I hate playing football but I love watching it. I always thought that I could be good football player. I remember playing the game almost every day in grade school, wearing my Tarkenton #10 jersey, and being a “bossy quarterback.”
A grade school flag football city championship followed by a city wrestling title, boasted my confidence that I was on my way to the NFL. In my mind, I would be playing QB for the Vikings within 10 years. That was my grade school mentality in the late 70′s.
The 80′s changed everything. In Junior high I was unable to showcase my noodle arm of accuracy, and because I was a bigger kid, the coaches threw me into the trenches. I didn’t like it, mostly because it was painful. One day you are a superstar in your own mind the next day you are being mocked by the Freshman team head coach. I was accused of being too lazy at practice. The game was no longer fun. I skipped a practice one time to get to the Peter Frampton Comes Alive Tour in Sioux Falls. The coach called my mom, and ratted me out. I had to go to the coach and beg for a spot back on the team, when I wanted to quit. My parents wouldn’t let me.
A week after getting back onto the team, I blew my knee up. I was scared to tell anyone, and played the rest of the season on a bad wheel. It sucked. The coaches called me lazy more often than not, but from my perspective, it was very painful. I started rehabbing the knee on my own in the off-season, and was jumping rope in the basement of our farmhouse when I heard the knee snap, pop and crackle. I went to bed that night in pain, and woke up the next day not being able to bend my leg. It was locked at the knee and looked like a watermelon.
Three decades later, with two surgeries to fix that knee, I still resent that coach, but not missing the Frampton Comes Alive tour. I know the game inside and out, and I know the personality traits that make successful football players and coaches. They are not my friends, they are now my entertainment. I am an NFL fan, and avid Minnesota Viking tailgater.
- Greatest Moment: Vikings playoff win over Green Bay in 2005 at Lambeau. I was there with my brother, and saw the Moss Moon live. I will never forget the “JUMP AROUND” song blaring late in the 4th quarter with the Vikings partying on the sidelines.
- Favorite All-Time Vikings: Randall McDaniel- a class act, a great man, and a Hall of Fame player. Also Tommy Kramer, who always wrote back to me when I sent him stuff as a kid in the 70′s early 80′s, and of course Fran Tarkenton.
- Favorite Moment as Fan of the Purple: My first game ever back in 1976, a 35-20 playoff win over the the Redskins.
- Biggest Personal Achievement at a Vikings Game: Air Guitar on the field. I got booed off the field. C’mon man!
- Favorite Vikings Draft pick: Joey Browner
- Favorite Metrodome Song:
- Best Autograph obtained: Almost all of the 1976 Vikings after their playoff win over the Redskins
- Greatest Thrill: The NFC Championship game in 1998- we had that locked up, and everybody felt the trip to the Super Bowl was imminent with 2 min 12 seconds left. Then the crash after the missed kick, and over time loss, was the biggest downer ever!
