Friday venting: The all-time Mount Rushmore of Minnesota sports fan venom
Posted on December 12th, 2008 – 11:44 AMBy Michael Rand
La Velle E. Neal III, who is probably skipping down the street like a schoolgirl today after his Bears defeated the Saints in OT last night, opened up his piece on Nick Punto today with this bit of whimsy: If there was a Mount Rushmore of vilified Twin Cities sports figures, it probably would include these men: the Wolves’ Kevin McHale, the Vikings’ Tarvaris Jackson, the Wild’s Martin Skoula and the Twins’ Nick Punto.
Now, obviously this was just a list of active members of the sports scene because if a person was inclined to compile an all-time list of the four most frequent and intense targets of venom in Minnesota sports history, it would have to be much different. Maybe McHale would stay, but we can’t imagine any of the others fit into the all-time category. And that’s where you come in. Let’s carve a mountain. Four local sports figures. Zero love. We should be able to come to some sort of consensus, or at least a working list of 10 from which to vote. We’ll leave this open for a while and see where it gets us. Why? Because that’s what we do in December to forget about the cold.
31 Responses to "Friday venting: The all-time Mount Rushmore of Minnesota sports fan venom"
La Velle E. Neal III, who is probably skipping down the street dressed like a schoolgirl today after his Bears defeated the Saints in OT last night because he’s in Vegas, so it’s cool, no one’s gonna know
/defamed
RE: Rushmore. Surely there’s a place for Bob Schnelker.
Chuck Knoblauch?
Norm Green.
Les Steckel & Norm Green
A local sports station said La Velle was staying at the Bellagio, no wonder the srib has financial woes.
Rushomre: Stephon Marbury and/or Chuck Knoblauch
Marian Gaborik’s paper mache groin.
Joe Smith, Latrell Spreewell, Gary Anderson, Daunte Culpepper
The meetings were at the Bellagio.
2007 Golden Gopher Defense
jan gangelhoff/clem haskins combo (The MN Daily use to have a great image of their faces morphed together, i wish i could find that now)
Brad Childress qualifies.
How about a Mt. Rushmore for each team?
phil kessel and red mccombs to round out my top four
Christian Laettner
Gregor: Sure I’ll play along. Although I don’t follow NBA so my fourth team will be “U of M sports”
Vikes: Walker, Childress, McCombs, Koren Robinson
Twins: Knoblauch, Punto, Lohse, Pierzynski
Wild: Gabby’s groin, Skoula, Willie Mitchell, Chris Snow (only cause i want his job)
U of M: Lou Holtz, Gangelhoff/Haskins, Kessel and Kris Humphries
I can’t think of a more disliked Twin in recent years than Joe Mays.
If you have one face for each pro team, plus the Gophers, it would have to be:
Wolves: McHale (though I’d take Marbury if people want to forgive McFail because of his Gophers/Celtics years)
Vikings: Walker (Les Steckel would be a close second)
Hockey: Norm Green
Twins: Bud Selig (you know, the guy who wanted to kill our baseball team)
Gophers: Clem Haskins (But I’d take Lou Holtz, too …)
Carl Pohlad
Joel Pryzbilla
Isiah “JR” Rider
Lou Holtz
Tommy Herr
Rick “Minnesota Sucks” Mahorn
Mike Lynn
Moose Owner Kevin McLean
Bill Smith
ron davis
You could easily make one for players and non-players:
Twins: Tom Herr and Carl Pohlad
Vikes: Troy Williamson and Mike Lynn
Wolves: Latrell Sprewell and Kevin McHale
Stars/Wild: Marian Gaborik and Norm Green
Honorable mentions: JR Rider, Spergon Wynn and Brian Bass-hole.
Any love for the great Demetrius Underwood?
Green, Walker, Holtz, Favre
Do short-timers count? Mike Lamb, Tony Batista?
Calvin Griffith
And why is nobody mentioning Sid?
How about “The Architect” Mike Lynn?
How about Doug Woog? He should go back to coaching cause he sucks as the color guy for Gopher games.. I’d watch a lot more Gopher games if I didn’t have to listnen to him…and I went to UND.
Fred Smoot?
Do we need a players Rushmore and a non-players (coaches/execs/etc) Rushmore? You could end up with a (H.) Walker/Marbury/Herr/Skoula Rushmore, and then a McHale/(N.) Green/Holtz/Wittman Rushmore. Just a thought.
And does the venom have to have happened while they were playing/coaching for the local team? If not, AJ would have his spot reserved.
Wow, that’s like 120 people in less than 2 hours. And really only a few of those from RandBall Regulars…
40 years of Gophers football.
“La Velle E. Neal III, who is probably skipping down the street like a schoolgirl today…”
I hope he’s wearing a jacket over his tartan skirt.
