Page 12 Edina Falls Sports Preview • Thursday, September 3, 2026 current. mnsun. com
Sports meetings were all about football years ago
When I was a rookie sports writer at Sun Newspapers in 1972, expectations for what the staff would cover each week were a lot different than they are now.
Going around the table at weekly sports staff meetings, we discussed football almost exclusively. I knew that Dick Bonneville would be at the Robbinsdale High football game, Bob Utecht would be covering Bloomington Lincoln, Tom Harmon would be following his Richfield Spartans, Don Buehler would be reporting on Edina-West and John Barnes would be on the sidelines with the Minnetonka Skippers.
As the newcomer – and not knowing any better – I was in scramble mode every Friday night, taking in parts of games involving St. Louis Park, Edina-East, Wayzata, Hopkins Eisenhower and Hopkins Lindbergh.
One of the lessons I learned quickly is that you can’ t be in two or three places at once. However, it is possible to be in two or three places the same evening.
I wrote articles about each of my football teams every week and noticed that most of the sports sections in the Sun papers didn’ t go much beyond football.
JUST FOR KICKS
Since I had played soccer in college and understood the game pretty well, I began covering high school soccer matches. Not every school had a team back then. Edina-East and Edina-West
John Sherman
Sports Editor
John Sherman is a sports editor for AMM of ECM. Contact him at john. sherman @ apgecm. com.
played soccer, so did Hopkins Eisenhower, Hopkins Lindbergh and St. Louis Park. Believe it or not, Minnetonka and Wayzata did not have high school soccer when I started.
The late Laszlo Szendrey, who coached Edina-East, was surprised when I showed up at a Thursday night game to take photos.“ You are the first one to do so,” he said.
Rudi Martignacco, the head coach of Richfield boys soccer, saw me on the sideline and said,“ Oh, yes, finally. I’ m glad someone noticed. We, sir, are the OTHER football team!”
BAREFOOT BOYS
A few weeks into my first fall season, I began going to the weekly Lake Conference boys cross country meets at Lake Nokomis in south Minneapolis. There wasn’ t a hill to be found and the course was the same every week. Some of the guys ran barefoot, like Jim Thomas of Bloomington Lincoln.
“ What happens when you step on a rock?” I asked one of the barefoot brigade.
He looked at me like I was from Mars and said,“ I keep on running.”
Some of the runners – or“ harriers” as we called them back then – who always wore shoes were front runners Donnie Lee
( SUN PHOTO BY JOHN SHERMAN)
Since the time girls tennis became a varsity sport at Edina High in the mid-1970s, the Hornets have won a total of 38 state championships. The leader of this year’ s squad is sophomore captain Bella Loucks at first singles.
of Hopkins Eisenhower, Steve Plasencia of Cooper, George Ross of Wayzata and Gary Johnson of Edina-East. I still have memories of them running along the marshland at Lake Nokomis.
GIRLS SPORTS
The 1972-73 school year was the first year of Title IX, which mandated sports for all. Girls sports developed slowly, but enthusiastically, in the suburbs.
There were high school volleyball and tennis teams for girls at a handful of schools. Schools like Hopkins Lindbergh, Golden Valley and Robbinsdale had girls swimming teams. A few schools, including Edina-East and Edina-West, ventured into girls gymnastics that winter.
I must have told this story a thousand times over the years. The stands at the Golden Valley High School pool were full when the GV Vikings hosted Hopkins Lindbergh in a dual meet to see who had the state’ s best team. Elmer Luke’ s Flyers won that afternoon with his daughter Traci leading the way.
The first time I covered a girls gymnastics meet between Edina-East and Edina-West, I walked into the gym with my camera and one of the mothers rushed toward me.
“ What are you doing here?” she asked anxiously.“ I am here to take photos for the Edina Sun,” I said.
“ Oh, no, we can’ t have that!” the mother screeched.“ The girls are very nervous already.”
“ What if I stand way over by the stairs?” I asked.
The protective mom thought about it for about 30 seconds and told me,“ We can try it, I guess.”
I saw the same mom in the hallway at Edina-West a few weeks later. She had seen the photos in the newspaper. I thought she might be angry, but she was quick to smile and asked,“ When can you come back again.”
That was my introduction to girls sports, and I’ ve been coming back ever since.
When I think back to the sports colleagues from the 1970s, I can’ t recall them showing any enthusiasm at all for girls sports. They continued in the football mode, and I’ ll have to admit that I loved covering high school football, too.
When I became the executive sports editor for all of the Sun papers, I was still in my early 20s. My expectation was that every sports writer and photographer would cover girls sports.
Some did, others did not. Some stayed with the newspaper, some did not.
I am pleased to say that 55 years later very few sports writers I know talk about boys sports or girls sports. What we focus on is fair and balanced coverage of all high school sports.
The job is harder now with eight or nine fall sports at most schools. But, on the other hand, there is something important to cover every day.