I sure can't think of any players from the 71 tournament (which I remember well,
since it was the year I graduated from high school) receiving scholarships from
the Gophers, certainly not playing for them. Como Pontliana? I think Kurt
Knoff played football. Dunno.

-----Original Message-----
From: stewthornley [mailto:stew@...]
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 10:43 AM
To: mnbuckets@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [mnbuckets] George Hanson




As I'm writing about the Gophers in the 1960s and 1970s, I'm using
many of my notes from when I collaborated with Ray Christensen on
his autobiography.

I'm going back through newspaper accounts for details on the brawl
in 1972 and the subsequent recruiting violations that were announced
just prior to Bill Musselman fleeing the state. I should be able to
get definitive information from the papers on these events.
However, I'm not sure how to follow up on what I wrote about George
Hanson for Golden Memories:

"Under Hanson, the Gophers lost their first six Big Ten games in
1971, and it didn't appear that the freshman team he had recruited
was going to provide much hope for the future. Hanson had given
most of the scholarships available to players who had just performed
in the Minnesota High School Tournament. None of these players ever
played for the Gopher varsity."

I believe I may have gotten this information from George Rekela, and
I'm sure that I confirmed it in some manner when I worked on the
book (after all, I'm not a Bernstein). However, my notes are a
little sketchy on this. Can anyone confirm that this paragraph is
correct? Who were the Minnesota high-school players who got the
scholarships and is it true they did not play on the varsity?

Thanks.

Stew










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