Welcome to the Friday edition of The Cooler, where it's always about me. Let's get to it:
*Generation X isn't Generation Xs and Os, at least when it comes to high-profile Minnesota head coaches.
That wasn't the big-picture takeaway, of course, from colleague Rachel Blount's interesting look at the five 30-something coaches of high-profile Minnesota sports teams currently in charge. But as a bona fide member of Generation X, I couldn't help but notice an interesting gap.
In the chart accompanying the story, 11 coaches were listed. Four of them were 57 or older — certified Baby Boomers Bruce Boudreau, Wild (64), Mike Zimmer, Vikings (62), Adrian Heath, United (58) and Bob Motzko, U men's hockey (57).
And then there were the five coaches 38 or younger, all of whom classify as Millennials if we accept that the birth year for that generation starts in 1980: P.J. Fleck, Gophers football (38); Rocco Baldelli, Twins (37); Lindsay Whalen, Gophers women's basketball (36); Richard Pitino, Gophers men's basketball (36); and Ryan Saunders, Wolves (32).
Three of those Millennial coaches have taken over within the last year, including the most recent (Saunders) as an interim.
That leaves only two of the 11 in Generation X: Brad Frost, 45, with Gophers women's hockey and Cheryl Reeve, 52, with the Lynx.
Research suggests that Generation X is ascending to the majority of business leadership roles and is playing a key role shaping society — contrary, perhaps, to the narratives the surrounding generations would like to advance — but that's not playing out in Minnesota sports.