Minnesota shines in the Super Bowl’s purple rain…
It was surprising the amount of interest in the Super Bowl among Minnesotans this year. Two reasons: Tony Dungy and Prince. Tony Dungy has always been a Minnesota favorite and Prince is one of few stars who are truly Minnesotan.
Prince
I’ve never been a huge Prince fan, but his popular songs are now nostalgic to me for some strange reason (thus furthering m pastor’s theory that nostalgia is actually a lie…an illusion…the spin of the past into a positive memory). The fact that he is 48 years old, in need of a hip replacement and can sing live while dancing in the rain in high heeled platform boots impressed me to no end!
Here is an excerpt from Jon Bream’s review of the show:
“We were impressed that he didn’t have a tarp overhead; he actually played in the rain,” said longtime Minneapolis Prince fan Heidi Vader, who saw the Minnesota icon play on the opening night of his new Las Vegas 3121 club in November. “It was fun to see him. He is smart in picking these kind of jobs like ‘American Idol’ and this to expose himself to the general public. I wouldn’t have watched the Super Bowl otherwise. “My husband wanted the score to be 31-21 at halftime,” she continued, “and it might have been if not for the rain.”
Vader sighed that the song selection — including “Let’s Go Crazy” and “Baby, I’m a Star” — was predictable but she dug that Prince did what she called a Jimi Hendrix song. Indeed, his truncated take on “All Along the Watchtower” recalled Hendrix’s rather than the original rendition of its author, Bob Dylan.
In his 11 or 12 minutes onstage, Prince showed his unpredictable side as well by throwing in a little bit of Ike & Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary” and the Foo Fighters’ “The Best of You.”
“I was surprised that he did the Foo Fighters and it sounded much funkier and cool than their version,” said singer-songwriter Susan Sandberg, who splits her time between Los Angeles and St. Paul. From her seat in the 14th row at the 40-yard line at the Super Bowl, Sandberg said the football fans were singing along and “Prince was psyched to be there.”
In fact, it seemed like Prince, who showed plenty of guitar fireworks, was playing more to the stadium crowd than to the TV cameras.
At one point, he tossed off his black head kerchief. Was it a wardrobe malfunction? Well, the head protector was getting wet, and he had to play his guitar for “Purple Rain.”
“Don’t it feel good?” Prince declared as the rain, which had let up when he took the stage, began to fall again as if on a purple cue.
Tony Dungy
I’m no football expert, so I’ll just highlight a piece from this week’s newspaper…
Dungy was born in 1955 in Jackson, Mich. But he has spent the past 34 years as one of Minnesota’s favorite sons.
The journey began when Dungy, an all-state athlete in high school, selected the Gophers, in part, because of Sandy Stephens, a pioneering black quarterback who came before him. Dungy went on to become a Williams Scholar (student-athletes who maintain a 3.0 average or better) and a four-year starter.
“Tony was very, very comparable in intelligence, passion and work ethic to [Colts quarterback] Peyton Manning,” said Colts offensive coordinator Tom Moore, the former Gophers’ assistant who recruited Dungy for the U. “Thirty years ago, he was doing a lot of the things you see Peyton doing for us now.”
Dungy returned to the Gophers as defensive backs coach in 1980. A year later, at 28, the Steelers hired him as an assistant. In 1992, he returned to Minnesota for a four-year stint as Vikings defensive coordinator.
Last year, when the Gophers needed political firepower to win support for a new stadium, they turned to Dungy. Who better than Tony to go before the Legislature and plead the Gophers’ case?
“Tony’s 3-for-3 in getting stadiums passed,” Kullas said with a laugh. “He spoke to the politicians in Tampa. They got a new stadium. He spoke to the politicians in Indianapolis. They’re getting a new stadium. And we’re getting one here. I told him he should take a part-time job selling stadiums.”
The U of M hoped Dungy would be the head coach to lead the Gophers into that stadium in 2009. Dungy was atop the school’s list to replace the fired Glen Mason. But Dungy is entrenched in the NFL. At 51, he also has suggested that his coaching career is nearing its end.
“It would have been perfect, but we never had a chance,” said George Adzick, M Club director and a former teammate of Dungy. “He should have gotten the job when he was 28. He’d still be here, and we would be BCS [bowl championship series] contenders and going for national championships. That’s not to be disparaging to the other coaches. It’s just that Tony is that good.”
