My Sports fans testimony, it’s my life:
“Your life is sports,” a friend once told me.
“My life is good!” I promptly responded.
My Minnesota sports history actually started in South Dakota, where I was born and grew up to be a die-hard sports fan for the Twins, North Stars and Vikings. The credit goes mostly to my father, who taught me everything he could about how to play the games we watched on TV.
We watched three Vikings Super Bowls together (I was a bit too young to remember the IV vs. Kansas City). We used to listen to Herb Carneal do the play by play of Twins games while hauling hay bails during the hot summers on the farm. My dad took me to his softball games, bowling leagues and shot baskeballs with me on our barn’s hoop. I learned from him how to “Work hard, play harder and always hustle.”
In the late 70′s, my dad started taking my brothers and I to our first Twins games at Met Stadium. In 1976, he took me to my first Vikings game, during the last Vikings run to the Super Bowl. That day, December 18, 1975 remains the biggest sports day of my entire existence. I was hooked for life.
I moved to the Twin Cities in 1983 from South Dakota to attend Macalester College in St. Paul. Truth be told, the only reason I left the gravel roads and hay bales for the bright lights and big city campus in Minnesota was to attend as many Twins and Vikings games as possible.
My resume will in no way qualify me to be a professional baseball or football expert, but my passion for the game has lead me to create this blog, and write things about sports as I see them. I have coached baseball for over 20 years; from Rookie Leagues in Lakeville, to Assistant Coaching a VFW team in Watertown, SD back in the 80′s. I have played on State and World Championship softball teams, and love anything related to the game of baseball.
I graduated College in 1987 with a bachelors degree in history, a minor in political and a core concentration in social science. I returned home that summer to coach three baseball teams, and deliver pizzas. It was the summer of no pressure. I lived at a lake house with my best friend, and watched the Twins take a run at the pennant. When the baseball season wrapped up in August, I took the first job offered to me in St. Paul. I just had to get back to the Cities to be part of the Twins Magic that year.
I spent my first paycheck on ’87 Twins vs Cardinals World Series tickets. I ate peanut butter sandwiches and ramen noodles for a month afterward, but it was the best money I have ever spent. In fact, the best sports weeks of my life was that October when I attended Games 2, 6 and 7 of the Series, a Vikings Monday Night Football victory over Denver where D.J. Dozier scored three touchdowns, followed by a World Championship parade, and then a U2 concert all during my first week of full-time employment. Top that!
My bumper sticker on my 1987 Mercury Cougar
I bought Vikings season tickets in 1998, and have enjoyed tailgating every year up through the Brett Favre interception in the 2010 NFC Championship.
I got married in 1997 to a former college softball player and rookie on the ’96 corporate women’s team I had coached for over a decade. She actually knew how to slide into second base and that drew my attention from the get go. We had a Twins themed wedding with an Opening Pitch and 7th Inning Stretch.
We are happily married with two very cute kids who we love to drive around to hockey practice, gymnastics, swimming, and of course baseball games. Life and sports are full of lessons, parallels, good times and cold streaks. We are sharing our knowledge with our kids, taking it one day at time and have attended Spring Training in Fort Meyers with them since 2006.
Life IS good.
