Nick Coleman: 'Suds' Sonsalla wishes U had tapped a keg

Don Sonsalla was cutting grass behind his White Bear Lake home Wednesday when a neighbor came running with news he knew Don would want to hear: The University of Minnesota Board of Regents had just voted not to allow beer or alcohol to be sold anywhere in the new football palace the U will open this fall.

Don shook his head. With one disastrous fumble, the university:

1) Proved it is out of touch with Minnesota culture; 2) Thumbed its nose at the Legislature, which happens to hold the U's purse-strings; 3) Made it more difficult for football fans to suffer through another Gophers season, and 4) vindicated Donald Sonsalla, who, along with his wife, Verna, gave up on good old Ski-U-Mah after 55 years of holding season tickets and bleeding maroon and gold.

Can't anybody here play this game?

I wrote about "Suds" Sonsalla last December when the longtime St. Paul educator, Korean War vet and one-time Gopher football player gave up his season tickets because of the university's absurd plans to peddle booze to the richest fans, but not to the regular ones. Don, 78, could not ignore the inequities and class distinctions being drawn up by high-falutin' U administrators who probably never enjoyed an original Gluek or Schmidt in their lives, let alone a Schell's or a Grain Belt, but were now cutting off the majority of adult ticket buyers from adult beverages.

Now the regents have imperially carried the policy to a self-defeating length, ignoring the clear intention of a new law requiring the U to sell beer to all fans of legal age or to none. The regents chose "none," pouting and trying to put the blame on the Legislature or, worse, on forever fans like Don Sonsalla.

It isn't working. Don, now 78, is not feeling guilty.

"If the poor man can't drink, then nobody should drink," he says. "We won one for the little guy. But why are they cutting their nose off to spite their face?"

In other words, Don was asking, why is the U of M cutting off all sales -- after 26 years playing in the beer stench of the Metrodome -- rather than conceding to the will of the people and continuing to sell beer to all legal customers? Most of the worries expressed by U officials are insulting (our students are a bunch of lushes who will burn down Dinkytown if they drink two beers during the game) or plain stupid (how can wealthy contributors feel special if bleacher bums get beer, too?).

Knock it off, university. You are dear to our hearts. But you are not our mommy.

It is a shame that the regents spent more time talking about beer than they did about the 1,200 jobs they were cutting. But the issue is important because it suggests the Head in the Clouds Crowd does not understand to whom the U of M belongs.

"Here's the thing that bothers me," says Patrick Garofalo, a Republican legislator from Farmington: "The university doesn't even understand why this bothers us."

"This isn't partisan," Garofalo says. "Democrats and Republicans are appalled by the attitude that, 'We can't trust the serfs to consume alcohol -- the peasants can't be trusted.' That's not Minnesotan. If they can take our money to build a new stadium, and then say they can't trust the peasants, well, they're messing with Minnesota."

Garofalo plans to introduce a bill in the next Legislature that will spell out the wishes of the state in words a 5-year-old can understand: You will sell, and you will sell to all. Garofalo wants some of the proceeds to go to scholarships for disabled vets. That's a great idea. Don Sonsalla might have qualified when he got back to the U in 1953, home from Korea with shrapnel in his leg.

"I hope they'll get the message now," Sonsalla says. "I won't go to the games, but I'll still root for the U of M, in front of the TV. And with a beer in my hand."