U of M chagrined over Stephens goof

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 08/25/2005

Athletic Director Maturi discusses the spelling error

Recently, the University of Minnesota made a big, embarrassing mistake in misspelling the last name of Gopher great Sandy Stephens on printed season tickets. Stephens, the late great all-American quarterback, was the first Black all-American quarterback in the United States. He led the Gophers to their last national championship and trip to the Rose Bowl in 1960.

 

Stephens died in 2000 and is one of only four Gophers in the history of the university to have his number retired. Obviously, when Stephens represented this Big Ten institution as a student athlete, what he did and accomplished reflected on the entire community, both the U of M and the state of Minnesota.

 

University of Minnesota officials expressed regret for the error. “We made a mistake, and I’m the athletic director, and I need to take responsibility for these kinds of things and make sure that we have a staff that does not make those kind of mistakes,” said Joel Maturi.

 

Former Gopher great Al Nuness, now vice president of Jostens, represents the U of M on the Big Ten advisory committee on diversity; his son Jordan plays on the current Gopher basketball team. He was quoted in a recent Star Tribune story titled “U spelling error angers black community.”

 

“It’s incomprehensible for them to misspell the name of a prominent athlete like Sandy Stephens,” Nuness said. “This guy was the first Black major college quarterback. He led them to the Rose Bowl two years in a row, and a national title. His number is retired and he has an endowed scholarship in his name. And we misspell his name? That’s inexcusable.”

 

Obviously, the Star Tribune was wrong to say that the Black community is angered. Why didn’t they say the entire community or the Gopher community is angered? Because Stephens was Black, does that mean only Black people should be upset, disappointed or angered by this mistake? This had nothing to do with race, and the Star Tribune injected race into it. For that they should be ashamed.

 

“I appreciate your comments, Larry, and really agree with you,” said Maturi. “All Gophers should be maybe even angered, certainly disappointed and frustrated at a mistake [misspelling] one of our great all-Americans who played for the Gophers, Sandy Stephens.

 

“That is certainly how we here in the athletic department feel. In no way was there any racial connotation to it. I struggle to even find out how anybody might look at it that way. We did try to contact the Stephens family — his sister still lives here in the cities. I spoke to her personally.

“I did talk to the two individuals who were quoted in the article and apologized to them, and they were seemingly understanding. And that’s really all we can do. We made a mistake. I know the people involved feel sick about it,” Maturi said.  

 

“The frustrating thing — and I know it does not mean anything — the good news is [that] we were trying to commemorate our greats. And I think one of the things that I keep hearing in my three years as athletic director here is that we have not honored our past as much as we should. And I would tend to concur with that.

 

“So, in an effort to honor our past, I think we did the right things by putting the picture and the name of some of our Gopher greats on our tickets. That’s the good news. The other good news is [that] we did the same thing in our media guide and the posters, and the name is spelled correctly.”

 

“Interestingly enough, the misspelling was caught... In our proofing, it was found. It was corrected in two of the three places. For some reason it did not get corrected on the tickets, and that’s where our frustration is.” 

 

Larry Fitzgerald can be heard weekday mornings on KMOJ Radio, 89.9 FM, at 8:20 am, and Monday evenings 6-7 pm. He welcomes reader responses to lfitzgerald@spokesman-recorder.com, or visit www.Larry-Fitzgerald.com.

 

 Catption: Joel Maturi