Hope is hard to find

Talk about it

You have to look hard to find hope these days if you’re loyal to this region’s pro sports team.

Outside of the Minnesota Lynx, the soon-to-be two-time defending champions of the WNBA, the well is pretty dry.

There’s no sense in cataloging the misery — Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves, Wild — in Groundhog Day fashion, one season seems like the previous and they keep repeating.

If you live around here, probably better served to pin your hopes on the Jimmies.

This fall, new coach Shawn Frank will try to get the JC football team turned around. It’s not a total reclamation project by any means, but it will be interesting to see how things are different. Frank will bring plenty of energy and enthusiasm to the job there’s no doubt about that. And the recent past proves you can win big here. Bud Etzold and Tom Dosch both did it.

Same is true in basketball.

Greg Ulland’s Jimmie women will be loaded for bear. It’s too early for bold predictions, but the Jimmies deserve to be ranked in the top 10 in the preseason poll.

Jimmie men’s basketball coach Matt Murken has to plug a lot of holes, some expected, some not, but Murken will find a way and have his team in the thick of it when it matters.

The Jimmies will be good in baseball and volleyball, as they always are, softball too. So there is hope in town.

The Blue Jays? I’m done placing any expectations on any team in any sport. The second you do that a fiery crash and burn is sure to follow. So we’ll let Bill Nelson, Tim Fletcher, Rob Hummel and others continue to work their athletes hard this summer and hope for the best in the fall, winter and spring.

Last weekend I was playing softball with my dad, a hopeless optimist as it pertains to the Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves, Gophers and everything else for that matter. He’s very excited and upbeat about Byron Buxton, the 18-year-old the Twins took with the No. 2 pick in the Major League Baseball draft earlier this month.

“You know, he’s probably four, maybe five years away from making any kind of a dent, and that’s if everything goes as planned?” I recall saying to him. “He’s a great athlete. He’s faster than Ben Revere. You just wait,” he insisted.

Four or five years may seem like a long time to some, but for those of us who have grown up with the Twins, Vikings and Timberwolves — who been around for 125 years combined and produced two titles — really, what’s another couple of years.

Sun sports editor Dave Selvig can be reached at (701) 952-8460 or by e-mail at dselvig@jamestownsun.com

Tags: sports, baseball, vikings, football, twins