I’ve been on a brief “bloggatical” (a blogging sabbatical, if you will) for the past week or so. I’ve been getting my home ready for a big Thanksgiving Family Feast. There was lots of cleaning and cooking and hosting to be done. Now that’s done so it’s time to get back into the swing of things at work.
So today’s post is about football. First things first: Congratulations to the Eden Prairie High School Eagles on their perfect 13-0 season and their fifth Class AAAAA football state championship at the 25th annual Prep Bowl last Friday. I was there, as was half of Eden Prairie. Lakeville South was a worthy opponent, but they just couldn’t quite get it done. The Eagle defense was formidable, while the offense was getting 5 yards minimum every time they ran off the block of All-State Right Tackle Ryan Orton. It was an excellent game.
In other football news, this time on the professional side, it seems that the partnership between our own Minnesota Viking Football Club and their suitors from Anoka County has come unraveled. As you might know, Eden Prairie entered the Viking Stadium competition for a brief stint in 2003. We floated a location: the former Best Buy headquarters site. We had some simple architectural drawings prepared. We met with stadium architects, consultants and team officials.We testified at the State Legislature. We probably spent a thousand dollars on the proposal, exclusive of staff time.
We withdrew from the State’s stadium development proposal process when it was clear that Anoka County was approaching this issue with a might war chest. I saw in a Star Tribune article last week that Anoka County officials have estimated that they’ve spent over $850,000 on developing the stadium proposal and working with the Wilf family on the plan. Uff da. That’s a lot of dough. I’m glad we got out of that process when we did.
