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During the Gophers’ pinpoint search for its next men’s basketball coach, Athletics Director Mark Coyle called on football coach P.J. Fleck to chip in.
Fleck chatted with top candidate Niko Medved in the week leading up to his hiring, which became official Monday. Then Fleck attended Medved’s news conference Tuesday, and Medved briefly popped into the U’s football practice later that afternoon.
Neither coach shared too much about their chat during the hiring process, but there were some indications.
“We just talked about how great it is to be a Gopher, my experience here, why I’m here in Year 9, why I love being here,” Fleck said.
It would be wise for Medved to implement what insights Fleck actually had to share. Since Fleck came the U in 2017, football has had sustained success, while men’s basketball is on its third coach, including Richard Pitino and Ben Johnson, in that timeframe.
Medved, a Roseville native, has seen where Gophers football was for decades before Fleck brought the level up in his tenure. Excluding the pandemic year, Fleck has taken the U to six straight bowl games.
Medved said he wanted to hear from Fleck about how “he navigated the new landscape in college athletics.” That means how Fleck has kept going to bowl games despite less robust name, image and likeness (NIL) funding at Minnesota.
The pair of coaches also tossed bouquets of compliments to each other.
“I’m a huge admirer of (Fleck’s) from a distance,” the former Colorado State coach told the Pioneer Press on Wednesday. “He’s so genuine to who he is. I just admire that, the energy and the passion, I can tell he really cares about people and his players. That’s something that I really believe in. And I just think he does that at such an elite level. He has really kind of transformed this program to a place that we…
Source link : https://www.twincities.com/2025/03/26/what-niko-medved-and-p-j-fleck-talked-about-during-hiring-process/
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Publish date : 2025-03-26 21:37:00
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