Track record speed makes Hanson kick return threat
Four years ago, Mesabi East High School was pretty good in football, and a state contender in track — both courtesy of Erik Hanson. Now, after one year redshirting to let a knee injury heal, Hanson is a junior at UMD, where he still is doing his thing to make his school’s football and track teams competitive.
“I think we’ll be right there with St. Cloud State,” said Hanson, looking ahead to Saturday’s football game with the Huskies at St. Cloud. “They’re probably as good as Mankato State, but now that we’ve gotten past our first game, I think this one is going to be a good game.”
It was a startling event when Hanson ran a kickoff back 92 yards for a touchdown in last Saturday’s season-opening 37-15 loss against Minnesota State-Mankato, because no UMD player had returned a kickoff for a touchdown in 14 years. It was less surprising to anyone who was aware of Hanson’s exploits in track.
Hanson owns UMD records in the 200 and 400 meter sprints, as well as the 4×100, 4×400 and sprint medley relay teams. If you move indoors, he also holds records in the 400, 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400 relays. That’s nine — count ’em, 9 — track records, and he represented UMD at the Division II track national meet in Emporia, Kans., where he was eighth in the nation in the 400.
“Erik really showed some speed on that kick return,” said coach Bob Nielson. “He’s by far the fastest player I’ve had the privelege of coaching. We actually timed him at 4.27 seconds in the 40-yard dash. Erik Conner was second, at 4.5 — which is also fast. He’s coming along as a wide receiver, too, and we think he’s certainly a guy who has big-play potential.”
At 5-8 and 165 pounds, Hanson is built for speed. But that didn’t lessen the surprise of his spectacular touchdown run against Mankato. He recalled it in detail.
“We had a middle return on,” Hanson said. “I caught the ball on the 8, and everybody executed the return perfectly. There was a big hole up the middle, and after I got through it, I broke it outside.”
Hanson exploded through the hole and veered to the right sideline. A retreating Mankato defender seemed to be pacing himself, as if certain he had the proper angle on Hanson. You could almost read the surprise of that defender as he realized he had miscalculated Hanson’s speed.
“I was hoping noboyd would catch me,” Hanson said.
Earlier, he had returned a punt 39 yards to the 50 in the second quarter.
His dad, Denny Hanson, who watched from the grandstand, said: “He’s fun to watch. He was that way in high school too. He’s always been fast. In high school, he won the state 100 and 400 as a junior, and as a senior he repeated in the 400 and was second in the 100 and third in the 200. He also was fifth in the long jump, even though he had never tried it until the sectional.”
In high school, Hanson, who is from Hoyt Lakes, was a running back and defensive cornerback. “I’d move to flank out on passing plays,” Hanson said. “I was recruited by UMD to play cornerback, and I figured I wasn’t going to play offensive until one day during my freshman season, when they asked me.”
Hanson tore his ACL and needed surgery, knocking him out one year, but he recovered fully — obviously — and has been used as a wide receiver as well as a kick return specialist. The extra year means Hanson is nearing completion of his health and phy-ed major, although he says he will come back as a fifth-year senior next fall. But that’s a long way off, and his touchdown run made him anxious for more.
“I had another kickoff and a punt return where I was maybe one block away from going all the way, too,” said Hanson. “Our new turf is awesome when it’s dry, but it was really slippery when it was wet from the rain.”
If Hanson had trouble with the slippery turf, imagine how the defenders felt as he sped past them.
SCOUTING REPORTS DON’T HELP
Nielson said that the tough challenge of facing fully funded Division II teams, which can have 34 scholarships as opposed to UMD’s restriction of 21, has been made tougher because both Mankato last weekend and St. Cloud State have veteran teams under new coaching staffs. Randy Hedberg, formerly offensive coordinator at North Dakota, and a finalist for the UMD job that Nielson got, is the new coach at St. Cloud. Hedberg’s debut was successful, with a 22-15 victory over Wisconsin-River Falls.
“The information we got from River Falls doesn’t really help us this year,” said Nielson. “They run a triple option, so what River Falls did against them won’t do us any good.”
Records fall in first-day qualifying at BIR
BRAINERD, MINN.—Veteran drag-racers Warren Johnson, John Force and Cory McClenathan broke Brainerd International Raceway records in all three National Hot Rod Association professional categories Friday, as opening-day qualifying runs built to a stunning, flame-throwing finale.
McClenathan set the track’s Top Fuel speed record with a 320.36 mile per hour blast down the BIR quarter-mile, breaking the two-year-old record of Joe Amato. Force, the runaway leader in Funny Car, broke the track’s elapsed-time record in Funny Car, with a 4.900-second dash — bettering Whit Bazemore’s two-year old 4.916 — while reaching 312.28 mph, which was just shy of Crtuz Pedregon’s year-old mark of 312.39.
Meanwhile, Johnson, the “Ol’ Professor,” and an Iron Range native of Makinen, Minn., took care of both ends of the Pro Stock records at BIR, clocking a 6.995-second first-session time, and a 197.59-mph speed. That lowered the mark of 7.002 and raised the 196.76 he had recorded in 1997 to establish both records.
The pros will get two more chances to beat those records today, before the fastest 16 in each category line up Sunday for eliminations to decide the winner in the 18th annual NHRA nationals at BIR, and the first named after the Colonel’s Truck Accessories.
Johnson’s 6.995 in his Firebird was followed by his son, Kurt Johnson, at 6.979 in the first session, and when they came back for the evening session, Warren couldn’t improve his time, but Kurt did, with a 6.963. Those three were the only runs ever to get under 7.0 in Pro Stock at BIR.
As the Pro Stocks lined up for the night session, Warren was asked if he thought he could improve his time, and hold off his son. “We’ll have to see whether the track will hold it,” said Johnson. “As for Kurt, you know how kids are — all we’ve got left are age and treachery.”
Warren then ran a 7.005 at 196.64, which didn’t lower his afternoon record, and was beaten by Kurt’s time (6.963) and speed (197.45). This time, pop’s treachery was to set the records on his first try.
The Friday night session on every NHRA weekend always is the most spectacular, because if it is dark enough, the flames shooting out of the headers of the Top Fuel and Funny Car engines lights the sky like Roman candles. And because it’s always cooler, the air’s increased density makes more horsepower in the supercharged 500-cubic-inch engines. This weekend was a perfect example, because it was fairly dark when the Pro Stocks ran, and the Funny Cars followed, and were interrupted by a brief shower.
That meant the finishing Top Fuelers ran in darker than usual conditions, which riveted the 20,000 fans. with the fire show. Nobody in Top Fuel could beat McClenathan’s speed in the night session, but elapsed times are what determines the pairings for Sunday’s eliminations, not speed. And Cory Mac’s elapsed time on the run was a swift 4.648-seconds, and didn’t stand up through the night session.
In fact, it dropped to fourth. Mike Dunn ran a 4.614 in the night session to claim No. 1, but then he was bumped to second by Bob Vandergriff of Alpharetta, Ga., a comparatively unheralded racer in the highly sophisticated Top Fuel field, ranking 10th in season points at this point in the season. Vandergriff, in the Jerzees racer, ran a 4.597-second time — just missing Amato’s E.T. record of 4.562, but good enough to claim the top spot.
Larry Dixon later ran a 4.628, to take third, bumping McClenathan to fourth when Cory Mac couldn’t improve on his first-session time and shut down after violent wheelspin sent him up in smoke off the starting line.
There are only 16 Funny Cars entered this weekend, so all of them are assured of making the field, unless someone damages a car in today’s qualifying. And with only 19 Top Fuelers, there isn’t a lot of challenging left to the first-day’s top 16, although Amato, a frequent winner at BIR, currently is 16th and will be determined to improve on that today.
In Pro Stock, however, the unsupercharged, stock-appearing racers may take the spotlight, because there are 26 cars at BIR, and competition will be fierce in today’s qualifying, because such stalwarts as Jim Yates, Tom Martino and Rickie Smith are as yet unqualified.
Huskies chew up inept Bulldogs, 49-0
ST. CLOUD, MINN.—The two huge North Central Conference hurdles that open UMD’s football schedule have come and gone, now. Call it “One step forward and two steps back,” after UMD’s expedition Saturday resulted in a 49-0 drubbing by St. Cloud State on a perfect afternoon at Selke Field.
Actually, that evaluation requires that the Bulldogs opening 35-17 loss to Minnesota State-Mankato was a step forward. OK, so maybe it was a baby step, but the Bulldogs at least put together a few decent offensive drives against Mankato, and were in the game long enough to generate some optimism about St. Cloud.
Then the game started, and the Bulldogs simple didn’t function. They didn’t execute on offense, they never mounted anything resembling a sustained offensive drive, and they worked hard on defense, which spent so much time on the field that, after a scoreless first quarter, the Huskies churned for touchdowns on five consecutive possessions in the second and third quarters.
Opening Northern Sun Conference play at Minnesota-Crookston should be a welcome break after the two opening tasks, but that did little to salve the self-administered wounds the Bulldogs suffered Saturday.
“I thought we had a good week of practice, and we prepared all week for what we were going to do today, then we just didn’t execute,” said quarterback Mark Drommerhausen, who was a creditable 10-19 passing, but only for 58 yards, and his protection broke down enough that he was sacked four times. Drommerhausen was most impressive punting, where he had eight kicks for a 42.2-yard average, including one that skipped out of bounds after traveling 52 yards.
St. Cloud quarterback Ryan Stelter, on the other hand, had all day to throw, and was 14-20 for 158 yards and second-quarter touchdown passes to Mike Jacobs and Ben Nelson.
In total yards, the Huskies outgained UMD 425-103, and the breakdown by quarters painted something other than a masterpiece: St. Cloud’s edge was 108-16 in the first, 95-33 in the second, 153-0 in the third, and 68-41 in the fourth quarter, when both sides had second units on the field. UMD’s 103 total yards was easily surpassed by Erik Hanson, who compiled 155 yards on eight kickoff returns, and also ran a punt back for 11 yards and caught a pss for 11 more yards, giving him 177 yards for the day’s work. But he took a battering in return.
Like Mankato State, St. Cloud State has the benefit of NCC rules that allow more scholarships for football than UMD’s, but most of the Bulldogs thought Mankato State was the stronger of the two, further underlining UMD’s ineptitude against the Huskies.
“Last week we executed all right in our first game, so we looked for improvement today,” said UMD running back Erik Conner, who led the Bulldogs with 35 very difficult yards in nine carries. “It’s real frustrating. We worked all week on a game plan, and what we did was totally different than our game plan. All day, their defense was penetrating from somewhere. But we didn’t help our situation with the breakdowns we had. We just can’t afford to have so many breakdowns.”
An interesting subplot was the two first-year coaches on opposing sides. UMD conducted its search first, and both Bob Nielson and Randy Hedberg were finalists. UMD hired Nielson, the Wisconsin-Eau Claire head coach. St. Cloud State then conducted its search, and hired Hedberg, who has been offensive coordinator at North Dakota.
“I’m sure UMD is happy with their choice, and I hope St. Cloud is happy with theirs,” said Hedberg, defusing any suggestion that the Huskies might have poured it on a bit.
More likely, Hedberg was girding for the upcoming North Central Conference wars in the coming weeks. “We go to Fargo next week,” said Hedberg, looking ahead to an opening NCC showdown with North Dakota State. “You have to be able to run the football to succeed in the NCC. That’s one of the reasons we ran a lot in the first quarter, when there was a little feeling out on both sides. Once our guys got the handle on what they were trying to do, I thought we played well. I was happy with our defense.”
Andy Thyen scored two touchdowns for the Huskies, and freshman Brian Olson, second-string quarterback Ryan Neuberger and Nick Hatton scored the other Huskies touchdowns. Olson, from Pine City, was St. Cloud’s top ground gainer, with 76 yards in 11 carries. Bill Stallings added 47 yards on 10 carries, and Hatton 46 yards on 10 carries.
Nielson, on the other hand, broke from his personal tradition and addressed the Bulldogs after the game in the dressing room, then held a meeting or two with assistant coaches before emerging to talk to reporters.
“It’s disappointing, very disappointing, with regard to how we executed, and to the final score,” Nielson said. “Give St. Cloud credit, they played an error-free game, and they’ve got a good defensive team. But the bottom line is, we’ve got to play a lot better. It’s frustrating that we’re making some of the same mistakes as the first week of practice.”
The Bulldogs lack of cohesiveness and intensity was evident from the start. It almost appeared as though enough players had heard how tough the NCC foes on the schedule would be to that a few of them eased up on virtually every play. “I felt that way, too, so we addressed that at halftime,” said Nielson. “You’ve got to bite, claw and scratch in a situation like this, and make up for any deficiency with effort. We didn’t do that.”
The players noticed, too. “You could feel it in the huddle,” added Drommerhausen.
“Last week, we played well in spots, but today we seemed flat from the opening kickoff,” said Bill Shaughnessy, a running back from Greenway of Coleraine who came off the bench, and while he had only 12 yards in nine carries, that ranked second on the team. “Our defense came out hard, but our offense didn’t, and I don’t know why.”
The players agreed that there might have been only two or three offensive plays all day where all 11 Bulldogs executed correctly and with crispness. Out of 51 total offensive plays, a performance like that could only guarantee being shut out. By St. Cloud State — or anybody else on UMD’s schedule.
USA Hockey excluded for Canadians at 2002 Olympics
It would seem that the long-standing — and honestly-earned — paranoia that the U.S. feels toward Canada in all sorts of hockey issues might be subsiding a bit with the recent upsurge of success the game has achieved all across the U.S. But just when hockey types thought the U.S. had achieved something approaching respect, if not parity, with our northern neighbors, along comes 2002.
When the 2002 Winter Olympic Games are conducted in Salt Lake City, Utah, the hockey tournament will be organized, directed and managed by Canadians. This will be the first Olympic Winter Games where the host country did not serve as host for the hockey tournament.
It’s Canada’s game, Americans concede that, but we play it pretty well too. And as everybody from John Mariucci to Herb Brooks to Val Belmonte says or has said: “We’re not anti-Canadian; we’re pro-American.”
USA Hockey, which used to be the Amateur Hockey Association of the U.S. (AHAUS) until the late Bob Johnson got that awkward name changed, can be oppressive and overbearing at times in organizing and coordinating youth and amateur hockey in this country, but it has also done a fantastic job of building a sport of national interest from a cult sport that used to be isolated into small pockets of Minnesota, Michigan and New England.
In the process, hundreds of highly qualified folks have organized and coordinated every imaginable type of team, game and tournament. Historically, U.S. officials ran the hockey tournaments twice at Lake Placid and once at Squaw Valley, Calif. Canada has been host to only one Winter Olympics, in Calgary in 1988.
Americans are not rude enough to point out that in the last 50 years, the U.S. has won two Olympic gold medals in hockey while Canada has won none. Or that such success, plus the slick operation of the Lake Placid games in 1980 might make it more logical that Canada would have called in USA Hockey types to help run Calgary than for the Salt Lake City organizers to beckon Canadians and exclude USA Hockey to run the hockey tournament for Americans.
Herb Brooks, the coach and sole architect of that 1980 “Miracle on Ice” hockey team at Lake Placid, was shocked wen he heard what had happened. “Are you trying to say we don’t have anybody in the U.S. who could organize the Olympic tournament?” asked Brooks, incredulously. “I would say whoever hired the Canadian people in the first place should be fired. It’s an insult to everybody connected with U.S. hockey.”
It is possible the whole thing unfolded innocently.
When the Salt Lake City organizing committee started organizing its staff for 2002, a highly efficient woman named Cathy Priestner was a viable candidate. She long had been involved with speedskating, working closely with U.S. officials in Illinois, and also helped organize the Center for Excellence in Calgary, a Canadian multi-sport training facility. In fact, Priestner hired Shannon Miller to work there, and Miller later became coach of the Canadian women’s national and Olympic hockey teams and currently is the coach of UMD’s first-year women’s hockey team. Priestner also hired Dan Morrow from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to manage the Center of Excellence.
Organizers from Salt Lake City approached Dave Ogrean, then the executive director of USA Hockey, to become the Director of Sport for the Salt Lake City games, Ogrean turned it down, and subsequently took a job with the U.S. Olympic Committee. Later, the organizers hired Cathy Priestner as Director of Sport.
Priestner, in turn, interviewed quite a few men for the job to direct the “ice hockey” portion of the Olympics. Val Belmonte, a former college hockey coach more recently the director of coaching for all of USA Hockey, and perhaps the best-qualified of a number of American candidates, was among those interviewed.
But Priestner decided to hire Dan Morrow. “Because she’s not a U.S. citizen herself, maybe she wanted to hire people she felt most comfortable with,” said Belmonte, showing great restraint and diplomacy.
Despite tact and protocol, however, the fact is: A Canadian was hired as Director of Sport for the Salt Lake City games, and she hired a Canadian to be director of the ice hockey tournament.
“They’re both wonderful people, well qualified, but even though they’re both fabulous people, there are a lot of qualified Americans who could have done those jobs,” said Doug Palazzari, the former Eveleth High School and Colorado College star player who, two months ago, replaced Ogrean as executive director of USA Hockey. “I didn’t even know Cathy Priestner was a Canadian until she hired Dan Morrow.
“We’ve gone through this for a long time. There’s no question that Americans in hockey are still at a disadvantage, whether it’s something like this, all the way up to the top professional coaching opportunities. We were offended, and we expressed our dissatisfaction.”
The man who expressed it was Walter Bush, the president of USA Hockey, and the vice president of the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation).
“I wrote Cathy Priestner a blistering letter,” said Bush, who just returned this week from an IIHF meeting in Switzerland. “I said in the letter that we know we’ve been Canada’s ‘little brother’ in hockey, but through all this I still couldn’t believe that she couldn’t pick an American to run the hockey tournament. She said she picked the best person available. But she promised she’d name an American to be in charge of the women’s hockey tournament.”
She did that, recently naming Liz Ridley for that role.
“I know it’s great to have an international flavor in the Olympics, but a lot of good U.S. candidates were bypassed,” said Belmonte, still being diplomatic. “It’s not like any of us are anti-Canadian, it’s just that we’re pro-U.S. And this will be the first Winter Olympics where the host country’s hockey federation hasn’t run the hockey tournament.
“I’m sure they’re going to need a lot of volunteers, but right now, as far as the 2002 hockey tournament in Salt Lake City goes, we in USA Hockey don’t have any involvement at all.”
USA Hockey snubbed for Canadian Olympic director
The U.S. has come a long way, baby, in the sport of hockey, which, to the uninitiated, is called “ice hockey.” But apparently we’ve still got a long way to go.
Consider that a staff of Canadians is in place to organize, direct and manage the hockey portion of the 2002 Winter Olympic games in Salt Lake City. That’s Salt Lake City, Utah, which, last I checked, was in the United States.
Yes, this will be the first Olympic Winter Games where the host country did not serve as host for the hockey tournament.
Those of us who have grown up in the United States enjoying hockey can understand the paranoia when it comes to Canada. It’s Canada’s game, we concede that, but we play it pretty well too. And as everybody from John Mariucci to Herb Brooks to Val Belmonte says or has said: “We’re not anti-Canadian; we’re pro-American.”
USA Hockey, which used to be the Amateur Hockey Association of the U.S. (AHAUS) until the late Bob Johnson got that awkward name changed, can be oppressive and overbearing at times in organizing and coordinating youth and amateur hockey in this country, but it has also done a fantastic job of building a sport of national interest from a cult sport that used to be isolated into small pockets of Minnesota, Michigan and New England.
In the process, hundreds of highly qualified folks have organized and coordinated every imaginable type of team, game and tournament. Historically, U.S. officials ran the hockey tournaments twice at Lake Placid and once at Squaw Valley, Calif. Canada has been host to only one Winter Olympics, in Calgary in 1988.
It is possible that the whole thing unfolded innocently. The Salt Lake City organizing committee was putting its people in place for 2002, and they were aware of a highly efficient woman named Cathy Priestner. She has long been involved with speedskating, and at one point was a director of the Center for Excellence in Calgary, a multi-sport training facility. In fact, she hired Shannon Miller to work there, and Miller later became coach of the Canadian women’s Olympic team and is the coach of UMD’s first-year women’s hockey team now. She also hired Danny Morrow from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to manage the Center of Excellence.
When the organizers went to Dave Ogrean, the executive director of USA Hockey, to become the Director of Sport, Ogrean turned it down, and subsequently took a job with the U.S. Olympic Committee. So the organizers hired Cathy Priestner as Director of Sport. Priestner interviewed quite a few men for the job to direct the “ice hockey” portion of the Olympics. Val Belmonte, perhaps the best-qualified of a number of well-qualified American candidates, was among those interviewed.
But her final decision was to hire Dan Morrow. So a Canadian is Director of Sport for the Salt Lake City games, and she hires a Canadian to be director of the ice hockey tournament. Maybe there was nothing malicious or sinister in mind, just a logical decision to name Priestner, who made a logical decision to name Morrow.
“They’re both wonderful people, well qualified,” said Doug Palazzari, the former Eveleth High School and Colorado College star player who, two months ago, replaced Ogrean as executive director of USA Hockey. “I didn’t know Cathy Priestner was a Canadian until she hired Dan Morrow. And even though they’re both fabulous people, there are a lot of qualified Americans who could have done those jobs.
“We’ve gone through this for a long time. There’s no question that Americans in hockey are still at a disadvantage, whether it’s something like this, all the way up to the top professional coaching opportunities. We were offended, and we expressed our dissatisfaction.”
The man who expressed it was Walter Bush, the president of USA Hockey, and the vice president of the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation).
“I wrote Cathy Priestner a blistering letter,” said Bush, who just returned this week from an IIHF meeting in Switzerland. “I said in the letter that we know we’ve been Canada’s ‘little brother’ in hockey, but through all this I still couldn’t believe that she couldn’t pick an American to run the hockey tournament. She said she picked teh best person available. But she promised she’d name an American to be in charge of the women’s hockey tournament.”
She did that, naming Liz Ridley for that role.
The IIHF, Bush said, recommended Val Belmonte for the job of tournament director, but Priestner made her choice regardless.
“Because she’s not a U.S. citizen herself, maybe she wanted to hire people she felt most comfortable with,” said Belmonte. “I know it’s great to have an international flavor in the Olympics, but a lot of good U.S. candidates were bypassed. It’s not like any of us are anti-Canadian, it’s just that we’re pro-U.S. And this will be the first Winter Olympics where the host country’s hockey federation hasn’t run the hockey tournament.
“I’m sure they’re going to need a lot of volunteers, but right now, we in USA Hockey don’t have any involvement at all.”
Yes, those of us who have followed the development of hockey in the U.S. carefully over the last few decades might be paranoid. But we’ve come by our paranoia with good reason. I still have a favorite poster around somewhere that reads: “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re NOT out to get you.”