A member of the Houston Texans’ media relations staff — a Minnesota native and RandBall reader, apparently — passes along a nice little story that had escaped our attention: Dallas will play host to Houston tomorrow night in preseason NFL action, pitting brothers and former Gophers Marion Barber III and Dom Barber against one another. It’s a nice story (though predictably short of commentary from MBIII, who is notoriously shy with the media). We’ll excerpt starting with a quote from the proud father, Marion Barber Jr.

“I’m kind of a sentimentalist,” the father said. “I most likely will cry at some point in the game, but the wife and I are planning on going down Friday morning. It’s so exciting for them and the opportunity that’s been presented to them.”

Barber, a former New York Jets running back, and his wife will be watching their sons appearing on the same field for the first time as pros. They never played together at Wayzata High School outside of Minneapolis and have been teammates only once, during Dominique’s freshman year at Minnesota when Marion III was a senior.

“It would be a dream come true,” Dominique said. “Just the fact to be at the highest level of football and to be on the same field with my brother, I’d be speechless. I’d just go out there and play football.“

And, for the record, we could not find a photo of the two brothers in the Star Tribune archives, so we had to go with that shot of MBIII and former backfield mate Laurence Maroney. The picture was taken right after their last game together, with Maroney presumably about to bite Barber out of shame and anger when he realizes so much talent was expended without a major bowl appearance.

Bringing that up should ensure at least 20 comments each from Dave MN and Jon. But we’ll open it up to the field: what have been the biggest wastes of talent, in terms of missed opportunities by teams, in local sports history?

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