Backes Inks Contract Extension

Former Minnesota State forward David Backes has signed a five-year extension with the St. Louis Blues.  Backes, who was in the final year of his current deal, has spent all five of his professional seasons in St. Louis and is now under contract with the team until the 2016 season.  The Blues issued a release on the signing, which can be found HERE.  Last night, Backes scored his second goal of the season (sits 2-4--6 on the campaign) in a 3-2 shootout loss to Nashville. 

Backes comments on the extension can be found HERE

General Manager Doug Armstrong's comments on Backes' extension can be found HERE.

Finally, Backes netted his second goal of the season last night in a 3-2 shootout loss to Nashville. Backes, who sits 2-4--6 on the season, absolutely blew up a Nashville defender prior to his goal, which can be found HERE.

King Pins

Not sure how many instances there of of this, but the MSU women’s bowling program head coach is also the director of compliance and eligibility for the Maverick women’s bowling program.

Shane Drahota, who is in his second year skippering the MSU keglers after guiding the team to a 48-42 in 2009-10, is in his second go-round with MSU and in his fourth year with the department in his current role.

Drahota has compliance responsibilities that relate to all university, conference and NCAA rules and regulations governing the operation of intercollegiate athletics. He supervises ongoing rules and compliance education programs for university staff, administrators, coaches and student-athletes. He is the primary resource person for all athletically related rules, regulations and interpretations. He certifies eligibility and financial aid for the more than 600 MSU student-athletes, and is the department liaison for all academic reporting (retention, graduation & other statistical data) to the NCAA.  

So, yeah, combined with coaching responsibilities with the bowling program, he’s a busy individual.

Given his intercollegiate background, however, Drahota should have a pretty clear understanding of the intercollegiate athletics culture. A native of nearby Jackson, Minn., where he played high school baseball, football and basketball, Drahota started working on a degree in business at the University of Minnesota before transferring to MSU.  Recruited to work in MSU’s athletic communications office as a sophomore, he spent eight years assisting with publicizing Maverick teams, student-athletes and coaches before becoming an assistant director of athletics at the University of South Dakota in 2006.  He returned to Mankato in 2007 when he accepted his current role handling the school’s athletics compliance and eligibility.

“Honestly, it's challenging, but ultimately rewarding," said Drahota summing up his feelings regarding juggling his responsibilities. "I've certainly gained a greater appreciation what the demands on our coaches are from a compliance point of view.  Hopefully this had benefitted me, as well as our coaches.  As far as bowling goes, I'm pretty lucky that I have a great bunch of student-athletes I get to work with on a daily basis.  And, I will say this.  I really do love MSU and am appreciative for what the school has given me. To get the chance to come back, still be here, I must lead a charmed life."

Seth Wickersham of ESPN the Magazine penned this article entitled Internal Affairs back in August and it covers alot of what college athletics compliance and eligibility directors do.  You might find it interesting.

It's great to be a Maverick.

NSIC Showcase

The first installment of the Northern Sun Showcase will debut on Fox Sports North Friday, October 29th at 6:00 p.m. followed by re-broadcasts on Sunday, October 31st at 10:30 p.m., Monday, November 1st at 10:00 p.m. and on Tuesday, November 2nd at 7:30 a.m. The show will have a feature on the Augustana Women's Golf Team, UMD's All-American Cross Country runner Morgan Place, a story on SMSU Football Player Derek Klinkner, a look at the fall sports as well as a look ahead at the winter sports. There will also be a update on the NSIC's NCAA Woman of the Year Award finalist Mary Slinger of Concordia-St. Paul. 

Additionally, you can listen to the NSIC weekly radio show on our website by going to "Podcasts" under multi-media.  

Speaking of radio shows, another installment of Maverick Magazine comes tomorrow at 10 a.m., on 89.7 KMSU.  You can listen online HERE.  Tomorrow's show will feature MSU junior setter Brittany Stamer and a soccer player to be named later.  If you can't listen live, be sure to check out the podcast of the show on the aforementioned Podcasts page on www.msumavericks.com

Until next time-  It's Great to be a Maverick 

Saturday in October

Former Minnesota State men's hockey trainer Jason Bushie, who now works with the men's hockey team at Colorado College, just characterized today as a Hound of the Baskervilles kind of day.  And, given the 70 degree temperature and 70% humidity, he just might be right.

Truly a great day in Mankato that started off with the inaugural running of the Mankato Marathon.  Today's festivities, which included a KidsK, a 10K and a half marathon, featured more than 2,000 entrants in the marathon. For those of us in MSU Athletics, we proudly join women's cross country/track and field coach Jen Blue in celebrating her first-place finish in the women's division of the marathon.  Blue, who was running in her fourth marathon, turned in a personal-best time of 3:06 in finishing 21st overall. Her husband, MSU men's hockey coach Darren Blue, is believed to have provided many great training tips for Jen.

And just to recap yesterday, in addition to the MSU men's hockey team getting its first win of the season with a 5-4 victory over #19 Colorado College, the MSU women's hockey team also picked up a big win with a 4-2 victory over #6 North Dakota at All Seasons Arena.  UND, which features Olympians Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux, was coming off of a two-game sweep of Minnesota. Also Friday, the #14 Maverick women's volleyball team captured a 3-1 NSIC win over Upper Iowa at Taylor Center.  So, yeah, a pretty good night for Maverick Athletics. 

Gary Mielke

And thought I might pass this along.  I was doing some baseball research this morning and came across a site that's mission is to do in-depth biographies of every player who has played at least one game in the major leagues.  A Herculean-task no doubt as www.baseball-almanac.com lists the number of people who have achieved this feat at 16,219.  The site is a work in progress, and the long story short here is that of the 1,454 bios that have been completed, two are of former Maverick baseball players.  Gary Mielke's bio appears here.  And Jerry Terrell's bio is available here.   They're still working on bios for Bob Will and Todd Revenig.

It's great to be a Maverick.

Soccer Team Giving Back To Community

The Minnesota State soccer program returns to the friendly confines of The Pitch at Gage Towers this weekend after a three-game roadtrip.  The Mavericks open competition Saturday at Noon against Minnesota, Crookston before hosting MSU Moorhead Sunday at 1 p.m.

Despite the action on the field, the Mavericks have been busy in the community as well.  This afternoon (Friday) the Mavericks will host the  hold a clinic with the Mankato United Top Soccer Program, a group which teaches soccer to students with special needs in the Mankato Area.  Head coach Peter McGahey, sophomore Cassie Weik and redshirt freshman Ashley Sjkora stopped by the KEYC Studios Thursday afternoon to discuss the event.  You can see footage of their inteview, HERE.

Additionally, Saturday, the Mavericks will wear pink uniforms in honor of those who are battling breast cancer and those who have survived the disease.  The weekend concludes Sunday with Youth Soccer and Tops Soccer recognition day.

Minnesota State, owners of a four-game winning streak, stands 7-4-1 on the season and 5-1-1 in the NSIC.

Friday Readings

As mentioned last week, crossover season officially begins this weekend with the start of men's and women's hockey.  In four and a half weeks, the  Maverick wrestling squad will take the mat when they participate in the Iowa State Open.

Senior Ben Becker returns to the mat this year for the Mavericks after a 20-17 season last season and earning his second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament.  Becker, a 174-pounder from Fort Dodge, Iowa, joins 125-pounder Andy Forstner as the only seniors on the Maverick wrestling squad this season.

Speaking of Becker, he has recently been named a finalist for Cosmopolitan Magazine's 2010 Bachelor Blowout, an honor which he was nominated for by his sister.  Robb Murray of the Mankato Free Press penned a piece on Becker and Cosmo and it appeared in today's paper.  You can read the story, HERE.  You can also read Becker's bio on Cosmo's website, HERE.

Speaking of the Free Press, Shane Frederick wrote a piece on Maverick senior captain Ariel Mackley.  The article, which can be found HERE, discusses the hockey exploits of Ariel and her older sisters Brittany (who played at MSU from 2004-08) and Melissa (who played at Gustavus from 2006-10).  Additionally, Freddy also wrote this piece on Rylan Galiardi in today's paper, you can find the link HERE

In the event you missed Maverick Magazine (airs every Friday during the school year on www.kmsu.org and 89.7 fm) PA and I sat down with the one and only Casey Lloyd to discuss the 2010 Minnesota State Hall of Fame ceremonies.  The show – which is available on podcast – can be found HERE.  I invite you to sit back, pour yourself a big bowl of Green Chilli, and enjoy.

The St. Cloud Times took a look at the connection between Minnesota State AD Kevin Buisman, St. Cloud State Head Coach Scott Underwood and Minnesota Duluth AD/Head Coach Bob Nielsen.  The story can be found HERE.

Finally, as mentioned in a previous blog post, the Traveling Training Kit is up for grabs this weekend.  Check out a video below to see how important the kit is to several of Minnesota State's seniors.

Happenings

There's a buzz in these parts these days.  The Wild season is about to start (Thursday vs. Carolina in Helsinki, Finland). And, obviously, in addition to Randy Moss heading back to play for the Vikings, the Minnesota Twins host the Yankees in the first round of the American League play-offs beginning tonight at Target Field.

Speaking of the Twins, one of the commercials that's received regular play talks about grass roots baseball in the state.   Youth baseball, high school baseball and amateur ball.  Take a close look and you will see Maverick head baseball coach Matt Magers featured for a split second throwing for his town team in Gaylord, Minn. He's the southpaw in the purple #33 at the :13 mark.   It's great to be a Maverick!

Crossover Season is Officially Upon Us

Today the Calendar turns to Oct. 1.  Not usually a major moment over the course of the year, but for the next six to eight weeks this is what is known as "Crossover Season" in the business.

The Maverick football, cross country, golf, volleyball and soccer teams are all in full force right now and the men's and women's hockey teams will open up their season next week.  Not too far down the line is the opening of the men's and women's swimming and diving season as well as Midnight Madness, signifying the beginning of the 2010-11 men's and women's basketball season.

This is one of my most favorite times of the year. Sure we stay busy but the campus and the website is buzzing with news on all of our programs. 

Yesterday (Thursday) the Maverick soccer squad earned a 9-0 win over Southwest Minnesota State.  It was a beautiful day on the Pitch and a great win by the Mavericks.  The win pushed MSU's record to 4-4-1 on the season heading into a nonconference trip this weekend to former North Central Conference and current NCAA Division I opponent North Dakota.

On the way out to soccer I took an opportunity to snap a photo of the Maverick volleyball team practicing in the Taylor Center.  Minnesota State - which is ranked #13 in the nation - hosts Minnesota, Crookston (10/1,  7 p.m.) and Minnesota State Moorhead (10/2, 4 p.m.) this weekend to open a four-game homestand.  Check out this video with Dennis Amundson as he discusses this weekend's matches.  The video can be viewed HERE

Here's a fun little tidbit for you:  There are currently five teams from the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference ranked in the top-13 in the nation, including the top-three teams (Minnesota Duluth #1, Wayne State #2 and Southwest Minnesota State #3).  Three-time defending national champion Concordia University is ranked #6.  As Anna Schultz once said, "It goes without saying that the NSIC is arguably the best volleyball league in the nation."

Leaving soccer I noticed the Maverick softball team - fresh off its fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance - holding one of its fall workouts.  Kind of weird to see softball in the fall but the photo snapped shows just how beautiful of a day it was in the Key City. 

The Maverick football team takes to the road this weekend as it travels to Winona State to take on the Warriors at 6 p.m., Saturday evening.  The game will have an interesting twist as Minnesota State junior linebacker Ross Jirgl will face his brother - Winona State senior linebacker - Ryan Jirgl.  Ross took a few moments to discuss playing against his brother and you can find that interview HERE.

Next weekend is Homecoming here at Minnesota State which is always exciting.  It will be even more exciting with St. Cloud State coming to town for the game.  Of course when these two teams get together they play for one of the best traveling trophies in all of sports - The Traveling Training Kit.  And it's not just my opinion on the awesomeness of the TTK, check out THIS story by ESPN a few years ago on the top-10 traveling trophies.  In addition to the Homecoming festivities, the Mavericks will also induct four former student-athletes (Gene Bygd - Track and Field '72, Patt Dunn - multi-sports '52, Josh Nelsen - football '04 and Heidi Schnagl Ulwelling - Volleyball '95) as well as former administrator Jim Schaffer and swimming and diving coach Phil Rhoade.  Additionally the 1979 and 1980 baseball squads will be inducted.  To view the release on this year's HOF class, click HERE.

Finally, the Minnesota Timberwolves just wrapped up training camp here in Mankato.  The camp - which lasted just five days - allowed new Timberwolf Michael Beasley and new Maverick Andre Gilbert the opportunity to reconnect.  Both played at Kansas State.  Chad Courrier of the Mankato Free Press discussed the two's relationship HERE.

That's a lot to digest, but there you have it.  Remember, it is GREAT to be a Maverick.

Guiding Light

At this point last year we here at MSU were making the transition from our old website to our new website.  And at the same time we were making a transition in our publications, having made a decision that while we would still produce media guides, the documents would be available, primarily, to the public electronically.

Probably not that big a deal to most of you, but to our coaches and to some members of the media, this was a lightning bolt (yeah, I know, everything's relative).  Although the industry had been headed this way for some time, the tipping point for us was a budgetary one.  We needed funding to build a new departmental website and the cost of producing publications was continuing to rise.  There was that and then there's fact that the information-gathering habits of recruited student-athletes (and the public, in general) had changed.  Unquestionably, kids nowadays are more apt to take a look at msumavericks.com then at a publication.  And the information on the website is similar to the information available in a media guide.  It's just packaged and accessed differently.

The other thing that came along during this time was the development of high speed color copiers which can print with a resolution such that the layman would have a tough time differentiating between publications done in this fashion compared to ones done on a traditional printing press. And the beauty of the technology - called print on demand - is that there isn't a minimum number.  You can print one or one hundred.  It meant that our coaches, student-athletes, parents, alumni, etc., can still get our publications, but without the cost borne by us.  As Scott Nelsen told Shane Frederick of the Free Press last year (I'm paraphrasing a bit here), in response to his question about us discontinuing the media guides..."Not much has changed really.  We're still doing the media guides.  The difference is how we're distributing them."

So we pulled the trigger on everything - the new website launched last October, we discontinued printing media guides in mass quantities and went ahead with print on demand.  In the event you want to look at the media guides that are available for this year (with more to come), be sure to check out the page located here.

It's great to be a Maverick!

Just a Few Things

After the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference decided to table St. Cloud State's request regarding having football in order to stay in the league, the Huskies have unveiled additional options to address their budget shortfall and a story outlining possibilities appears here.  Tennis, golf, nordic skiing and swimming and diving are now implicated and SCSU coaches are disappointed.

Tim Jackman 

Now back to our originally planned programming...former Minnesota State forward Tim Jackman made an impression on his new coach in Calgary when Jackman was toiling with the New York Islanders and the Calgary Sun has the story here.





And, 'twould appear that former Maverick forward and 2010 Olympic silver medalist David Backes, who had two assists in a 5-1 St. Louis preseason win at Minnesota last night (Sept. 21), might be seeing a lot of action on right wing for the Blues this season.  At least according to this story.

It's great to be a Maverick!