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STEVEN JOHN: With news from Minnesota Public radio, I'm Steven John. US census figures released today indicate Minnesota's population grew about 12% in the past decade, from 4.3 million in 1990 to more than 4.9 million in 2000. Because the population grew at roughly the national average, Minnesota is expected to keep its eight congressional seats.

A citizens group in Duluth is making plans for a downtown monument to honor three Black men lynched by a mob in the city 80 years ago. The men were traveling circus workers and a Duluth woman falsely accused them of rape. A crowd of thousands dragged the men from jail and hanged them from a streetlight. There's no marker on the street corner today, and memorial committee co-chair Henry Banks says it's time for a monument.

HENRY BANKS: This indeed is a part of Duluth's history. Therefore, it needs to be talked about, discussed, dealt with in the best and most appropriate way. And we feel this is the most appropriate way to do this.

STEVEN JOHN: Banks says his group is also organizing a week of commemorative events on the anniversary of the lynching this coming June. Governor Ventura has canceled his plans to fly to Miami to attend tonight's MicronPC.com Bowl game featuring the Minnesota Gophers. The weather is just too nasty. A spokesman said the governor will instead use the time to prepare for his State of the State address on January 4th.

The storm has prompted Greyhound to cancel bus service today from Minneapolis to Seattle. Dozens of flights have been canceled or delayed at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. The forecast is for snow for the south and central, mostly with accumulations of 3 inches in the southwest to 9 inches in the central to southeast. Numerous winter storm warnings up for much of the state today.

Right now, Saint Cloud has 7 degrees with light snow. It's snowing in Fergus falls, 10 above, 7 in the Twin Cities. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio.

SPEAKER: Programming on MPR is supported by the Pillsbury Company Foundation, caring for the community by giving kids a loving lift.

GARY EICHTEN: Six minutes past twelve o'clock.

[MARCHING BAND MUSIC]

And good afternoon. Welcome back to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary Eichten. Glad you could join us. Well, the University of Minnesota football team is in Miami today, getting ready for their second college Bowl game in two years. Last year, you'll recall, the Gophers played in the relatively prestigious Sun Bowl. This year, it's the MicronPC.com Bowl against North Carolina State.

Game time is 6:00, and if you want to watch the game on TV, it will be on TBS. Lots of people will decide to listen to the game on WCCO Radio. Why, you may ask? Well, because of legendary broadcaster Ray Christiansen. Tonight, after 50 years as the voice of Golden Gopher sports, Ray Christiansen will be calling his last Gopher football game.

Today on Midday, as part of our Voices of Minnesota series, we're going to hear from the voice of the Golden Gophers. Later this hour, we'll hear from another legendary Minnesotan, Saint John's University football coach John Galardi, who, just two weeks ago, came within a last-minute field goal of winning his fourth national championship. But to begin, Ray Christensen. Here's Minnesota Public Radio's William Willcoxen.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: If you ask fans of the University of Minnesota's athletic teams who best exemplifies Golden Gopher sports, there are really only two logical responses. One is the furry, bucktoothed, maroon-clad mascot known as Goldy. The other is the bespectacled, mild-mannered announcer, whose baritone rides radio waves to the corners of Minnesota, describing the movements of Gopher athletes since 1951.

Ray Christensen sat down this fall in an office in the Bierman Building on the University's Twin Cities campus and spoke about his childhood in Minneapolis. He was born in 1924, the only child to Danish parents who listened to radio broadcasts regularly.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: I was surrounded by it. My folks were not sports fans as such, so I don't know how or when I started listening to games. But it was an early age. I would say from seven, eight years old on.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: What sports captivated you the most?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Whatever was on the radio. So that was mostly football and basketball in those days. There wasn't much else then on the radio.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: And were you playing these sports too? Or did you mainly take an interest in listening to the broadcasts?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: I played baseball. But I never had the physique for an athlete, or the stamina. I played second base in baseball because there I could make the throw to first without one hop. I had a bad arm. Shortstop and third base were out of the question. And outfield, I'd have to run it back in.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Who did you grow up listening to? Do you remember any broadcasts?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: I remember Eddie Gallaher doing the Minneapolis Millers on CCO. And Halsey Hall I recall from those days. And eventually, of course, I worked with Halsey for a little while on Twins games.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: I didn't realize that. You've done the Twins, too.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, the early '70s. I did the Twins for four years. And before that, the Vikings, the last Vikings. That was about four years. The last Viking game I did was January 1st of 1970.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: How did you get started in radio in the first place?N Was it at KUOM?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Essentially, yeah. In high school, I did do some things that were on the radio. But this was because it was a radio speech class. And stations were kind enough to work in some things in their schedule. So I got just a smattering of it. And that just increased my interest in it. But yes, KUOM was the true start of it.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: How did you fall into radio there?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, I auditioned for the Radio Guild. And past that, I've always been pretty good in radio drama. And so they needed a chief announcer, and put me on on a temporary basis on May 1st, 1945-- I think so, yeah. And then two months later, I became the chief announcer.

That sounds very important, until you realize that our budget called for one and a half announcers, and the chief announcer was the one. And then we divided up the other half, and the budget, among whoever else we had.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

- This is Ray Christensen speaking to you from the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene. Honeycombing the walls of Memorial Stadium is an intricate series of laboratories, testing rooms, and offices, all related to the complicated but important business of cardiovascular research.

Heading the impressive list of scientists at work on this project is Dr. Ancel Keys, one of the country's leading research specialists. Today he is here at our University microphone with three of his colleagues to tell us something about his laboratory and its vital objectives. First of all, Dr. Keys, could you give us an overall picture of the heart disease--

[END PLAYBACK]

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: And KUOM was a classical station at that point, wasn't it?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, yes, Yeah, strictly classical, except that they did go for football on Saturdays. And starting in 1951, I got that job. They wanted somebody who would do it for nothing, and that fit my demands at the time. And so that's how I got started. And by the second year, in 1952, I got paid $25 a game, which wasn't all that bad in those days.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Had you wanted to go into sports announcing from the time you were listening to Halsey Hall?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Well, I think so. Yes, yeah. Don Riley and Dick Kerr, who became a dentist-- Don went on, of course, to do everything in sports, and still does, too-- the three of us would choose up players from the American League, the National League, and the American Association, of course, which was our League.

And then with two dice, we would shake the dice and broadcast the game. And that was, in a sense, the way we started. Don, I think has always felt too, that was a great trigger to what we became later.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: So now how do you broadcast a dice game?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, you just do it. You shake the dice and roll them out. And 1 and 6, for example, is a single. So was 2 and 5, because you want more singles than doubles, triples, and home runs. A home run is double 1. Error is double 6, and so on. But every combination has a meaning. One is called strike three, another is a swinging strike three.

So we had some variance as our game went on, but we have to work up the count, and have somebody take the lead off first, the check of the runner, the pitch-- you know, all these things that we had heard, and it was just in our imagination. But we did it.

My mother was the one who told me that she had a painter working in the house. And we happened to be at our house that day, doing a game. And at the end of the day, he said he subtracted two hours from his bill because he got so engrossed in the game that he didn't really paint.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: [LAUGHS] And it was an imaginary game?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh yeah, an imaginary game by young kids, yeah.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: So in 1951 is when you started doing play by play.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: That's correct, yeah. Basketball wasn't until the '56, '57 season, because KUOM was a daytime only station. So we couldn't do basketball. In fact, it never did. And then we could, once we got over to WLOL. There I could do whatever sports.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: And when was that?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: That was in '56 that I went over there. And so started the '56-'57 season there.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: OK, and then eventually wound up on CCO.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: In 1963, yeah.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: OK. What were the conditions like for broadcasting in those early years, in the '50s and '60s?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Well, it was at Memorial Stadium. And before I went to CCO, it was a very crowded, unheated booth. And I had two color men in those days for football, Al Gowans and George Svensson. And I'm not sure how we fit in there, but we did somehow. And then the engineer was kind of at an angle up and behind us.

He had the toughest spot of all. But [LAUGHS] that's what the engineers get, you know? It's not always ideal, and you like them to be comfortable. But in those days, they sure weren't.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Yeah! I mean, was the atmosphere around a football game different in those days at the brickyard?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, I think so, sure. You had more going on in the fraternities across the street. I think they were all frats in those days. The sororities were farther down the road. And that made it fun. And the band would come down University Avenue and then take a right and come on into the stadium from the East End. And that was always exciting.

And they don't have quite that opportunity now. But as far as broadcast, we were 62 rows up, and then we were beyond that. 62 was the top row, and it was straight up. And so-- well, I zigzagged in. I learned that early. I was smart for my age. So I learned you don't get out of breath if you take it in stages.

But anyhow, the vantage point wasn't the greatest. Once we got to CCO, they had a heater, even though the room was not heated. The press box was heated, and there was a lot more space for CCO. It was the dominant station. But right now at the Metrodome, I have ideal location.

I don't have to worry about whether the window should be open or closed because there isn't a window, and it's 70 degrees. And it's a very good vantage point. The dome is a good football stadium and not a good baseball stadium.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: But you think it works well for the Gophers?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Yeah. Yeah, I do. I understand their reasoning behind wanting to get back on campus. But at the same time, selfishly, it's a very good place for me to broadcast.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Have you noticed differences just in fan behavior and outlook on the game over the years?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Just to the extent that now it becomes the thing to do. The fan has become more a part of the game, and is expected to cheer and make noise whenever the opponent has the ball so that they can't hear the signals. And I'm not taking a stance on that. It's just one of the changes, sure.

But other than that, when you win, people really follow you. When you lose, it's only the hard core fans that are still with you. And I understand that rationale.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Now what about in basketball? Maybe there haven't been as many changes, in terms of the basketball game since you started.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Well, not really, as far as broadcasting yet. You know, in terms of how the game is played, people are bigger, stronger, and quicker-- not necessarily the faster. The guys who really have to run probably were just about as fast way back then as they are now.

But these big linemen are bigger, and for the three, four steps they need, they are quicker. And of course, both in football and basketball, the emphasis on defense has increased. This is even more true in basketball, where you start with defense and go on from there.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: What do you enjoy most about broadcasting games?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, the unexpected. And it doesn't always happen. But it does every season, and that's what you'll look forward to. And also, a perfectly executed play is a joy to see. Our opening game against Louisiana Monroe this year, Abdul Khaliq threw a pass to Ron Johnson. You could see the trajectory of the ball.

You could see the way Ron was running, and you knew it was going to be a perfect connection. It was just a matter of whether the guy defending would be there in time to bat it away. Well, by half a step he wasn't. And Ron caught it and pulled away from a tackler, and went into the end zone. And it was beautiful. I'll probably remember it all season, quite possibly for the rest of my life.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: And do you have a lot of those plays that stand out in your mind?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, there are some. I suppose they fade as the years go by. Rickey Foggie's run that set up the winning field goal at Michigan in '86, that, I'm sure, is ingrained in my head so that I've never forgotten. He started from the far left to me.

And it seemed almost in slow motion, because you knew how far he had to get to put the ball within field goal range. Well, eventually-- eventually being three, four seconds, I suppose-- he got there. And then he got another 10 yards before they finally got him. And then we ran a play just to run the clock down. And then Lohmiller kicked the field goal, and 104,000 fans just sat there with their mouths shut. It was wonderful.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: [CHUCKLES]

RAY CHRISTENSEN: It was at Michigan, I should add. And that made it really wonderful.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: [LAUGHS] I mean, I don't know if it should, but it surprises me, to some extent. Because you must have seen a million plays. You broadcast 500 games. But there are certain ones that just really-- that you can recall vividly.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Yes, but not that many. There are pitchers who can tell you the count that they had, what each pitch was, leading up to 3 and 2. And I'm not sure if they're making it up or not. But I'm sure that for some of them, it was very real, because of the situation. Well, I can't do that about that many plays.

I can remember the Gophers beat Syracuse to get to the final eight, which was as far as they got. This was at what, New Orleans. And in the second half, they shot almost 80%. And Newburn and Kevin Lynch-- sorry, Kevin. It should have come more quickly.

Yeah, Melvin Newburn and Kevin Lynch just led that second half and said, you guys have the reputation, but we are going to win. We won't settle for anything less. And they didn't. It was a marvelous demonstration of basketball. And that second half, without remembering a single individual play, is memorable to me.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: It seems like in your broadcasts, the emphasis is on the basic information, and not straying too much from what's going on the court, on the field.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Well, I have always felt that the game itself is far more important than me, and even a little more important than those who play it. There are some wonderful games out there. And it's still the game, and people want to know the nuts and bolts of it.

Once I start telling stories about myself, or the two or three of us doing the broadcast start exchanging little bits of humor that don't mean anything to the listener, then we are playing a disservice to the game. And you shouldn't do that.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Do you think that that is increasingly occurring? Maybe more so in television, but do you hear and see more announcers straying from the action on the field?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Well, yes. And apparently the networks and the cables like to do that. They bring in a Dennis Miller, and he tells jokes. I mean, he's a comedian-- and apparently a pretty good one. But what's he doing broadcasting a football game?

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: When people talk about Ray Christensen, one of the things that I think always comes up is, people comment on your professional demeanor and what a gentleman you are. Do you think that sort of gentlemanliness is another characteristic that might be getting less common in sports, in the media, maybe in society generally?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Yes, I think it could be. I like to feel that it's a quality I have at all times. I'm not always a gentleman when it comes to the officials. But I think I try to be as neutral as I can. Theirs is an impossible job. And I try, at times, at least, to say that they're calling the game very fairly.

In other words, [CHUCKLES] I try to go to both sides. And sometimes, it seems that they are influenced by a Bobby Knight, or someone like that.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: You're listening to Ray Christensen, who is finishing a 50 year career as a sports broadcaster at the University of Minnesota. His memories include highlights such as the men's basketball team advancing to the National Final Four in 1997, and low points, such as the 1972 game against Ohio State, which the Gophers forfeited after a brawl broke out among players on the court. Christensen says through it all, he never seriously considered leaving the U of M.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: No, I've always liked it here. I've never worried about leaving the Gophers, as such. As it got closer to the end of my career, sure. Then the years, the numbers became important. But until the very last few years, they haven't been. And this is our home. We've got the family here. The kids are here. Two of the three of them live here.

And so we're surrounded by things that we know. I like Minnesota. I like Minnesota people. "Minnesota nice" is true. Sure, there are exceptions, but there are exceptions to "nice" wherever you go. So basically, this is a good place to live and bring up a family.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Did you ever have offers? Did anybody ever try to steal you away from here?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, yeah. I had offers. It'd be easy to say I've had tons of them. That's not true. I've had a few, sure. And I wasn't all that interested. They were not at places that I wanted to go. And the surroundings and the offer itself weren't any better than what I was doing.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: And you mentioned that you did some pro sports with the Twins and the Vikings. But is your heart more in college sports?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. There again, college sport gives you more of the unknown. The pros, I can sit and call the plays. And they may surprise me once in a while, but not as often as the college sports do. This is primarily football I'm thinking of here. So I like that.

And the pros in basketball, especially-- and I did do the Lakers for a while when they were here-- are more predictable. The Lakers perhaps weren't as predictable. Because way back then-- and this is the late '50s-- they played because they loved to play, other than George Mikan, and today his salary is nothing. But in those days, it was pretty good.

But they played because it was the game and it was their life. And they didn't think about renegotiating their contract or anything like that. And those were wonderful days. Well, they were too, for the Vikings and for the Twins. Now, it's hard to establish a loyalty to a team. Because player 1, 2 and 3-- well, 1 and 2 probably will have to go because they're going to exceed the salary cap. For heaven's sakes! What does that do for the fan?

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Yeah. What was it like doing the Lakers games?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: It was great. Yeah, the Lakers were great fun. You never knew where were you going to be, whether it'd be the Armory or the Auditorium or what. [LAUGHS] But yeah, they were great fun in those days. I loved that, when Baylor got his start, Elgin Baylor, and Jim Pollard, his last year. And then he became coach while I was still broadcasting the games.

There we did the away games as a re-creation. We weren't there. But when Pollard became coach, then I did fly along to New York for his opening game, which was in Madison Square Garden. So that was my first game in The Garden. That was a big thrill.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Wow. Now how do you recreate a basketball game?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, you just do it, yeah. Every once in a while, a player scores and they haven't told you that he came into the lineup, so you have to get him in there somehow. But it all works out.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: So you were listening to--

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, you're sitting in a room where the ticker tape is rolling on a machine there. And every once in a while, especially if there's a commercial, well, you get up and tear off what you had. So you are behind the play. When it was on television, then we used to broadcast the game with the television turned off, which was illegal, but I don't think they can sue me now.

So anyhow, I'd get a monstrous headache. Because in the studio-- like in almost any studio in those days-- why, there were flickers and disturbances, electronic and so on. So it was not an ideal thing for your eyes.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Ronald Reagan used to do those re-creations too, didn't he?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: I talked to Ronald Reagan. He insisted that I call him Dutch. And this was before he became president. But he was at WHO, and he did a lot of re-creations. And I imagine he was very good at them because he was an actor. And in a sense, I was, too. And re-creations bring out the ham in you, I'm sure. And yeah, I was good at it. [CHUCKLES]

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: There's been a lot of ups and downs that you've seen, I'm sure, in Gopher sports over the years. Is it hard to maintain your enthusiasm in losing seasons?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, no. Because there's still that anticipation of the next game, and that perhaps it will be different. And sometimes it is different. So no, I haven't lost it. Even when a team is doing poorly, somebody will be doing well on that team, and you have something to hang your hat on and talk about that's positive.

Although, you try not to make a game something it isn't. If the Gophers are having a really bad day, I try to let people know that without tearing the team down. But at the same time, you have to report what you see. You prepare extremely well. That's important-- prepare. But then once the game begins, it's out of your hands. And don't try to make the game something it isn't.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Are there highlights for the Gophers that-- you've touched on a couple of them already.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Getting to the Final Four. The Final Four game itself was somewhat disappointing. And we had a terrible location. We were flat, we were not raised. And we were behind four rows of journalists. So it was very difficult to see the floor. And so that was very disappointing.

But the two games at San Antonio that got us to the Final Four are two of the most wonderful games I have ever done. And the team played so well-- double overtime over Clemson, and then they just plain wore UCLA down. And you know, UCLA is god, at times, in basketball, up at the next level.

But in this one, we just took over in that second half. UCLA led at the half. But somehow, you had the feeling they were already starting to fade a little. And that sure was what happened. And then we came back, and at midnight we got to Williams Arena, and it was packed with people. That's the most red lights I've ever gone through.

Because we had the police car in front, and then me and my car next. And then the team buses followed. So here I am, behind the police car. And I mean it, he goes through the red light. Well, sure, I go through the red light, too. I'll bet I did 10 of them. That was wonderful.

[LAUGHTER]

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Now, I was going to ask about lowlights, if you will. I know there have been a couple of scandals. There was the sexual assault trial on the basketball team. More recently, there was this academic fraud scandal. Are those difficult for somebody in your position?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, in a sense, I was not aware of either one until the truth came out. So the most disappointing thing to me was the Ohio State game in January when both teams were 4 and 0. And then really, there was a mugging on the floor and the Gophers were guilty of it.

And I didn't use that word, but I said that the Gophers had not responded the way they should, and did a play-by-play of it. And Paul Giel, who the athletic director then, very shortly after I made those comments, came out and said the game was over and Ohio State was the winner. They were ahead at the time.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: A lot of folks think that the money, the large amounts of money available now through television and even gate receipts, are a factor in making college sports more corrupt than they used to be. Do you have any thoughts on that?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Well, it has become more of a business, and that's too bad. Certainly in the pros, the average fan-- Joe, fan, if you want to use the cliche-- can no longer afford to go to the game. And that's a shame. I don't think that has happened yet in the colleges. But they do depend so much on television and cable.

And as a result, Joe fan buys his season tickets, but he doesn't know when the game is going to start. [CHUCKLES] You know, it might be at 11:10 in the morning, or it might be at 1:30 in the afternoon. Or at the stadium has lights. It could be 5:00 or 6:00 or 7:00. And I'm quoting times that have already happened this season for starting times.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Yeah. Do you get to know the players on the teams, and the coaches?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: I do get to the coaches in football. The players, some of them, yes. But they travel each on their own bus. There is an offensive team bus. There is a defensive team bus. And then those of us who are falling under the general category of staff and administrative, which the broadcasters do, too, are on a separate bus.

So yes, when we interview them and on opportunities like that, yes, you do get to meet them. With basketball, you get to know the whole team. You travel with them. You're on the same plane, which is often a charter. And you're on the same bus. And so you really do see them much more. So I like that about basketball, getting to know these guys. With football, it's more limited.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Does it become difficult ever that, on the one hand, you're a journalist of sorts, in terms of describing to the public what's going on out there, but also you are a part of the University, at least, and in some sense of the team?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Sure. And I get more excited about a Gopher 3-point basket or a Gopher field goal in football or whatever kind of a score it is than the opponent. But at the same time, there's some very talented people on both sides. And I don't think I've ever forgotten that. If I ever thought that I had, then that might be time to quit right then and there. Because you've got to give these young athletes their due, and they have sure earned it.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Just before we finish here, I just want to come back briefly to your radio career. You were working at WCCO in the '60s and '70s, which I think a lot of radio folks consider a golden age in Twin Cities Radio at WCCO. What was it like working with Boone and Erickson, and Howard Viken, Jurgen Nash? What was that scene like?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, It was great, yeah. Jurgen and I worked at KUOM. And then he went on to Faribault and then came up to CCO, and so I joined him again when I came to CCO. They were wonderful people to work with, and we still see Boone and Erickson every once in a while.

Charlie and I both record for the blind, and are in fact are in the same studio. He has 12:00 to 3:00 and I have 3:00 to 6:00 on Mondays, [LAUGHS] and that type of thing. So yeah, and those days were the golden days. I think in those days, it wasn't a bottom line mentality. It is now. In television and radio, in almost every aspect of business life. They are a business.

And so there is more, "let's try to do what the others are doing, if it's worked." And WCCO didn't do that in the '60s and '70s. They said, this is the way we're going to do it. Well, it worked. And others tried to copy them unsuccessfully, and that doesn't happen anymore.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Did you ever get roped into any of the Boone and Erickson shenanigans?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Whenever one of them was on vacation, then I would fill in for him. So it would occasionally be Boone and Christensen when Roger was gone. And then if Charlie was gone, Eriksson and Christensen-- sure. And I wrote stuff right along with Roger when we were together. Roger and I worked together at KUOM.

We worked on old tales and new doing, Robert the Tired Rabbit and ZT Grubney and Spring. (IN CARTOONISH VOICE) We had all kinds of voices, and we got to use them again on CCO, too.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: So where would you get the ideas and the material to make these things.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: I'm trying to think of an example. They'd come out of the blue. Roger and I would break each other up. Just he'd be sitting by his old typewriter-- he has the world's oldest typewriter-- and I would be standing there, leaning against the door jamb at his office. And we'd come up with ideas.

We did a Christmas show with elves. And we often had music, Roger was very great on that. And he said, what if the elves decided to have a union? And I said, the AF of Elves? It came just like that, see? And it could just as easily have come from Roger. But those were the days. Yeah, they were great.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: [LAUGHS] Was that your only foray into comedy? Or have you done others?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Well, that was the primary one, sure. Yeah, I was never a stand-up comedian, but people liked to laugh. And I hope that sometimes just in back-and-forth banter on the air, I have made people enjoy a situation as much as I did. [LAUGHS]

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: I want to touch briefly on the future of radio, too, and maybe sports broadcasting. I think that the advent of television probably changed radio to some extent. And now the internet seems to be changing how people get their news. What do you see in the future of radio? Is it going to go away, or merge with something else, or stay as it is now?

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Well, no, I think it's still here to say. They're not going to be able to mount television sets on the hood of a car, even though they have them in cars. And so there is still an audience, in cars and elsewhere-- and in the kitchen and in the bedroom-- that still likes radio.

Plus, the .com, that's radio. Sure, you can get pictures through all of these things. But so often, it's still radio. And people do want to know what down it is, where's the ball, [LAUGHS] and so on.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: All right. Well, I really appreciate your time. Thanks for talking to me. Congratulations on your career.

RAY CHRISTENSEN: Oh, my pleasure, indeed, William. This was nice.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Ray Christensen is finishing a 50 year career as a broadcaster of University of Minnesota Sports Events. I'm William Willcoxen, Minnesota Public Radio.

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- The University of Minnesota Radio Guild. Engineers were John Allman and Larry Larsson. Bob Warren and Joyce Shader were in charge of music. Tape recordings were made in Alexandria in the fall of 1948. Your announcer is Ray Christensen. The Tales of Minnesota are written by William Cornell, produced by Northrup Dawson Jr., and presented by the Minnesota University of the Air, in cooperation with this station to which you are now listening.

["TARA'S THEME" FROM "GONE WITH THE WIND" PLAYING]

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GARY EICHTEN: Once again, Ray Christensen will call his last Gopher football game starting at 6:00 tonight, live from the MicronPC.com Bowl in Miami. This is Midday on Minnesota Public Radio, today featuring two voices of Minnesota interviews. Before we get to our second interview, just a reminder, if you haven't peeked outside, there is some really nasty weather moving across our area.

Several winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories in effect for western and southern Minnesota today and tonight. That includes the Twin City metro area. Southern and central Minnesota can look for-- well, let's see-- 3 inches of snow in the southwest, up to 9 inches of snow in southeastern Minnesota.

2 to 5 inches of snow expected in Northern Minnesota. 6 to 9 in the Twin Cities metro area, blowing and drifting, of course, in addition. So that will add to the dilemmas that you might face if you're trying to travel. So take care. Overnight lows tonight on the nippy side, 10 below to 3 above. It should, for the most part, clear off a little bit tomorrow. But do stay up on changing weather conditions in your area.

Well, back now to our Midday program. We just heard from Ray Christensen. And next up is John Galardi, whose Collegeville, Minnesota Saint John's University football team came within a whisker this month of winning their fourth national championship. They were really given very little chance. After all, they had finished second to Bethel in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference this year.

They were the lowest seeded team in this year's Division III national playoffs. But the Johnnies kept winning and winning. And two weeks ago, they ended up in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl. That's the Division III national championship game. They were heavy underdogs. They were playing the New York Yankees of small college football, Mount Union, Ohio.

But Galardi's team hung in and they hung on, and they nearly won the game. The final score was 10 to 7 with Mount Union winning on a last-second field goal. John Galardi has not lost many other games in his 52 year coaching career. In fact, only Eddie Robinson has won more games in the history of college football.

And Galardi has won all these games by taking a very unusual approach to coaching. There's no tackling at a Saint John's practice, no hardcore weight lifting programs, no abusive hollering, no pointless calisthenics-- virtually none of the nastiness that can make football such a grind. And unlike the big time programs that you see at schools like the University of Minnesota, there are no athletic scholarships.

But Galardi, who is now 74 years old and still going strong, has proven that different can be good-- very good. in fact. It worked for him for four years at Carroll College in Montana. And it's worked for him for the last 48 years at Saint John's.

Last year, as part of our Voices of Minnesota series, William Willcoxen talked with John Galardi about his career and his approach to coaching. Galardi explained that some of his unorthodox methods go all the way back to his days as a 16-year-old player-coach at his high school in Trinidad, Colorado.

JOHN GALARDI: I started with my teammates, really. They're good guys. And of course, I couldn't order them around. You know, they're my buddies. Some of them are older than I am. I sure couldn't command them around like a drill sergeant. So I'd have to ask them a lot of questions. Well, what do you guys think about doing this? You know? We still kind of do that.

And I think you get a lot of input. And if they say, well, we don't want to do this or that-- well, then you don't do it. [LAUGHS] Unless you-- you know, maybe you do it, maybe you don't. But you sure take that into consideration. For one thing, and the one thing I always remember is, you know, there are a lot of taboos that coaches had or people had, I suppose.

One of them, believe it or not, you're not supposed to drink water when you're a high school coach, playing in high school, or any athletes. It was-- I don't know how that originated. Until very recently, they still had that idea. Don't drink, it'll-- something will happen to you.

Well, I was around the coal mines. I'd see those sweaty horses and mules coming out of the mines. Said, hell, if they didn't give them some water somehow-- I don't know how much water they gave them or anything, but they had to give them water. Otherwise, I figured they were going to die.

And the plow horses-- we had a lot of plow horses. The fields were being plowed, they couldn't do without water. And I figured, jeez. So, the coach-- no water, he'd say. Well, I'd sneak some water when he wasn't looking, you know. These other guys, I think I'm going to die. They thought, oh god, this guy.

So when I took over, that was the first thing. When we got tired, I said, let's-- water break. Jeez, nobody moved except me. [LAUGHS] I was the only guy at the water fountain. [LAUGHING] These other guys looking at me like I was going to die, they were ready for me to die. So when they saw that I didn't keel over, they all start nibbling at the fountain.

Pretty soon they all ignored it and all drank. So that's the first thing we put to rest. And we had all kinds of things that the coaches-- to this day, I do things the way I wanted to do them as a player, not the way-- because here I am, a 16-year-old guy, no coach, no adult to supervise me.

But I knew that-- we didn't know how to do everything, so we did a lot of things the way he told us. But things that I thought that we shouldn't do, such as goofy calisthenics and knee-- all kinds of duck walking and sprinting, and things that I hated. They liked to play ball. You didn't like to do all this ridiculous stuff. So we just didn't do it.

Well, I'd ask our players-- you guys want to do this? Well, most of them didn't want to do it either, so it was in good shape, see? I wouldn't just say, all right, we're not going to do this. Other than the water fountain, that was the only thing. That's the only thing that I did that they weren't so sure of. Otherwise, I had them all rallying behind me, see?

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: You get rid of the duck walk, huh?

JOHN GALARDI: Oh, jeez. I hated that. I hate that stupid duck walk. Later we discovered-- later we learned that was really bad for you, to be in this deep, complete knee bends. It was very bad for your knees. You're actually doing something that was going to hurt you, and did a lot.

Then the other thing, you know, he'd punish you by-- if you'd screw up or something, he thought you'd screw up, he'd punish you by running laps. Well, I don't know. There were all kinds of things.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Well, I mean, that is certainly one of the stereotypes I think about football coaches generally, is that they behave like drill sergeants. They get in your face, they yell at you, they punish you, things like that. Is that a part of coaching?

JOHN GALARDI: Well, I think that a lot of things, particularly coaching, was, I think, adapted from the military. And who knows? I'm sure they know what they're doing. I was never in the military, so I don't know how it works. I see enough horror movies that I say, jeez, I don't know how those poor guys endure that kind of stuff.

But anyway, I sure couldn't treat my buddies. They'd throw me out of there if I tried to treat them like that, you know? And I don't like to be treated that way. And I generally don't like to treat people like that. You got to coach them and correct the errors. And sometimes I look like raising your own kids. Sometimes you get a little more irritated than you should. And I always feel worse than they do. So try not to get too carried away.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: What kind of students are you dealing with here at Saint John's?

JOHN GALARDI: Well, at Saint John's and at Carroll College-- I will say that, at Carroll College, I had the same type of good guys, top notch people. Now, the key to it is looking back, all the way back through all my college career, I have to include Carroll College because they were very, very good. They came from great families. That's the key thing.

They came from small towns, big towns, every place-- big kids, small kids, but all, for the most part, good kids from good families. Yeah, we didn't have many bad apples at either place. I don't know if we had any. Must have had a couple, but I don't remember them. The top notch guys, it's guys like, right off the bat, Jim Lehman, father of Tom Lehman, was here waiting for me at Saint John's.

Became the leading scorer in the country, and still a top guy. A matter of fact, Tom himself was headed has come to St John's. 1976, he was a very good quarterback at Alec. And at the middle of August, he decided to go to the University to play golf. And I always say to Jim, jeez, he's lucky I didn't jump in that car and tell you, for God's sakes, Jim, have him come down and follow your footsteps.

What kind of future could there be in golf for a kid from Minnesota? My great contribution to Lehman's and to golfdom.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: So you still don't have scholarships? Have you ever had scholarships?

JOHN GALARDI: No, no. See, we were way ahead of the game. In my career at Saint John's, we've never had a scholarship. I don't know, I think before that, they might have had them. They were happy to hire me so that they could get rid of those scholarships. But now in 1976, we join the NCAA Division III, which now does not permit scholarships.

Now, there's still a lot of interpretation of that financial aid. But I'll tell you, we were [? Simon ?] pure as ever, Johnny Blood was, right. [CHUCKLES] You know, these guys want to win, as he said, but they don't want to do much, huh? Well, they want to win. And they still want to win. And I think they got the right idea.

They treat the student the way they're supposed to be treated-- the athlete, I mean. They really shouldn't give an athlete any different break than any other student. What is that other-- what does an athlete do, other-- we actually give them the opportunity to play a great game.

And our guys don't ask for anything. Our students here and at Carroll College, they have never asked for any more. They just ask to the opportunity to play football or sports, and go to class and get a good education. When they get out of here, they've done a lot of great things with their lives.

And that doesn't just mean financially. I mean, you don't have to be-- I could have been happy as my brothers were, being bodymen and my dad, a blacksmith. And, you know, all you got to do is raise a good family and have a good life.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Is it hard to get-- I mean, the academic standards are pretty high here. And we're probably 100 miles from the Twin Cities. We're at a monastery, kind of in a wetland here. Is it hard to get kids interested in coming to school here?

JOHN GALARDI: I don't know. I've never seemed to have much trouble. Maybe we're not going to get everybody. That guy that wants the bright lights, they're not going to come here. You know, we get certain guys who say, well, they want to go where there's more social activity, or this or that. But we get the kind of guys I like, who like it out here.

We tell them, what nicer place can you be? Talk about Madden's resort. Everybody pays these big bucks to go to Madden's resort. This is better than Madden's resort-- better facilities. The only thing we don't have that they have is a golf course. But we got a lot of other things they don't have. And it's a beautiful setting. And frankly, we tell the kids from the Twin Cities, at the end of the day in the Twin Cities, they're all trying to get to places like this.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: You talked about no special treatment of athletes here. Do you find that it's difficult for these guys to juggle sports and school and whatever else they have going on in life?

JOHN GALARDI: Not if they have the ability to do it, you know. First of all, we get a smart kid. They don't just take anybody in here. And then after all, college is not as-- it's not like high school. They got a big adaption. Because they might have three classes in one day, maybe two classes someday. That's not a bad schedule. [LAUGHS]

You know, if they can't balance life and get to study in between, what other people go to class, go to work for two or three hours and then they're off for four or five hours or the rest of the day? You know, college is a different life, pretty darn nice life. You got to learn to take that kind of-- I don't think it's that difficult.

It's not easy because you're judged constantly by profs who want to grade you, but who, incidentally never want to be graded themselves.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: I wanted to ask you about your practices. I visited one of your practices once. There was little, if any, tackling. Is that pretty customary?

JOHN GALARDI: Well, if there was any tackling, there shouldn't have been any. [CHUCKLES] We don't go full go. We don't ever bring anybody down. We're trying to avoid injuries. That's the biggest bugaboo of all, is the people, all the injuries. And we can control that in practice.

We can't control it in the games, but we can sure control it in practice. Now we take a big chance. And it's something that nobody else in the history of football has ever done the way we do it now. We're going to play in another week. We won't have-- ever tackle anybody. We've been doing that all the time.

A year ago we did it. And all we did was go undefeated, win 11 straight games, and we lost in the final game. We led the nation in defense last year, and we've led them in offense a number of times. So it works for us. And what I like best is we cut down the injuries. Unfortunately, game time, and even if you're playing touch football or pick up basketball, you get injured.

I've had guys get injured playing kick the can. [CHUCKLES] We have had guys get injured falling out of the top bunks of their beds here. So, you know, people get injured just walking off a curb. So we're going to get injuries. But I think we have reduced them dramatically.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: And the thinking is, by the time kids get to college and they've played high school football, they know how to tackle?

JOHN GALARDI: No, I don't think it's so much that. [LAUGHS] They don't know. They might know how to tackle, but there's more to playing defense than just tackling. You know, he could be a great tackler. But if you get blocked, if you get fooled, if you get injured, if you-- a lot of things can happen to you. And you're not going to make a tackle if you're injured and not playing.

So if you can't get to the ball carrier, you're not going to make a tackle either. If they've blocked you or if they've-- so we're teaching them all these other things. And we're going to get to the ball carrier. Then we figure, well, hopefully, you'll tackle. If you don't tackle, then how can you think that you can play defense?

We do a lot of things differently. And our guys like it. We like it, and it seems to work. So I don't think you have to follow the mainstream all the time. We don't follow the herd always-- very rarely.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: You're doing it a little bit differently than most football programs, and it sure seems to work for you. Have things caught on elsewhere? It doesn't seem like--

JOHN GALARDI: Well, I don't-- we're not out there trying to make converts. Now, people that have played for me and believed in the program, such as Mike Grant, who has had tremendous career at Eden Prairie. Gary Fasching, when he's coaching at Cathedral. [? Jim ?] [? Mader ?] up at Albany does it, pretty much. But they're guys that know and believe in what we do, have done it well.

But there are a lot of ways to get it done. There's a lot of guys who are drill sergeants, and they're winning pretty good, too. Lombardi and Parcells, and I think Joe Paterno is a little bit that way. They can win pretty-- they don't need my advice at all. At least, they haven't called me for any.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Now you've won one or two championships, national championships, even.

JOHN GALARDI: We've won three of them, yeah. And we've been knocking at the door many, many times, but haven't been able to-- well, we won three, at least. And we could have and should have and might have won more. But we have won three. We're capable of doing it, if you get a little luck.

But it's not easy. It's like winning the Super Bowl. There's only 36 teams. I don't know how many teams, 32 teams go after it. We got 300 teams. And it's not so easy. So to have won it once, twice. We've won it three times, and be in the running once in a while, it's not bad.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Have any of your players played professional football?

JOHN GALARDI: We haven't had too many that have. We've had a few of them, but no, nobody that really ever made it big. So the odds of anybody, even the guys out of University of Minnesota or Notre Dame or Nebraska making it are pretty remote. But a guy from our level, it's even more remote, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It happens.

First of all, they've got to get a break. And then secondly, they got to be good enough. Not a lot of them are good enough. It's like almost getting to medical school. There are a lot of guys who never got to medical school who might have made great doctors, but they never got in. Never had a shot. There are a lot of people out there capable of doing great things that either never get the chance or never get the second chance.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: So your players are-- since they're not going toward professional football, they're all out there getting real jobs, you might say.

JOHN GALARDI: They don't make the kind of money, I don't think, that the pros make now. But at one time, they-- I think guys are-- turned out a lot of guys who become doctors, lawyers, very successful businessman. They do pretty well, I think.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Were you ever tempted to leave Saint John's or to get out of coaching once you started?

JOHN GALARDI: Well, the greatest temptation I ever had was after many years of surviving these Minnesota winters. University of San Diego offered me that job. And I went out there in the winter and looked at that place. And I thought, my god, what would life be like? This is a dead of winter here. It's so nice.

But by that time my family had-- three of my kids were married and living in Minnesota. And I thought, you know, it's a little ridiculous to split up a family. The first thing that's important is a family. The only thing that, in retrospect, they had was more nice weather, milder weather. And we got plenty of nice days, [CHUCKLES] but not as many as they do.

And so after giving a lot of consideration, I just figured that wasn't enough to move. Because there were plenty of drawbacks to all this, all the traffic and all the other things. They had more money. But then again, I never was in this thing for the money, so.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Were you ever interested in becoming an assistant coach in the pros?

JOHN GALARDI: No, I never was. I liked the kind of life I live when I can do what I want to do. An assistant, I don't know exactly what you have to do. [CHUCKLES] I think you have to ask for permission to go to the toilet, maybe, I don't know.

[LAUGHTER]

I don't know. I like to be my own boss. I'm like the farmer. He may not be doing very well, but at least he does what he wants to do.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: What makes you want to keep doing it? Why are you still here?

JOHN GALARDI: I don't know. What else is there to do? I'm not going-- I'm not interested in golfing or fishing or anything else. See, I know a lot of people that retire and after a while, they start looking for-- first thing they say, they're going to visit, to spend more time with their family or travel.

Well, I've done enough traveling. We got plenty travel to do. My family, I see enough of them. I see them all the time. And how much can you see them? You go to visit your grandkids, they're in school, mostly. What are you going to do there? Go to school with them? So, OK. So then they start looking for volunteer work.

They start to volunteer, do this or get a-- say, well, again, I got work. I got plenty of work. I got more than-- at least I know a little bit what I'm supposed to be doing. Now If I go volunteer, do what? Go give haircuts to somebody? [LAUGHS] Or what do you do? I don't know how to do that. So I'll do what I know what to do.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: You're just going to keep plugging away at it, you think?

JOHN GALARDI: As long as I can or as long as they don't fire me. I got this lifetime contract here that-- of course, they can declare me dead. Give me the last sacraments and say, you're dying, in case we start losing.

WILLIAM WILLCOXEN: Have you gotten a raise from $4,200? Or are you still--?

JOHN GALARDI: We're up to $4,300, and all the bread I can eat.

[LAUGHTER]

GARY EICHTEN: Saint John's University football coach John Galardi, speaking last year with Minnesota Public Radio's William Willcoxen. This month, the Johnnies played for the Division III national championship. They lost to heavily favored Mount Union on a last-second field goal.

Well, that does it for our Midday program today. Gary Eichten here. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks to Dan Olson, who produces our Voices of Minnesota series for gathering the material. Just a reminder, as you consider year end tax planning, we hope you'll think about a contribution to Minnesota Public Radio. Call 1-800-227-2811 For more information.

Now, we have some more information on what we're going to be doing tomorrow on our Midday program, last program of the year 2000 tomorrow on Midday. Eugene McCarthy is going to be in our studios, weather permitting. Former Senator McCarthy will be here to take a look back at what has been a very unusual year, and should be an interesting discussion. That's at 11:00.

And then over the noon hour, our senior economics correspondent Chris Farrell will join us to try to explain what in the world happened on Wall Street, and whether we can look for a recession next year. That's tomorrow on Midday.

CATHY WURZER: Hey, you. [TAPS MIC] Listen up. It's cold out there. I'm Cathy Wurzer. Don't go out until you listen to Morning Edition. We'll keep you posted on the weather and all the news, weekdays from 4:00 to 9:00 on Minnesota Public Radio, KNOW FM 91.1.

GARY EICHTEN: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. It's still snowing, 8 degrees above, windchill, 23 below at KNOW FM 91.1, Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Winter storm warning in effect for the Twin Cities this afternoon and tonight, 6 to 9 inches total accumulation. Highs today, 10 to 15. Lows tonight, 5 to 10. Tomorrow, more light snow with a high near 10.