Cherry Wood and the Golden Gopher Jockstrap

I think Corky thought I was having a heart attack. I was reading about the new $288.5 million University of Minnesota Golden Gopher football stadium when I started to howl like a Republican geezer on Medicare at a health care town hall. Our new Twin City Federal Taj Mahal, built on the backs of tuition-paying students of at least the last decade, features 120 uniform lockers built of cherry wood! How many kitchens in Minnesota boast cherry wood kitchen cabinets? Haven’t these designer-architects ever smelled a jockstrap or a pair of rib pads after a practice in 90-degree heat? How does a 300-lb tackle from Greenbush or Houston actually act in a room filled with cherry wood furnishings?

I have had the misfortune and sometime pleasure of measuring out a portion of my life in various locker rooms, having played high school and college baseball and football for eight years. I have been in locker rooms that have smelled as bad as pig pens when I slopped hogs. Even when clean, the sharp, penetrating smell of old sweat battling the cloying hint of cheap aftershave is always memorable. But cherry wood lockers? My God, doesn’t our university have any shame?

Coach Tim Brewster says we must have fine, expensive digs so we can attract “student-athletes” from Florida, Texas, California and Alabama who can out-run our big, slow Minnesota kids so we can go to a Fantasyland bowl game and watch our California-Texas-Florida-Alabama kids play their Florida-Texas-California-Alabama kids. Let’s face it. We no longer have Golden Gopher football players playing their hearts out for their home state. We have minor league possibilities showing off their limited talents for the National Football League scouts in the stands. Maybe native Minnesota players are just genetically inferior and will later play for the Vikings. After all, they were partially raised by grandmas and great-grandmas who peed in the furrows and then picked up the reins and the plow again.

Why Not Fire All the Art and Music Teachers and Add a Rainy Day Roof?

While Gopher season ticket holders are busy choosing among $40,500 private suites, $9,000 to $13,000 loge boxes, or $2,250 indoor club rooms so they can look down on the pissants in regular seats, Minnesota school districts are trying to figure out how they can run efficient learning situations in classes containing 35 to 40 students – or more.

As an example, the Nashwauk-Keewatin School District has had to lay off a quarter of its teachers and wipe out all art and music classes. By the way the mighty Golden Gophers, while playing many of the Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States, will be motivated by a 300-member marching band, recruited by $859,000 in marching band scholarships. The band has a 20,000 sq. ft. rehearsal room in which to practice. I guess many of the band members will be also recruited from Florida, Texas, and California in that many Minnesota schools such as Nashwauk-Keewatin won’t have bands anymore. Alabamians can only hum “Dixie” in monotone.

In that Minnesota is also going broke because of budget deficits, Nashwauk-Keewatin will also have to borrow money to meet its payroll. Governor “where-is-he-this-week” Tim “Toolittle” Pawlenty is delaying all payments to school districts to continue his shell-game accounting. The delay will cost the tiny Nashwauk-Keewatin district $30,000 in interest alone. Almost 90 percent of Minnesota school districts have had to pass special levies in order to offer even a mediocre educational program.

Seating 50,805 fans and sporting 9,185 majestic block “M’s,” the stadium has a sound system with 799 speakers rated at 329,400 watts. Perhaps this magnificent system will be dedicated to the sacrifices of the musically-inclined students of Nashwauk-Keewatin. TCF Stadium has the largest locker room in the country and the third largest scoreboard in college football. All of this while Minnesota’s low and middle-income families find it increasingly difficult to afford college tuition and costs.

How Many Jobs Are Available in Football and Marching Band?

Research by Minnesota higher education authorities indicates that Minnesota’s young people do not attend college in the same numbers as a decade ago. High cost is the major factor. Students used to be able to earn much of their college expenses by working part-time jobs. No more. Double-digit tuition increases in the last “no new taxes” decade make this impossible. At the same time potential college students are opting out of higher ed because of high costs, employers recognize that by 2010 Minnesota will run short of college-educated workers.

At the same time high school graduates cannot further their education because of costs, we have thousands of wealthy Minnesotans occupy the 20,000 sq. ft. DQ Club (259 seats in the indoor club, 1,250 seats in the outdoor club) while attending their executive suites and loge boxes. Restricted to “premium” ticket holders, the club offers food, drink, and easy chairs and sofas emblazoned with the lyrics of the Minnesota Rouser. With two stone fireplaces, atriums, and walls of glass, the patrons don’t even have to go to their suite to watch the game. They can view it from 14 flat-screen TVs while the concierge service waits on their every need. The stadium has a total of 350 flat-screen TVs scattered around for the use of patrons who can afford $4.00 sodas, $5.00 hamburgers, and $6.00 gyro sandwiches. I wonder if the Nashwauk-Keewatin school district has one flat-screen TV for students to watch during lunch.

Here we are in the midst of a deep recession with unemployment and poverty on the rise, in a time when society safety nets and services are quintessential. Over 30,000 Minnesota citizens have been cut from medical services in the last year – so we are spending almost $300 million for a place to watch gladiators grunt and musicians march while 444,000 Minnesotans do not have health insurance. Football is a game, but life for a lot of people isn’t.

Let’s Open Stadiums and Close Classrooms and Libraries

A middle linebacker for the Gophers recently examined his new cherry wood locker and the 180 ft. long and 75 ft. wide locker room and said: “This is insane!” Perhaps he didn’t realize how close he was to the truth. Here we are opening game facilities while closing libraries across Minnesota. Reporter Laurie Blake in the Tribune examined the importance of libraries in a recent article: “Banks may be folding and jobs vanishing, but local libraries are booming. Already popular as a place for homework, research, and story time, libraries are now bursting at the seams with money-pinched families seeking free entertainment, jobless adults looking for work, and cash-strapped consumers who’ve dropped internet services and stopped buying books.”

In Ramsey County libraries computer use was up 38 percent, wireless network use was up 61 percent, and attendance in computer classes was up 24 percent this year. Because of budget cuts in local support made by “Toolittle” Pawlenty, St. Paul had to cut all services by 14 percent. One library has been closed and only the central main library has not cut hours. All other libraries are open 48 hours a week instead of 63 hours. In just the last eight years library use in Minneapolis has increased 37 percent. Just what are our priorities?

Of course, we need sports as a recreational outlet. It’s great to cheer the home state boys whether they win or lose. But Minnesota coaches had not better lose with Florida, Texas, California, and Alabama players in the lineup. If they lose there will be a lot of the sounds of silence in Twin City Federal Stadium. I know because I have been a member of 0-10 football teams and 10-0 football teams. Playing “amateur” baseball in the summer with the checks or cash after the game helped me get through college. But those were games, not epithanies.

We have emphasized athletics so much in this society we have priced sports out of the reach of many people. Often the single mother secretary just above the poverty line cannot afford to pay $200 fees for her son to play football or her daughter to play volleyball. In a sense sports can be very educational, teaching teamwork, sacrifice, and the value of hard work. I have always believed that after-school activities and all sports should be fully funded by taxpayers.

In the long run such a practice reaps huge dividends. While the fans in the DQ Room are eating their $6.50 Gopher-On-Stick and sipping their $4.25 cup of coffee, many Minnesotans are living in poverty. The national poverty rate is at 13.2 percent for a total of 39.8 million people making less than $22,025 for a family of four. Even median family income has fallen from $52,200 to $50,300 in one year. Adjusted for inflation, median family income is lower than it was 10 years ago, resulting in a record 35.1 million on food stamps.

We are also sacrificing art, music, dance, drama and other creative activities on the altar of jockery and sports bras. Meg Spielman Peldo, a Fargo artist, succinctly summarized the value of the arts in a Forum column in July of 2008: “Research now proves the arts are essential to educating the whole person. Teaching art is not about developing artists, it nourishes creative thinking and problem-solving. Today it is even more crucial to nurture both the logical/analytical/ and the creative/emotional sides of the mind, equipping students for their future, not our past.” What’s the first things cut when budgets are in trouble? Anything creative. Some day we will even find out why musicians make the best mathematicians.

Imagine Going Through a Political Life Knowing You Were Second to Sarah Palin

Minnesota is sometimes “governed” by a man who has never been elected with 50 percent of the vote – and one who has desperately tried to turn this once magnificent state into another Mississippi. Now he is taking his Reaganish “Greed is Good” message to the base of the Republican Party which is rapidly becoming the Donner Party. Before Ronald Reagan became governor of California that state led the nation in education, creativity, and care of the environment. Then greed slowly turned the state ugly until now it’s virtually bankrupt, 49th in education, and may be ungovernable because of laws passed during Reagan’s tenure.

The Republicans, like the Donner Party of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, seem to be cannibalizing each other. They have become the political party of the Confederacy and a few small Western states, losing all of their power on the East Coast. It reminds one of the comment made by a citizen about how they ate their dead in an attempt to stay alive:”Do you realize that of the seven Democrats in this here county you have et four of ‘em?”

So here is Toolittle, losing Republican strength in Minnesota practically each year he has been in office while neglecting business in Minnesota, roaming the country frenetically for a run at the 2012 nomination. He even has a new haircut – which reminds one of John Edwards’ $400 job. One of his major liabilities is that he carries the albatross of Sarah Palin around his neck who was picked over him by John McCain as his running mate.

Toolittle has been a disaster for a state that was a national leader in many fields. His “no new taxes” pledge forced local jurisdictions to raise taxes to provide even minimal services. His failure to support K-12 education has forced 90 percent of the school districts to try special levies. Pawlenty increased fees in many areas to raise revenue, thus straining the budgets of many low and middle income families. Soo Asheim of the Extra cataloged the differences in fees between Minnesota and North Dakota a short time ago:

Divorce Filing Motions Probate Issuing Subpoena

Minnesota $400 $370 $320 $16
North Dakota $80 $30 $80 $10

Who gets hit hardest by these huge fees? Toolittle still hasn’t been successful in turning Minnesota into Mississippi – But he has turned it into Minnesota Mediocre. Even with cherry wood lockers for jocks.

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