One guy who doesn't want to coach the Minnesota Timberwolves is Tubby Smith.
During his illustrious 18-year college basketball head coaching career, Smith has been offered -- and turned down -- five NBA coaching jobs. This spring, the University of Minnesota coach said no thanks to an offer of almost $3 million annually to coach the University of Virginia.
"I'm here as the coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers," Smith said. "I'm a guy of my word. If I say I'm going to be someplace, I'll be here. We've got this thing going the right way. I'm happy and pleased here."
That's not to say Smith, 57, wouldn't eventually consider the NBA. But some years from now.
"Maybe further down the road, I might," he said.
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-- Minnesota Twins hit king Joe Mauer's older brother, Jake, who played baseball for four years for the University of St. Thomas, is still the MIAC's all-time hits leader at 243, Tommies sports information director Gene McGivern points out, and led the school to the 2001 national championship.
Jake, now managing the Twins' Gulf Coast rookie league club in Fort Myers, Fla., began the 2001 season with nine straight hits in a doubleheader against Massachusetts in Florida. In his final at-bat that day, he hit a line drive that the UMass right fielder dived to catch, denying a 10-for-10 performance. Against Pittsburgh at the Metrodome on Tuesday night, Joe Mauer -- baseball's top hitter at .425 -- was 4-for-4.
-- St. Bernard's recent graduate Geoff Douglas, a catcher who finished his baseball season hitting .457, didn't strike out a single time in 84 plate appearances.
-- Copyright (c) 2009, St. Paul Pioneer Press/Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
