Friday night I was sitting in my recliner scrolling through all the social media posts about the Minneota Viking football team capturing their third straight Class A football championship earlier in the day. Then suddenly something caught my eye and I was filled with emotions

I was looking at Jeremiason Photos and noticed all the offensive lineman from Minneota doing their jobs blocking for the running backs and protecting the quarterback. Each still picture of a football play saw the big guys blocking for Ryan Meagher and Destin Fier and other backs. I was so impressed by their technics, and mostly every lineman was helmet on helmet with a Springfield Tiger. I’m not a coach, but that was very impressive to me.

Then, as always, my mind takes me back to when I played high school football. I too was an offensive lineman. I played for the Madison Dragons on the varsity in the fall of 1973, 1974 and 1975. I started at right tackle as a sophomore. During my senior year my brother Greg was the quarterback. We had winning records each year and it was a great experience. I enjoyed playing on the offensive line.

Each Saturday morning  my mother would turn the radio on in the kitchen and we would listen to the area Coaches Show on KDMA radio in Montevideo. It was a two hour high school sports show and they called all the football coaches in the area and got the report from the Friday night before. This was before the internet so the radio and newspapers were the only way to get football scores and hear how the area teams did and which players had a great game.

As a young man I was always  hoping that my coach or the radio host would say my name on the radio. Now, I know that the quarterback and running backs along with the wide receivers will get all the press because they are the ones carrying the football and scoring. Their names are always in the newspaper and on the radio. I remember always being disappointed when I didn’t hear my name on the radio or see my name in the newspaper. It was always my brother the quarterback getting all the praise. He deserved it, but if it wasn’t for me and my lineman friends pass blocking and making blocks he wouldn’t have the success he did. At Madison we had some great running backs and their pictures were always on the front page of the sports page and always talked about on the radio. Usually nothing was said about the linemen!

Fast forward to 2024. I am a high school sports broadcaster and guess what I like to do when broadcasting a high school football game? I am mentioning linemen names as often as I can. Because of my experience playing high school football, I took a pledge a while back that high school football lineman will always be on my tongue and I will praise them for what they do. At US Bank Stadium the last two weeks before we went on the air I told my broadcast partner that we will be talking about the linemen. We will mention their names often and give them credit. I have been doing this since I started broadcasting.

So, Scott Monson and I named the Minneota Vikings starting offensive linemen the Neon Needles Players of the Game for what they did in all three state tournament games. Here are their names

Noah Gorecki, Parker Bradley, Kyler Lozinski, Tom DeSmet, Kyson Arndt and TE Eli Grueness. Starting offensive lineman for the 3 time state champions Minneota Vikings.

Thanks to Jeremiason Photo and Reba Lipinski and photos by emma j lipinski for all the great photos.