Mankato Memories—Vikings Begin Their Final Camp in Southern Minnesota
Joe Oberle
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My trip down Highway 169 to Mankato for Vikings training camp was just a little bit more nostalgic this year, as the team announced 2017 would be the final camp at Minnesota State University—Mankato. All good things must come to an end, and, for me, this annual trek south to my hometown has been a great one, and I will be sad to see it end.
I grew up in Mankato in time to be around for all 52 camps that have been held there (and when I was still living there, I made just about every one). In more recent times, as a Vikings beat writer for first cbssports.com through Vikings Journal and now purplePTSD.com, I make the annual drive south, stay at my mom’s house (for some excellent food and my old bed), visit friends and have a beer with the other Vikings beat writers at Mankato Brewery, (the award-winning craft beer brewer that’s now in my home town).
That tradition comes to an end after this summer, and certainly not everyone in Mankato is happy about it.
But it has been a good run. The fact that the Vikings are still training offsite is a rarity in the NFL these days (quarterback Sam Bradford said it is his first time having to travel to a training camp), and when the team’s Eagan facility is finished next year, it might become pretty obvious why the move was made (other than for the financial reasons). The new facility will be huge (three outdoor fields and one indoor), state-of-the-art and in close proximity for all the team’s operations (there is talk of rookies staying in the hotels to be built on the premises).
But there is still difficulty in leaving:
“It’s good to get back here to Mankato, head coach Mike Zimmer said. “There’s been a long tradition here with the school and the Vikings. Want to make sure we do a good job here and get a lot of work done. It’s been a great relationship for the 52 years it’s been. I heard someone say the other day that this was one of the longest continuous schools to hold training camp. We’ve been proud of the relationship that we had and we’re here, we’re ready to get back to work. It’s good to get going again, get these young guys in here early a few days and go from there.”
Or then again:
“Is it bittersweet to leave Mankato?” Zimmer was asked.
“I don’t know about bittersweet, they just tell me where to go, and I go,” said the coach, who has only been here for four training camps.
And that is likely the case for many of the players, who also go where they’re told to go. That is, with the possible exception of former MSU Maverick Adam Thielen, who doesn’t know another summer football training locale than Blakeslee Field.
“Last camp; it’s going to be crazy,” Thielen said. “This is my 10th camp here including college, so it’s going to be a little different not coming to Mankato anymore. But I am going to enjoy this last one. I love seeing the people who watched me throughout college and now in the NFL, so it’s fun to see all those people come out and say ‘I watched you in college.’ So, that’s definitely exciting. I am going to take advantage of it.”
But for many the scribes and the camera people and broadcasters and other journalists who must upend their life a bit for the better part of three weeks each August, what does the change mean to them?
“Mankato is great to getaway for a few days, and the drudgery of training camp can set in after a week,” said Tim Yotter, publisher of VikingUpdate and a veteran of 20 training camps. “When you are down here, you don’t get to see your family, so there are advantages and disadvantages overall. But, personally, I’d rather just be able to go home at eight or nine o’clock and see my kids.”
Mark Craig is the NFL/Vikings writer and has been coming to Mankato since 2003, and while he won’t miss the drive down to Mankato every year (he lives in Burnsville, so the new facility will be in his virtual backyard), he will remember it fondly.
“I did enjoy the break coming down,” Craig said. “You get to spend time with friends and colleagues that you don’t normally throughout the year. But for me, it’s time. I don’t hang out as late as these guys anymore. I will miss it. We have all our restaurants and places that we go to. So, I will miss it.”
Barry Wortel sees it from a different perspective. He’s been on the air for KTOE in Mankato for decades and is a training camp fixture. He laments the loss for Mankato, but knows it might make his job a little easier.
“Professionally, I am not going to miss them. But as a fan, I will,” Wortel said. “The business side of it—my gosh, the Vikings have added so much. Somebody says [it brings in] $5 million per year, which is hard for me to fathom. But whether it’s restaurants or hotels, many say they are going to replace them. Well, we’re not going to replace the Vikings, but we can replace the revenue with activities, whether you have concerts or have something different. But it’s tough to see them go. Sometimes we take things for granted when we have them. Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
Well, I guess my case is a little different. I am a Twin Cities journalist now, so the journey back home has always been one I look forward to taking. It brings back so many memories as a kid of going to practice, where Karl Kassulke (who I had met the previous day), coming up behind me and lifting me off my bike while letting out his trademark horse laugh—the other kids watching nearby stood by in envious awe). Or when my neighbor told me to go get Alan Page’s autograph just as Page was trying to escape Gage parking lot—Page was not pleased and signed it as “Al Pag,” so I didn’t collect too many signatures after that. And then there was the picture of my brother on the front page of the Star Tribune, watching his heroes from behind the snow fence. Of course, later there was my high school job of slinging burgers at Robby’s Hamburgers, which was located just a block from the campus. We spent summer afternoons trying to ID the players who would wander in for a burger and fries (well maybe several burgers).
Those kinds of memories are old, homespun nostalgia from innocent days gone by, and the new digs in metro might present a different atmosphere. Will it attract all the folks from southern Minnesota and the surrounding area who made the annual pilgrimage to camp?
“The interesting that is going to be seeing fans who are close to Mankato from Iowa, southwestern Minnesota, South Dakota, are they going to drive that extra hour or so up to Eagan,” Yotter said. “I have gotten the feeling talking to people from around Mankato or who live in Mankato that there is not bitterness—they knew it was coming. But I definitely think that some of the people who normally have come to Mankato will go up to Eagan. Overall there will be some hesitation at first about the change, but once they get to the new facility, they are going to like that experience as much or better. I think they Vikings will do everything they can to make it a really good fan experience.”
But what will it mean next year for me, when I am back at home in my (current) bed, eating my own cooking and drinking Twin Cities craft beer? I am not sure yet. It will be an adjustment for sure—and some of it I will appreciate. Like most everything else, there is good and bad in all change.
The Vikings are celebrating the end of an era in Mankato, which is nice, but it also means the end of significant revenue for the area and national recognition for the southern Minnesota town. (Heck, my mom might be having a small party of her own when the time comes that she no longer has to provide room and board to her son that still doesn’t understand curfew hours.)
Mankato has been a great host to the Purple for more than half a century. From the time when my dad took me to my first practice, to the many times I rode my bike up the steep Stadium Road hill, heading up on my own to see what was happening, the summer camp was a part of my youth. And now in recent times it has been a part of my professional career. It will be hard for me to imagine the Vikings no longer in Mankato.
But then we all don’t live forever, and all memories eventually fade. So, for now, I will just thank Mankato, and cherish the memories I have—and look forward to making some new ones in Eagan.