The primary team news is basically NFL news – the collective bargaining agreement situation. It looks like nothing is going to happen for a couple of weeks or until we get past the first court hearing. My position is this: there’s too much money at stake for everyone concerned not to have an agreement done in time for training camp and we have a season this fall. Both sides have issues and both sides will probably get something they want and something they don’t. The standard philosophy is: when nobody is happy; it’s probably a fair deal. So I expect the lawyers to stay involved until no one is happy and then the deal will get done. Anyway – that’s the position the club is taking and we’re expecting to be at training camp in August.
I also have to mention the draft; one of the off season’s biggest events (which is not affected by the CBA situation). I think everyone believes in some fashion the Vikings will be taking a quarterback. This position is probably amplified by not having free agency prior to the draft. For all teams (not just the Vikings) not being able to build on your team before the draft changes the draft approach. Typically a team can try and fill some holes and position themselves for "what needs" our remaining or "who is the highest ranked player" on their board. This year the draft will be happening first; putting every team in a different thought process.
So I think all of you have as good a guess as me, but, that never stopped me from voicing my opinion in the past so, here are some random thoughts I have. First thought: The draft is filled with good defensive ends this year and the Vikings take a great DE at the 12th pick. Second thought: The Vikings get a break and a quarterback that they thought was going to be gone by the 12th pick is still there and we draft a quarterback with the 12th pick. My final thought is: the Vikings believe they can get a good DE in the second round and trade out of the 12th pick for a later first round pick. They draft a quarterback with this late round first pick. Hopefully they regained their third round pick with this move and get an offensive lineman or defensive back with this pick. Whatever happens – the draft is always interesting and I’ll be paying attention.
And finally it looks like a stadium deal is taking shape and the good folks of Minnesota want to keep the greatest sporting team in history in Minnesota. I am truly excited about this progress and hope for this issue to be solved quickly. Please stay involved with this as members – of everything happening, this is still the most important. We have to keep this team – period.
Club News:
I’ll discuss the dinner after I give you some facts about our season:
We were able to support our four primary charities again this year. Those charities are: South High School; Keyboarding Club, Boys to Men Circle at St. Louis Park High School, the Page Education Foundation and The Link.
As a club or mission is to support charities that support children and/or education and there must be a Minnesota Viking tie to the charity. The Keyboarding Club is run by Brent McClanahan, the Boys to Men Circle is run by Oscar Reed, the Page Education Foundation is run by Diane and Alan Page and the Link was originally founded by Jim Marshall and Oscar Reed. In talking with Oscar I’m absolutely sure that "kids" from the Boys to Men Circle have gone on to be participants with the Page Education Foundation and I think there is a strong chance that "kids" have gone through The Link’s program to Oscars program and finally to the Pages Foundation. A really wonderful connection exists with these groups.
With all that said; if I can grow our membership, I already have identified other charities that fit our criteria and I would love to help. It’s a real good feeling when I write the checks for our charities and this year I wrote $2000.00 worth of checks (hopefully next year will be more).
Dinner Summary: We had a great time (I’m not sure I need to say anymore). We had the dinner at a different venue this year and it seemed to work out good. I learned some things to improve on for the next one, but, we’re talking about little details now. There are a few folks that need to be mentioned – key contributors in making this event work. And to be fair I can only list them in alphabetical order, but, everyone has my thanks and admiration for all their hard work. So here’s the list: Sue Adams, Rick Conwell, Hugh Fryling, Kent Peterson and Phil Pusateri with additional thanks to Chris Harpole and Larry Prieto who were not able to attend this year’s dinner (illness and family commitments). All these folks had a hand in making this event a success. The last person that really deserves my thanks is my wife Chris – without her support I could not have done any of this; club or dinner.
There is one story, from the dinner, I will share with you. As you all know, we use this event as a way to raise funds for our supported charities. One of our fund raising ways is to have a silent auction and it’s this silent auction that is at the center of my story. Keep this in mind as I start my story. This year (as always) we had Viking greats attend our dinner - as honored guests. This year we were lucky enough to get the great Viking wide receiver and special teams captain Chris Walsh. Now Chris may have been the biggest hitter we ever had (as a wide receiver) and according to Stu Voigt; the only other person ever to play special teams as well as Chris was Joey Browner, we are talking about hallowed ground now. We are talking about a true Viking Legend (who wants to come back to more of our events in the future, by the way). Anyway; during the autograph session Chris got up a couple of times and excused himself to go to the restroom. Well, what Chris was doing was bidding on the Fran Tarkenton autographed football. (Now this was a first for me – we had one Viking legend bidding on another Viking legend’s autographed item.) I had the chance to talk with Chris about this and he explained that Fran was his all-time favorite player and always wanted an opportunity to get Fran’s autographed. Anyway – Chris did leave with the football, he did support our charities and I learned that I wasn’t the biggest Viking fan at the dinner – it was actually one of our Viking legends, Chris Walsh. (Aside: I shared this story with Fran already and he got a real kick out of the story also.)
So if you missed our dinner and missed hearing our guests speak and missed getting to meet them – you now have a dinner story to share with your friends and family.
Best wishes to you and your family.
Wm. R. Martin
President
Southern California Viking Club
2011 - Our 25th Anniversary • SCVC.com
