A little delicate advice for esteemed Mr. [Mike] Tice (Must read!!) [View All]

[Malebolgia]

This will be in tomorrow's Star Tribune, which is a newspaper (who endorsed John Kerry, I might add) here in Minnesota. It'll be in the sports section.

You can find it here.

Nick Coleman, Star Tribune
November 21, 2004

On Oct. 30, Mike Tice, the thick-necked coach of the Minnesota Vikings, took time away from preparing for his team's Halloween game against the Giants to trot on down to Target Center and present a big purple Vikings jersey with a No. 1 on it to that noted Vikings fan, George W. Bush.

Since then, Bush has outperformed Tice by a wide margin, winning Ohio and Florida and a second term while Tice led his team into a three-game swoon, jeopardizing his employment prospects while padding his reputation as the lowest-paid coach in the NFL by adding the possibility that he also is one of the lowest-class ones.

Someone should have told Tice that Minnesota is a blue state. Either that or someone should have told him that Minnesotans don't like polluting their sports with politics. Maybe Tice was confused because the crusty curmudgeon who owns the team and is likely to toss him aside after the holidays like a gnawed-on turkey leg is named "Red." All I know is the Vikings got murdered by the Giants 34-13 and followed that up by losing to the Colts (31-28) and Packers (34-31).

On Sunday, the Vikings host Detroit and the odds are that they might win one in November. But I won't be surprised if they lose again. We used to have purple pride. Now we hear purple epithets, and I have only one thing to say:

Shove it somewhere.

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