This Saturday the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team faces the Michigan State Spartans in a contest surrounded in emotion, controversy. and partisan rancor. Of course that has nothing to do with the game on the field, between two mediocre Big 10 teams battling for the right to play in the Emerald Bowl rather than the Poulan Weedeater Motor City Bowl. This game doesn't even have the gravitas of a bronze pig being awarded to the winners (that's next week, versus Iowa).
No, the real heat and humidity is blasting from an internal storm that consumed the Gophers athletic department a few months back. It all started with the Gophers' efforts to honor one its distinguished alums, efforts which included printing his name on a game ticket. Sandy Stephens was a stand out University of Minnesota football player in the early 1960's. An All-American quarterback, he lead his squad to Rose Bowl victories and a national championship. Clearly he's a man worthy of respect and tribute by his alma mater. Especially from a school that has nothing football related to celebrate in the past 50 years besides a few victories in the Poulan Weedeater Motor City Bowl (or whatever).
The Michigan State game would seem to be an entirely appropriate time to honor Sandy Stephens. Instead, the University of Minnesota chose to honor somebody named Sandy Stevens.
Ah! Ski U Mah! A careless copywriter at the U of MN inadvertently misspelled Stephens' name on the ticket and somehow it got through the no doubt rigorous government funded proofing process and the tickets were distributed. Then all hell broke lose in certain quarters of the Gopher loving community, typified by this quote:
"It's incomprehensible for them to misspell the name of a prominent athlete like Sandy Stephens," said former Gophers basketball player Al Nuness, who is the school's representative to the Big Ten advisory committee on diversity. "This guy was the first black major college quarterback. He led them to the Rose Bowl two years in a row, a national title, his number is retired and he has an endowed scholarship in his name. And we misspell his name? That's inexcusable."
One local journalists felt this error went even beyond the level of incomprehension and inexcusability and implied there were more sinister motivations involved:
Misspelling Sandy Stephens' name on tickets for the November 12 Gophers-Michigan State football game can't simply be attributed to an oversight, as U-M officials claimed last week.
I'm not sure what those dark impulses were that drove someone to write Stevens instead of Stephens, but whatever it is, it's a force that stretches far beyond the U of MN Athletic Department Ticket word processing department. The University of Minnesota and its adherents are rife with this motivation.
For example, the U of MN newsletter Kiosk reports this bit of revisionist history:
1961 Sandy Stevens becomes the first black all-American quarterback in the U.S., and leads the Gophers to their first Rose Bowl.
Inexcusable and incomprehensible. And perhaps, inevitable ... the misspellings continue. Another example, from an organization that should know something about University of Minnesota athletes, the M Club, the official association of Gopher athletic letter winners.
Sandy Stevens 94 - All American, 1961. Quarterback for national title team. MVP in 1961, led team in rushing. Is eighth in career touchdowns, rushing, 118. Is tenth in career total yards, 1475.
Is there anyone at the University of Minnesota who can spell this man's name correctly? Someone better check the name on Sandy Stephens' diploma, before this really gets embarrassing.
Sadly, this phenomenon extends beyond the sacred ivory towers of our state's premiere academic institution. It extends onto the sacred menu of our state's premiere sports bar. According to this review for Joe Senser's Sports Grill:
This is a haven for people who live, breathe and eat sports, but it's pretty good food for those who just like to eat. Most dishes are named after Minnesota sports luminaries, like Sandy Stevens' hot pastrami sandwich ...
No!! Say it ain't so Joe! Sure, this slight is somewhat ameliorated by the fact that pastrami is among the most dignified of the salted, cured meats. But come on, Joe Senser, a member of the Board of the Sandy Stephens Scholarship Fund really ought to get the name right. If he can't do that, maybe change the name of the sandwich to something easier to spell. For example, the Ndudi Ebi hot Pastrami has a nice ring to it.
The mishits just keep on coming. More misspellings come to you on behalf of the National Football League, in their archive of first round draft choices by the New York Jets:
1962 Sandy Stevens QB Minnesota
And the New York Jets themselves corroborate the error.
The shame is exacerbated when we note that both appear to have spelled correctly the name of the Jets' 1974 first round choice, Carl Barzilauskas. (But, on the bright side, this could give Joe Senser an idea for another winning appetizer concept, Carl Barzilauskas Cajun Couscous Quesadillas.)
Of course, none of these other misspellings excuse the Gophers' for their error on the ticket stub. It remains inexcusable. And incomprehensible. So much so, maybe they should stop denying it's an error at all and claim they actually intended to honor Sandy Stevens. These people exist in multitudes across the country. Best prospects include Sandy Stevens, the community columnist for the Glen Ellyn (IL) Sun. She occasionally writes about sports. But the main strike against her is that she's also known as the Craig Westover of the Chicago suburbs.
More plausibly, the Gophers' ticket department could claim they were celebrating the accomplishments of noted University of Central Oklahoma biologist Sandy Stevens. Although this person has no known connection to University of Minnesota or sports, he (she?) is responsible for the highly relevant Annotated Checklist of Mammals of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Osage County, Oklahoma. From which I quote:
Pocket gophers prefer deep sandy and loamy soils. The shallow soils and limestone bedrock might be a barrier to gophers on the preserve. Most likely habitat in the preserve for gophers would be sandy areas and possibly along roads.
For those truly interested in Gophers, that paragraph provides more entertainment than any University of Minnesota football player has since Sandy Stephens strapped it on in 1961. To Sandy Stephens and Sandy Stevens, hats off to thee!
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