I pitied the other team, it's because I pitied the girls on the E-M bench.
My freshman year in high school I dressed with the varsity team after each B-squad game. I know the feeling of desperation and helplessness when the score approaches blowout status. One thing dominates your thoughts: getting into the game. To have a lead that size and not get in until the closing seconds must have been torture for those girls.
Road Trip So I don't think Olstad made the right call by leaving his starters in. His reasoning was that he owed it to Katie Ohm to let her break the record in front of her home crowd. I think it would have made little to no difference where she broke the record. I can imagine busses full of fans traveling down to Caledonia to see the record breaking point. It would have been a town-wide road trip and a lot of fun for everyone. Breaking the record at home was unnecessary.
Typical KFAN Overreaction Another thing that was unnecessary was Dan Cole's comments on KFAN regarding the situation. He ripped Olstad a new part of the anatomy and extended the segment to include caller feedback. He called for Olstad's job and said the coach's kids were destined to grow up selfish, without any knowledge about teamwork. Cole (a.k.a. "The Common Man") made a fool out of himself in the eyes of everyone who is familiar with the situation.
Was Olstad wrong to leave his starters in as long as he did against Southland? Yes. Did he deserve to be blasted on the radio for everyone in the nation's 14th largest market to hear? Absolutely not.
Olstad was looking out for his player. Right or wrong, his intentions were good. He even apologized afterwards. Give the guy a break. He's doing the best he can. Let's take the focus off Olstad and back where it belongs. After all, Katie Ohm is the best girls basketball player to come out of southern Minnesota since the Miller twins.
Big wigs need not apply. That's the theme today in Chicago, the home of professional sports' worst franchise, as members of the players union and league management gather for another attempt to salvage some of the season. But while these meetings try to break ground that will offer some sort of hope for an extremely abbriviated season, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and player's union head Bob Goodenow will be sipping bottled margaritas from the mini-bar in their hotel room. They haven't been invited.
It makes perfect sense. With Bettman and Goodenow in attendance absolutely nothing has been accomplished. Neither side has budged an inch and all that has resulted is the loss of 655 of the 1,230 regularly scheduled hockey games. And counting.
But these rounds of meetings may not be any different. It's true, they seem like an olive branch, but don't plan on anyone accepting any offers today. The main issue is still a salary cap. The owners want to install one, the players reject that idea. Those stances go much deeper that Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow. And without some sort of movement on that issue by one side or the other, you can kiss the rest of the hockey season goodbye.
Personally, I miss professional hockey. The Minnesota Wild are one of the best franchises in professional sports and their run to the Stanley Cup semi-finals in 2002 converted me into a hockey fan. Because of the nature of hockey fans, this hold-out might not hurt fan support as much as it would another sport. But that's not necessarily a good thing. It's only true because hockey has a smaller, more devoted fan base. And the NHL certainly isn't recruiting any fans right now.
As a result, I don't think it really matters what happens today in Chicago, without the big wigs present. If they save the season today, the majority of their fan base will flock to the games, but they won't get any new ones. If they cancell the rest of the season--and even next season for that matter--the majority of their fan base will flock to the games when they start again in two years, but they won't get any new ones.
I wish good fortune on today's meetings, but I don't pretend to think they matter.
A few days ago, I sang the praises of the most underrated position in football: the place-kicker. Now it's time to take a look at the other side of the spectrum: the most overrated position. The NFL divisional playoffs would suggest that the most heralded position, the quarterback, is also the most overrated.
Look at the signal-callers for the Colts and Vikings. Indy has Peyton Manning, who put together one of the best seasons of any quarterback in the history of the league. He was the landslide MVP pick and threw more touchdowns this year than anyone has ever thrown in a single season. But when the game meant the most, Manning's Colts were easily handled by the Patriots.
Look at Daunte Culpepper. The Vikings quarterback would have been the league's MVP if Manning hadn't had such a phenomenal year. But his team also ran into a team that shut him and his offense down. If having the best quarterbacks in the league doesn't help you win the big games, why is the quarterback position so important?
Delving deeper into the subject, the theory continues to hold water. Instead of looking at how the best quarterback's do, let's look at how the quarterbacks of the most winning teams perform.
Ben Roethlisberger, the rookie phenom from Pittsburgh, hasn't lost a game as a starter all season. The Miami of Ohio graduate has tossed 17 touchdowns this season to 11 interceptions. Not bad numbers, and his 98.1 quarterback rating is nothing to sneeze at either. New England's Tom Brady's numbers are even better with 28 TDs to 14 interceptions and a rating of 92.6. But neither of them can hold a candle to Manning's numbers (49 TD, 10 INT, 121.1 rating) or even Culpepper's (39 TD, 11 INT, 110.9 rating.) The point is, the best quarterbacks have been losing while the average ones, that have solid defenses, win.
The reason is simple. A strong defense and a solid running game are more important than a great quarterback. Vikings fans should be very familiar with this fact of football. Even with dynamic offensive All-Pros like Randy Moss, Daunte Culpepper and Michael Bennett, the Vikings haven't had much luck in the playoffs with their current roster. The teams that have had success--New England, Carolina, Tampa Bay and others--all have solid to extraordinary defenses.
Would you prefer the best quarterback in the game or a strong defense? It all depends on whether you like to win.
I've never been one to blame a coach for the inability of his players. The NFL, and indeed all of professional sports, use coaches as a scapegoat too often. Even winning coaches are sometimes canned because they aren't winning as much as the owner thinks they should. I shake my head almost every time a team loses, then fires their head coach as a statement of some sort.
That being said, there is one coach in the NFL who does need to lose his job. That man is Vikings coach Mike Tice.
I was thrilled when Tice got the job and have given him every benefit of the doubt along the way. It wasn't until I sat down and thought about how the Vikings did in the categories controlled by the head coach that I realized Tice has to go.
The big guy was a great offensive line coach. He does a great job of relating to the players and knows his X's and O's. But head coaches have little need for those attributes. Head coaches delegate the "coaching" as most people think of it to their assistants. To the guys Tice used to be back when he was an offensive line coach. The head coach is in charge of overseeing the entire operation, making sure organization and communication are well established. He is in charge of clock management and yes, he decides when to throw the little red challenge flag.
It took a lot of false starts, chaotic fake field goals, ridiculous challenges and five-yard tosses over the middle of the field with under a minute to go and no timeouts before I realized that everything a head coach is responsible for is what's wrong with the Vikings team.
I'm all in favor of keeping Tice on staff. Don't kick him to the curb. Use him as an assistant coach where he belongs. The Vikings need to find someone who has some discipline, who can keep this team unified even with Randy Moss on the roster. Having Red McCombs as an owner makes that unlikely but I'm speaking in terms of the best-case scenario.
It comes down to the old blue collar vs. white collar. The blue collar guys are the assistant coaches who break the game down, get their hands dirty and work in the trenches. The white collar guys are the head coaches who delegate, oversee, supervise and make final decisions.
For better or worse, Mike Tice will always be a blue collar guy.
The NFL playoffs pit the biggest, baddest, most athletic men in the league against each other. Emotion runs high with yelling, screaming, celebrating and crying pasted on the television screen for the nation to see. These men are the modern-day gladiators, the cream of the crop, the ultimate physical specimens on earth. But the funny thing is, they rarely determine the outcome of the most important football games. That distinction falls on the scrawny, 170-pound, balding, middle-aged man who sits away from the rest of the team during the entire game. He is, of course, the team’s place-kicker.
Take a look at this post-season so far. Nick Keating misses a field goal, giving the Jets a chance to win in overtime. They do so with a Doug Brien field goal. In the next round, it’s Brien missing the field goal (two of them actually, both from more than 40-yards away) and the Steelers end up winning in overtime…on a field goal. During the regular season, the Vikings lost three games because of a field goal as time ran out. It kind of makes me wonder, is the place-kicker the most important position on a football team?
That question will seem utterly ridiculous to anyone who has ever been on a football team. Across the board, teams mock and ridicule their kickers. Even if the kicker gets along with the rest of the team, he’s still not considered a part of the team in the truest sense. He often times doesn’t hang out with the rest of the team, doesn’t work out with the rest of the team and doesn’t get respect from the rest of the team. But when the game is on the line, you better believe they notice him then.
It’s time for a change in football. Maybe the NFL needs a change in the rules clarifying the fact that kickers aren’t truly football players. They need to make a field goal less important in the game. Maybe it should only be worth two points. Maybe you can’t win a game with a field goal, it has to be a touchdown. Then the tough guys who want to be known as tough guys can have their game and they don’t have to worry about inviting the little kicker along. The ESPN commercial where Daunte Culpepper chooses the meter man instead of the kicker tells it all…the kicking position has to go. Or at least it has to be toned down a bit.
The other option is to begin a shift in the way football players view kickers. They are just a player of a different build. After all, quarterbacks aren’t built like linebackers but they don’t seem to have any trouble getting respect. Defensive backs and wide receivers are slender, sometimes downright tall and skinny guys but they don’t have trouble earning respect. Football players just need to respect kickers more.
Then again, maybe the rule change is the only real option
