Seasons
SEASON: 36 | YEAR: 1984
HEAD COACH: BOB BJORKLUND
Game 312 | January 12, 1984 | Lou Holtz
He amazed the audience with his magic tricks, but the biggest trick of all was rebuilding interest in Gopher football. The team he inherited from Joe Salem went 4-7 in 1984, but attendance surged. The 1985 team finished 7-5, sending the Gophers to post-season play for the first time since 1977. Holtz resigned at the end of the regular season to become the coach at Notre Dame but the Gophers sold more than 55,000 season tickets for the next season.
(LtoR) Jack Hoffner, Paul Giel, Lou Holtz, Sid Hartman (physician)
Game 313 | February 15, 1984 | David Chadwick, Thomas Rongen, Tim Robbie
With the early success of the Minnesota Kicks, the stage was set for indoor soccer in Minnesota. Tim Robbie, son of Dolpins owner Joe Robbie, moved the Fort Lauderdale Strikers to Minnesota in 1984. The team moved into Met Center for the 1984-85 season and played there for the next three years. Chadwick served as the team's manager, and Rongen was one of the team's top scorers.
Game 314 | March 28, 1984 | Merlin Dewing, Dick Pomerantz
With Twins attendance sagging only two years after the move into the Metrodome, the community began to organize to keep the team here. Dewing ran the local office of Peat Marwick and Mitchell and was the Chairman of the Board of the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. Pomerantz, just coming off several years as a local talk show host, was hired to help market Twins tickets to the community.
Game 315 | June 6, 1984 | Harmon Killebrew
Harmon was back as part of the Twins broadcast team, nine years after his playing career ended. He had his number 3 formally retired on May 4, 1975. His appearance at Dunkers coincided with his election into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York.
(LtoR) Norm McGrew, Harmon Killebrew, Bob Bjorklund, Howard Fox (physician)
Game 316 | June 19, 1984 | Brooks Fields
Construction was well under way on Canterbury Downs when Fields appeared at Dunkers in 1984. The Shakopee facility was set to open in 1985, and Fields is generally regarded as the "Father of Thoroughbred Racing" in Minnesota. He was a former Pillsbury grain trader and executive vice president of Burdick Grain Co. for 29 years. A Dunker member since 1985, Fields died in 2008.
Game 317 | August 14, 1984 | Kirby Puckett, Tim Teufel
The popular outfielder, considered by many to be the best player in the history of the Minnesota Twins franchise, made his major league debut on May 8, 1984, with four hits against the California Angels. He was only the ninth player in major league history to break in with four hits. Playing only two-thirds of the season, he hit .296 and led the team with 14 stolen bases. With the arrival of Puckett, the young Twins had in place the nucleus of the team that would win the World Series in 1987. Teufel was the team's starting second baseman in 1984 and was traded to the Mets for Bill Beane in 1986.
(LtoR) Jim Blake (physician), Bob Bjorklund, Kirby Puckett, Tim Teufel, Jack Hoffner
Game 318 | August 30, 1984 | Jody Rosenthal
Only 22 years old at the time, Rosenthal won the Women's British Amateur Championship and played for the U.S. team in the 1984 Curtis Cup matches. An Edina native, she left Minnesota for Tulsa University where she became the first four-time All American in that school's history.
Game 319 | September 13, 1984 | Susan Rapp, Jim Martinez
A native of Eden Prairie, Rapp was the state's top high school swimmer in the mid 1980s. She left Minnesota for Stanford and won a silver medal for the United States in the 200-meter breaststroke event at the 1984 Olympics. Martinez, a Gopher teammate of 1983 guest Don Chandler, won a bronze medal at the same Los Angeles games in Greco-Roman wrestling.
Game 320 | October 18, 1984 | Carl Eller
Eller, who starred for both the Minnesota Gophers and Minnesota Vikings, played the 1979 season with the Seattle Seahawks and retired after that season. A first-round pick by the Vikings in the 1964 college football draft, Eller was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006.
Game 321 | November 15, 1984 | Jim Dutcher
Tommy Davis, John Shasky and Marc Wilson led a young Gopher team to a 13-15 record in 1984-'85. Highly touted freshman Mitch Lee started the first 14 games for the Gophers in what was to be Dutcher's next -to-last season as head coach. Dutcher has been a Dunker since 1987, and his daughter; Judi, became a member in 2004.