Too many bowls can spoil the soup...

Minnesota coach Murray Warmath with players L-R:  Dave Mulholland,
Bill Munsey, Sandy Stephens, & Roger Hagberg (1961)
www.the daily gopher.com (2017)

Written By Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune/1-7-23

 So, the Minnesota Gophers football team won the Pinstripe Bowl. Wow. I forget the score; didn’t watch.

 

I always like to see the home team win, but, really, the Pinstripe Bowl? Whoever heard of that? (I’m not a sports fan so I haven’t heard of a lot of sports lore.)

 

So I looked it up. It’s called Pinstripe Bowl to pay homage to the New York Yankees’ famous pinstriped uniforms. And they play the game in Yankee Stadium, the house that Ruth didn’t build. His Yankee Stadium is long gone.

 

Never mind that the Yankees are a baseball team. Does this make sense? To honor them with a football bowl? Confusion reigns.

 

Let’s face it, college football “bowl” games have gotten out of control. I’m old enough (boy, am I ever) to recall a day when there were only about three bowl games that mattered, and the Rose Bowl was the king of bowls. The Orange bowl was lurking out there somewhere, and the Sugar Bowl’s been around for awhile, but none of them compared to the Rose Bowl.

 

I went to the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, Calif., once, a long time ago. The Gophers played there after the1960 season and again the following year. I was there the first time when they lost to the Washington Huskies. I was going to the University of Minnesota Duluth “Branch” at the time. That’s what we were known as then.

 

And while we had the Bulldog football team here in Duluth, we were part of the U of M, meaning the Gophers going to the Rose Bowl was a pretty big deal. So two friends and I decided to drive to Pasadena to see the game.

 

It was quite an adventure. We almost got waylaid in Las Vegas on the way because it was so much fun there, and so cheap. But we pushed on to Pasadena in time to see the big Rose Bowl parade and game. (The entire Cartwright family from the old TV western “Bonanza” rode by on horseback. The ranks of people who remember “Bonanza” are thinning.)

 

The night before the big parade and game we decided to take a run into downtown Los Angeles from our Pasadena motel to see what was going on in the big city. It seemed kind of quiet on the streets, but for some reason we went to the big Biltmore Hotel looking for action.

 

Turns out It was the headquarters for the Washington Huskies, the team our Gophers would face the next day. The bar was filled with exuberant Washington fans (it doesn’t take long to get exuberant in a packed bar) and exuberance is kind of catchy, so we just joined right in toasting the Washington Huskies with their fans. Didn’t feel a bit of guilt but this is the first time I’ve publicly confessed it.

 

As we were exiting the Biltmore after celebrating our opposing team, in the lobby I ran into a Duluth kid I knew. He and a buddy were in navy uniforms and had hitchhiked up from their base San Diego for the game. What is the likelihood of meeting a Duluthian among the many millions surrounding us? The two sailors didn’t have a place to say so they wandered into the Biltmore hoping to catch a few winks of sleep on the lobby couches.

 

Didn’t happen. My acquaintance told me much later back in Duluth that the hotel’s night manager “caught” them, ordered them to follow him and gave them the presidential suite, at no charge. Now that’s patriotism.

 

On to the game the next day. We didn’t have tickets, but we went to the Rose Bowl stadium in hopes of securing some. Crowds were amassing outside the huge stadium (it could hold the entire population of Duluth) among kiosks decorated in the colors of the two teams — maroon and gold for Minnesota.

 

We walked up to a Minnesota window and asked if there were any tickets. Yes, there were, but you had to prove you were from Minnesota. We told them we were from Duluth so to prove that we had to answer a difficult question about the city. “What is the largest hotel in Duluth?” we were asked.

 

Well now, let’s see. Could it be the Spalding, Holland, Fifth Avenue, Lenox, or Hotel Duluth? We said Hotel Duluth, and they handed us tickets to the Rose Bowl for a few bucks. Pretty good seats, too. Ten yard line.

 

Of course Minnesota lost to our newfound friends from Washington. They did win over UCLA the next year, and that’s the last time the Gophers played in the Rose Bowl.

 

Now on to next season. Maybe they’ll get an invite to the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl or the Guaranteed Rate Bowl or the Cheeze-It Bowl (I didn’t make those up). Is there a Toilet Bowl? I can hardly wait. If ya gotta go, ya gotta go.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

A brief history of UMD grad rites...

UMD graduation 2006 

Written By Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune/5-14-22

I got caught in a big traffic backup last weekend en route to Duluth’s Canal Park area. What the heck could be going on, thought I, as I joined the mid-afternoon lineup of cars, most of which were headed to the DECC area.

 

Well, come to find out later, the caravan was headed to UMD commencement exercises at Amsoil Arena. I also learned later that some 2,500 seniors were receiving their diplomas. Lots of pomp, under the circumstances, with robes galore and regalia resplendent, I saw on the TV news that evening.

 

It prompted memories of my own less auspicious graduation from UMD many moons ago. Oops, not sure moons describes it. Ages is more like it; decades hits the nail on the head. Let’s say more than half a century.

 

It was a sunny, warm August afternoon in 1962 when I lined up outside what was then known as UMD’s Physical Education Building in a cap and gown to march into what is now Romano gym. The basketball court was fitted with rows of chairs for grads and guests, placed before a makeshift stage for dignitaries and some faculty.

 

I don’t know how many capped and gowned graduates there were that day, taking advantage of a smaller August ceremony rather than the traditional May or June commencement. Maybe a couple hundred.

 

As the lineup marched into the building to the usual musical accompaniment and rows converged, I ended up in the front row seated next to the faculty member who was in charge of arranging the whole ceremony. I noticed he was taking notes under the heading “Next Year’ and the first item was, “Don’t wear hush puppies.” Hush puppies in those ancient times were a brand of casual shoes.

 

I wonder now if my old biology teacher was there. He’s the faculty member I wrote about a couple of months ago who, when as a student I had questioned my “D” grade in zoology, had told me I was lucky to get that basement passing grade. In the column I called him Professor Frogstad not wanting to use his real name, even though it was so long ago I figured the professor would have lived out his days.

 

Well, he hasn’t. I will use his real name now —Dr. Blanchard Krogstad —because even though more than 60 years have passed, he saw the column. He e-mailed that he is now 100 years old, living in rural Minnesota. He didn’t mind my punning up his name, and I’m sure he didn’t remember me (I beat it to the English Department as soon as I could), but he indicated he appreciated the column and noted that over his many years of teaching he’d told numerous other students the same thing: Lucky to get a D.

 

Any educator who bends over backwards not to fail students is fine with me.

 

Meanwhile, back at my graduation ceremony lo those many years ago: My parents were there, of course, along with a host of other well wishers attached in various ways to my fellow grads. I don’t remember too much about the program. The usual stuff, I suppose, a speech or two and a procession of students walking across the stage to receive diplomas.

 

One thing about it all stood out. The Minneapolis campus-based president of the University of Minnesota — all campuses — at the time was O. Meredith Wilson — not the Meredith Willson (double L) who wrote the Broadway musical “The Music Man.”

 

The University’s President Wilson messaged that regrettably he could not attend our ceremony in Duluth but he sent his good wishes to the graduates. The message was related by one of the robed ceremony officials. The University’s President Wilson was mentioned several times, always simply as President Wilson this, President Wilson that.

 

So when it finally all came to an end, we marched back out and met our well-wishing family members and friends. My father seemed somewhat perplexed, though. He was a veteran of World War I and had served when a different President Wilson, Woodrow, was the wartime U.S. president.

 

All those references to President Wilson in the program made him wonder if all these brainy academicians knew what they were talking about.

 

“Don’t these people know who the president is?” he queried as we walked out of the building.

 

For the record, the U.S. president at the time was John F. Kennedy. We didn’t hear from him that day, but he spoke in that same UMD gym a little over a year later, a couple of months before he was assassinated.  Call it history.

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org. 

From hot pants to bloomers in hoops...

St. Bonaventure athletics photo of former 
star, Marques Green, remembered for
spectacular play & baggy shorts.

 Written by Jim Heffernan for the Duluth NewsTribune/Saturday, 4-30-22

I’m no sports fan, that’s for sure. I can ignore any sport in a storm (or even in fair weather).

 

Oh, I admit I had the Super Bowl on TV this year as I sat re-reading “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott. Looked up once in a while if somebody scored. I do get a kick out of the booting of field goals and extra points (all puns intended).

 

But of course when I was in high school many decades ago I supported our teams and dutifully attended all the games. When I was in college, at the University of Minnesota Duluth Branch (as it was known then), basketball was king.

 

I know this will come as a surprise to many of today’s fans, but when I was a student there, hockey, still in a regional small college league with home games at the old Duluth Curling Club, played second fiddle to basketball. Football was pretty big too, as it always is.

 

Well anyway, I attended lots of basketball games on campus as UMD faced fierce Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opponents like St. John’s, Macalester, Gustavus Adolphus and others. The UMD hoopsters had pretty good teams in those days, with a couple of big stars from my own high school alma mater, Duluth Denfeld.

 

I was glad when we won, but I didn’t really care much. Going to the games beat the living daylights out of hitting the books.

 

Why all this now? Because in watching sports reports on the 10 ‘o clock news on TV and flashing by an occasional pro basketball game en route to a movie channel, I notice the drastic change in basketball uniforms worn by the men. (There were no organized woman basketball teams in what I now ruefully call “back in my day.”)

 

When I was attending high school and college basketball games, the players wore trunks what were tantamount to briefs that came to be known much later as “hot pants” worn by young women. These brief trunks somewhat resembled “boxer shorts” worn by many men even today.

 

Year in, year out, these small trunks were worn by basketball players at every level — high school, college, pros, church, Y.

 

Then, a few years ago, long after I grew up and stopped watching basketball on any level, I noticed in newspaper sports page pictures and snippets of games on the news that the men’s trunks were getting longer and longer — down to the knees — and fuller and fuller, waving in the breeze as players ran to and fro (AKA back and forth) on the court.

 

The trunks resemble what we used to call bloomers, an ancient undergarment worn by older women made famous by the name of a city in Wisconsin. As kids we used to recite the ditty: “School’s out, school’s out, teachers wore their bloomers out, sliding down the bannisters, kissing all the janitors.” (This should not be taken as literal truth, but it worked in a few cases I knew about, sans the bannisters but likely not the bloomers.)

 

I never thought I’d see the day in America when basketball players wore bloomers. Lots of things seem to be going down hill in this country today.

 

Segue now to the present. They’re still wearing bloomer trunks, I see on the sportscasts, slimmed down a little bit, but now the players also don white long underwear under them. At least the outfits look like long underwear. They’re probably the same white tights worn by ballet dancers in “The Nutcracker,” “Swan Lake” and “The Bald Soprano.”

 

Ballet tights in basketball? Well, what’s the world coming to? What’s next, figure skates on hockey players clad in tutus?

 

Occasionally, as with today in this column, as a registered geezer I like to remind contemporaries of the way we were and tell the younger generation what it was like, especially in areas that don’t often get mentioned elsewhere.

 

Coming soon: “Tattoos — They’re not just for drunken sailors any more.”

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

University days and carefree nights...

dissecting frog cousins

Written by Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune/September 18, 2021

I see the college kids are back on the local campuses. Sigh. It makes me recall my own embryonic college days, way back in the mid-20th Century.

 

I was just 17 years old when I enrolled at the University of Minnesota Duluth Branch. That’s what it was called then. They cut the branch off the tree of learning years ago.

 

So suddenly I was an official college freshman, expected to wear a maroon beanie — called a “dink” — and demonstrate loyalty to my new institution of higher learning. I didn’t get a freshman beanie. In fact, I didn’t get a lot of things, like: To make it through college you have to actually “study.”

 

The rest was pretty much fun. Meeting new kids and becoming friendly with former rivals from Duluth Central, Morgan Park, Cathedral and East. I was a Denfeld man (boy?).

 

Things didn’t go well for me in those early college days, but they were fine on the nights. College was so liberating, compared to high school. In most cases, you didn’t even have to attend class if you didn’t feel like it. Nobody cared. If you did attend, you could light a cigarette outside the classroom door as you exited. Nobody cared. Just about everybody smoked.

 

All this was very liberating to me, as, I’m sure, it was for the rest of the freshmen and freshwomen, some of whom were serious about studying and learning stuff, to the point where quite a few pipe-smoking boys actually had plastic shirt pocket protectors for transporting pens and pencils. These students were mainly over in the sciences and destined for great things, it seemed to me.

 

I tried to stay away from the sciences as best I could but you couldn’t avoid them entirely. Some basic math and science were required, and those disciplines were never my strong suit. I was more of an English, history and ballroom dancing kind of student.

 

Yes, I took a course in ballroom dancing, which qualified as a physical education credit, one of four you needed to qualify for graduation. I thought golf, bowling and downhill skiing were fun too, but never did any of them in later life. Famous football coach Jim Malosky was golf instructor before he got famous.

 

But back in the science department, things were not so good. In fact they were downright bad.

 

I took freshman basic biology, which involved dissecting a spotted frog that looked alarmingly like a distant cousin of the spotted frog I had dissected in 10th grade. Same course, really, three years later. We also did worms. Yuck.

 

Microscopes were involved too, for viewing “cells.” I thought cells were rooms in jails for crooks or units of the Communist Party in America. You didn’t have to see them through a microscope. They were all over the news. The war was cold in those ancient days.

 

To make a short story long, I muddled through the course to the best of my limited ability, guessing a lot on tests and hoping for the best. Hoping for the best is not a good practice in higher learning. Applying oneself, like studying hard, yields better results, I learned much later in my academic career.

 

So I was quite tense at the end of the quarter (three quarters a school year in those days instead of the current two semesters). Grades were sent to students by mail so I kept an eye out for the mailman (yes, they were all men then) every day.

 

Finally they came. I got an A in choir, B in dancing (two left feet) but a D in basic biology, which counted more on your academic record than singing and dancing. Life can be so unfair.

 

My older brother had already graduated and knew the college ropes better then this freshman. He suggested I go to the professor and say I think I deserve a C. Would that be asking too much?

 

So I made an appointment with Professor Frogstad in his small private office and made my pitch. I believe I deserved a C, I told him.

 

A kindly man, the professor, seated at his desk, looked up at me hovering above and said, “Mr. Heffernan, you have no idea how lucky you are to get a D.” Hmmm, They call you “Mr.” in college too, no matter how poorly you do, which is nice. So at least there was that.

 

I beat a hasty retreat without saying much. I hope I said thank you. And that was my introduction to college. I goofed off a little more and took a break before I came to my senses and actually studied and paid attention to lectures, making it to graduation after five years. Cap and gown, college diploma proclaiming a bachelor’s degree and on with life.

 

That turned out to be journalism — at this newspaper. In journalism you are thrown in with a varied lot of people: High-level politicians, business leaders, movers, shakers, the innocent, the vagrant, the thief, the murderer. (Yikes! Lighten up, Jim.)

 

Many years later, I became acquainted with former UMD Chancellor Lawrence Ianni, who learned I was a UMD grad. Since I had a fairly high local profile and a moderately successful career, he decided to honor me with a “Distinguished Alumni Award,” given at a fall commencement ceremony. Of course I was honored but wondered at first if it was such a good idea.

 

“Have you seen my grade transcripts?” I asked.

 

He went ahead with it anyway, I’m proud to say.

 

ADDENDUM: At the ceremony, I had to give the commencement speech to graduates. I titled my speech “The Skin of Our Teeth.” I’m sure the irony of that was lost on everyone…but me.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

Pay phones headed for history's dustbin...

By Jim Heffernan

I don’t carry a cell phone, don’t want one and that’s that. (Amazing how final that can be, but never mind that.)

Still, I admit there are times when a cell phone would be handy, but those moments are rare. Truth is, I could have used one recently when I found myself needing to call home from a remote outpost.

Oh well, there are always public pay phones, you say to yourself. The remote outpost where I found myself was in the heart of the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. And what to my wandering eyes should appear just as I was thinking about calling home but a pay phone. Just outside a main door.

Wonderful. I admit I haven’t used a pay phone in a long time; nobody does. That was clear when I had to wipe away spider webs covering the box surrounding the phone. Spider webs. What does that say to whoever owns the pay phone? And what’s an arachnophobe supposed to do?

Anyway, I cleared the spider webs, popped a quarter into the slot, and dialed up. Two rings and funny noises followed by a recording pointing out that this is a pay phone and money must be deposited. But money WAS deposited, you want to say to the recording, but no point. One quarter down the drain, you figure.

So I slid another quarter into the slot, tried again, same reaction. Then I read the fine print on the surface of the phone: local calls 50 cents. You know you are getting along in years when you remember when they cost a nickel, but never mind that either.

I look back at the era of pay phones with some small nostalgia. I recall witnessing a pay phone call right there at UMD when I was a student there several centuries ago. A kid I knew wanted to break a date with a girl for some dance because he wanted to go with someone else. He recruited a few of his friends to stand near him at a student center pay phone and make noises intended to resemble airplanes taking off and landing as he telephoned to break the date.

The boy making the call was in Air Force ROTC and his fabricated reason for breaking the date was that he had suddenly been called to duty and was telephoning from the airport where he was waiting to take off. So there they were, the caller on the pay phone and several of his buddies surrounding him making airplane sounds. Ah, college.

It is not known if the girl believed him. She probably didn’t realize at the time she was better off not getting involved with someone who would do a thing like that. (The Air Force didn’t realize it wasn’t going to get this guy either. He ended up with a career in the Navy.)

But I stray from the subject of pay phones. I’m afraid they’re going the way of the typewriter, and that’s that. How do I know? A spider told me.