Burnsie, Millard & Red

Jerry Burns on the Blakeslee Stadium practice fields

Syndicated writer Dave Barry penned a column entitled "16 Things It Took Me Over 50 Years to Learn." It's a funny read with some level of truthiness.

Obviously, a lot can happen in 50 years.

And not to sound like Billy Joel singing "We Didn't Start the Fire," much has taken place in the last five decades.  Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. There was Woodstock and the tragic shootings at Kent State. There was Vietnam and the Berlin Wall. Star Wars premiered and the Watergate break-in occurred. Sid Vicious ring a bell? A bunch of college guys beat the vaunted Soviets in Lake Placid. The Hubble Telescope went into orbit. Princess Di passed away in a car crash. Johnny Carson retired. Twins won the World Series. 9/11. Saddam. bin Laden. Bush. Clinton. Bush. Obama.

On a local level, the Minnesota Vikings first came to Mankato for their summer training camp in 1966, making this year the 50th consecutive season the Purple & Gold have made the Key City their preseason preparation destination.

While it's tough to boil things down to a few thoughts about the Vikings during this period in our little berg, let's take a look at the last 30 seasons.

1986 marked Jerry Burns’ first year. Les Steckel was named head coach in 1984 and the former Marine led the Vikings through one disastrous season in which his squad posted a 3-13 mark. Iconic Bud Grant returned in 1985, leading up to Burnsie being named head coach the following year.

Coach Burns, who guided the team for six years, could come off as curmudgeonly, but had a great sense of humor. There's a story about one camp where the weather was hot and muggy (like most years) and the players and coaches were struggling. To change things up, Burns, along with defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, defensive lineman Keith Millard and equipment manager Dennis Ryan conspired to prank the team. Following a staged argument between Millard and Kiffin, Ryan later threw a dummy dressed like Kiffin off the roof of Gage Hall, giving the players on the practice field a scare.

The summer of 1991 was an interesting one. Especially the night Millard, after leaving the Albatross in a hurried attempt to get back to Gage prior to curfew, crashed his corvette into a planter at Hardee’s.

In 1998, bombastic Red McCombs bought the team and came to town bellowing “Purple Pride.”  This was also the year Randy Moss was drafted and made his inaugural training camp appearance.  The crowds got bigger as in addition to Moss, Randall Cunningham, Cris Carter, Randall McDaniel, John Randle and Robert Smith were also on the roster.  Loaded with that talent, the Vikings went 15-1 in the regular season and advanced to the NFC championship game before losing to Atlanta in overtime.

In 1999, first round draft pick Dimitrius Underwood came to camp wearing camo. He left camp after one day and  never played for the Vikings. Later diagnosed as bipolar, eventually he played a bit in the league with Dallas and Miami.

In 2001 Korey Stringer passed away. I wrote about it HERE.

Leading up to the summer of 2004, there was talk that the team was strongly considering having training camp at a different location. A re-commitment from the town and University, in which promotions and marketing of the team's stay in town would be ramped up, ensured the continued trip down 169. Vikings Village became a reality as camp operations became a joint effort in an attempt to become more organized and to heighten the fan experience.

In the spring of 2013, campus landmark Gage Towers, the venerable dormitory complex which housed the Vikings during their stay, was imploded (the Vikings are now housed in Julia Sears Residence Community on the west side of campus).

Along the way, a few Minnesota State players received invitations to try-out with the local NFL squad, and in 2013 wide receiver Adam Thielen broke camp as a practice squad player. In 2014, the Detroit Lakes, Minn., native made team's 53-man roster and appeared in all 16 regular-season games.

Here's to another 50 years!!!!  Skol Vikings.

It's great to be a Maverick.

Not Forgotten - Korey Stringer

Korey Stringer 1974-2001

When it comes to weather, those of us who live in Minnesota are extremely familiar with a couple of "extended stats" numbers other than temperature and wind speed to determine how it feels outside. In the winter it's wind chill which measures the effect of wind on air temperature. Simply put, the windier it is, the colder it feels. In the summer heat index combines heat and humidity. The more the humidity we have, the warmer it feels.

The weather in Mankato today is what you would expect for this time of year.  It's the morning of August 1st and the temperature is heading toward 90 degrees and while the humidity stands at 87%, it's continuing to rise.  The air feels heavy and if you're outside for an extended period of time, without any exertion, you will sweat through your shirt.

It was like this ten years ago and the Vikings were in camp on campus.  Hot and humid with the heat index well into triple digits.

That night, my wife Lori was watching the six o'clock news and said "Hey, Perry (Dyke) just said that they took Korey Stringer to the hospital today."

Stringer was a 27-year old offensive tackle coming off of an All-Pro season. Checking in at 6-4 and 335 pounds, the former Ohio State Buckeye had suffered heat stroke after a full-pads, full-contact practice on a day when the heat index in Mankato was nearly 110 degrees.

I responded to Lori with a casual "No need to worry. Those big guys always struggle with the heat this time of year and one or two of them always end up in the hospital during camp.  They'll pump him full of fluids, cool him down and he'll be back on the field in a day or so." 

It seems so flippant now.

At about 4:00 a.m. the phone rang in our house.  I used to occasionally get calls at that time in the morning from my college buddies.  No so much anymore and in the rare times those calls come now, it's usually not good.  This was one of those times. It was Tom West from the Vikings media relations department. I can't remember his exact words, but he was calling to say that Korey Stringer had passed away and that the Vikings would need some assistance with the media attention the organization was expecting with the developing story.

And, obviously, it was a big story.  Stringer was one of the top young offensive linemen in the National Football League on a team that included high-profile players such as Duante Culpepper, Randy Moss and Cris Carter.  Later that day, the national media descended on Mankato and MSU and at a press conference held in the Centennial Ballroom (the largest room we had available to accommodate the large contingent of journalists), Denny Green, Carter and Moss all gave testimonials to Stringer. It was sad and gut-wrenching and I'll never forget Moss struggling through a tear-filled ten minutes at the podium in trying to convey his sentiments for his fallen teammate.

Things have changed since that day. 

Green and Culpepper are both out of the NFL, reunited with the United Football League's Sacramento Mountain Lions last fall.  Carter is an analyst for ESPN and Moss is a free agent, looking for a team to play for after spending the 2010 season with three different teams, including a short-lived four-game stint with Minnesota. 

Stringer's death brought about major changes to how NFL teams run training camp and, in particular, heat stroke prevention.

"The awareness has became greater, certainly (relative to heat stroke prevention and recognition)." said Jeff Chambers, MSU's director of sports medicine. "It changed our approach. We've became more acutely aware of signs of heat stroke. We were doing a lot before, but now there's much more stress on rehydration, monitoring weight loss, practice duration and timing, etc."
  

It's ten years today and, hopefully Korey Stringer's passing wasn't in vain with lessons learned and no Viking falling on the Blakeslee Stadium practice fields. 

Post post Note:  About an hour after I posted this, Randy Moss announced that he was retiring.  I also thought I might add these links -  Vikings honor 10th anniversary of Stringer's death & Vikings Remember Stringer.