The Minnesota Timberwolves fired their coach Dwane Casey yesterday after only one and a half years on the job. Assistant Randy Wittman replaced him temporarily. Some in the know feel the person that should have been fired is the Vice President of Basketball Operations Kevin McHale. However, in a way he did fire himself at one point, but only as coach, after a period of time as the interim coach after he had let long time coach Flip Saunders go. Again, quite a few “Wolves Watchers” feel his mangled management style has been the reason why this club is not succeeding and the talent pool that McHale has put together has not been of the caliber needed to compete at the level of the upper echelon clubs. The T’Wolves have had an up and down season, after starting the year with seven wins out of their first eight games, they have played very inconsistently and were at .500 when Casey was relieved of his coaching position.

Also, the University of Minnesota fired their football coach and their basketball coach “resigned” in November of 2006. Long time University of Minnesota football coach Glen Mason was let go and was replaced by Denver Broncos tight end coach Tim Brewster. Brewster has a background in recruiting at the college level at The University of North Carolina and it is hoped by the U of M sports administration the he can revive the Gophers to some prominence in the Big 10. The University basketball program also got a new “interim” head coach as assistant coach Joe Molinari was appointed to replace Dan Monson who retired, or as has been suggested asked to retire, after a sluggish performing 2 and 5 start. Prior to his retirement there were a number of “Fire Dan” blog sites asking for the dismissal of Monson as the fan base had really become discouraged with his coaching and recruiting.

Professional baseball in Minnesota seems to have received a “Pass Go” card regarding the coaches and management at this point in time and the Twins are more or less status quo for the upcoming season.

Moving over to the professional football side of the Minnesota sports equation, there were quite a few fans asking for the axing of new head coach Brad Childress after only one season. Childress who replaced the fired Mike Tice had a boring and bland opening year as the Vikings coach finished 6 and 10 following Tice’s 9 and 7 from the previous year. The owners however decided to stick with Childress, but his aloof and basically non-communicating style has not gathered him many friends amongst fans and the media, especially the media who feel left out of the team’s information gathering string. Many felt the only bright spot with the Vikings last year was the performance of the defence and this was handled by Mike Tomlin who has left the team to take on the plum head coaching job with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Vikes fans felt that likely the Childress days were numbered and that the Wilfs would have a ready replacement in house with Tomlin, but that’s out the window now, as is next season probably.

By the way if you are a coaching candidate, no matter what the sport, and someone suggests a position in Minneapolis, be wary, very wary!

John Paul "Sporty" SPN Correspondent

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