 | Off the Shelf: More than a Sports Authority
7/15/2008Dave Mona has been an institution in Minnesota for more than 40 years. His long career includes founding his own public relations firm, providing color commentary for Gopher football broadcasts, and stints at the Minnesota Daily, the Minneapolis Tribune, WCCO TV, and WCCO Radio—including more than 25 years co-hosting the Sunday morning sports radio show with sportswriter Sid Hartman from which the title of the book is taken. Over the years, Mona—a past president of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association—has rubbed elbows with such Minnesota luminaries and high-profile personalities as Calvin Griffith, Garrison Keillor (B.A. ’66), Halsey Hall, and Molly Ivins, who worked at the Minneapolis Tribune when Mona was cutting his teeth in journalism.
Beyond the Sports Huddle does exactly what the title suggests: It goes beyond the public storytelling that Mona has done for four decades to the behind-the-scenes people, places, conversations, and events that have shaped his career. Mona is a great raconteur with a knack for lively dialogue, and he uses it to bring decades’ worth of experiences to life. He writes richly of his years as a journalism student at the U and of the rigorous training he received from legendary professor Mitchell Charnley. Minnesotans who remember WCCO TV’s Dave Moore (B.A. ’49) will enjoy Mona’s stories about his tenure as the first editor of Moore’s Bedtime Nooz program in the 1960s.
The book contains several award-winning features that Mona wrote during his career, including one from the Minnesota Daily on the third- and fourth-stringers who played on the Gopher football squad. And baseball fans will relish the article on the old Nicollet ballpark that first appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune in 1966.
Mona’s wide-ranging experience combined with his reporter’s eye for detail make Beyond the Sports Huddle an entertaining, informative, and often humorous recollection of nearly a half-century of Minnesota history. It’s a great read for sports fans as well as anyone interested in Minnesota history and culture.
—Cynthia Scott
Minnesota, Hail to Thee!
By Karal Ann Marling
Afton Press, 2008
In a tribute to Minnesota’s sesquicentennial, University of Minnesota professor Karal Ann Marling wrote a rich history of the nation’s 32nd state, full of facts, anecdotes, and drama. Marling, who has taught art history and American studies at the U for 30 years, is a popular culture scholar and has authored more than 30 books. She covers the North Star state’s roots as a territory, French  |
and Indian place names in the state, Minnesotans in the Civil War and the U.S.–Dakota War, milling and the other industries that built the economy, art and architecture, and, of course, state icons, from the giant Willie Walleye in Baudette to the U’s Goldy Gopher.
Open Line
By Ellen Hawley (B.A. ’81)
Coffee House Press, 2008
A work of political satire, Ellen Hawley’s second novel unfolds when late-night Minneapolis radio host Annette Majoris suggests that the Vietnam War was a hoax. When the phone lines light up, she realizes she’s hit a national nerve that needs numbing. If the war never happened, then the United States never suffered a defeat, the country never split along an ideological divide, and the American psyche did not need to be so bruised. But she underestimates the political forces at work as she rides a wave of fame in a world  |
of celebrity culture, big-money politics, and 24-hour news.
The Soul Thief
By Charles Baxter
Pantheon, 2008
University of Minnesota English professor Charles Baxter’s fifth novel wrestles with identity, just as the main character wrestles with relationships. The first half of the novel is set in upstate New York in the 1970s where graduate student Nathaniel Mason is pulled into the orbit of elusive and enigmatic friends and lovers, one of whom begins to appropriate objects and details from Nathaniel’s life until a tragic event triggers the crumbling of Nathaniel’s world. The novel’s second half is set 30 years later, when a character from Nathaniel’s grad-school days resurfaces, questioning Nathaniel’s identity. Baxter is the author of the National Book Award–nominated The Feast of Love, which was recently made into a film.
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