A video of former Gophers football coach Tim Brewster, now an assistant with Colorado, provided a reminder of how little sense he ever made — in conversation or as the leader of a Big Ten program.
Brewster is evidence that Minnesota sports were relentlessly dysfunctional in the late 2000s and early 2010s, with the Gophers hiring Coach Brew and the Timberwolves hiring General Manager David Kahn.
Brewster and Kahn might have obscured a similarly disastrous decision: the University of Minnesota hiring Norwood Teague as athletic director in 2012.
Teague would resign following multiple allegations of sexual harassment. Before he was disgraced, he allowed his arrogance as a supposed basketball guru to prompt one of the worst decisions in modern Minnesota sports history, right up there with hiring Brewster or Kahn.
He fired Tubby Smith.
In 2013, the Gophers men advanced in the NCAA tournament for the first time since Clem Haskins reached the Final Four in 1997, when Smith coached them past UCLA.
Teague immediately fired him after a loss to Florida two days later.
That decision could have been justified, had Teague brought in an excellent coach. Instead, he overrated his influence in the basketball community, missed on all of his preferred candidates, and settled for Richard Pitino, who had one year of experience as a head coach, at little Florida International.
