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BrauBlog

Kevin McHale's global warming skepticism led to Wolves win

By David Brauer | Published Thu, Apr 16 2009 5:07 pm

This is off the media beat, but longtime readers know I'm a Timberwolves fan (yeah, I know) and write a "Where are they now?" column for the club's season ticketholder magazine.

So when Wolves forward Mark Madsen Twittered "Will my boss Kevin McHale be back next year? Here are my thoughts," I eagerly clicked through. The tale was worth it in a way I didn't see coming ...

Writes Madsen:

Here is one of the reasons why I want Kevin McHale to return as the head coach of the Timberwolves:

About a week ago, the NBA allowed all of us players to take part in a "Go Green" campaign to help promote great issues like environmental awareness, recycling, and other types of "green thinking" issues. Of course it's a great opportunity and every team around the NBA wore warm-ups for one week with a big recycling logo on the front. Undoubtedly we have to take care of the environment in many many different ways.

Well, the first game we wore these special warm-up tops was against the Utah Jazz in Utah. After we had our 1-2-3- "Win" chant which was an event in itself that night, McHale held everybody up for one more minute and said something along the lines of,

"Hey fellas....I just want you to know about this global warming thing.....25 years ago it was Global Cooling and they were telling us we were going to freeze to death....so when they tell you all about global warming don't worry about it too much......."

Everyone was laughing so hard and it kind of loosened everybody up. We went out that night and took it to the Utah Jazz and won the game with a shorthanded roster.

Hey, those Michele Bachmann impressions crack everyone up! Except McHale was serious.

Madsen continues ...

Then a week later I walked into a breakfast meeting in San Francisco when we were playing the warriors and the first thing I hear is Kevin McHale explaining to a couple of guys on the team, "Yeah...the ice cap off of Greenland is receding but the ice caps off Antarctica are actually expanding...

Now, even though I think global warming is real, McHale's no Bachmann, so I view this mostly with bemusement. He has a right to his opinion, and as Madsen notes, it's good that McHale cares about public affairs. Plus, he's funnier than Dennis Miller!

McHale's politics shouldn't be a surprise; his wife Lynn is a Republican volunteer and Mitt Romney donor, so it makes sense global warming is viewed dimly in the McHale household. (I do wonder if the woods and birds are changing around their Hibbing cabin.) Hell, ex-GOP officeholder Glen Taylor is a big party donor, though I don't know his global warming stance. Maybe this explains a bit of Taylor's loyalty (thus far) to the perennially embattled icon.

Still, if McHale returns and you see the next year's team looking extra confident coming down the tunnel, check for tea bags.

Media | Thu, Apr 16 2009 5:07 pm | 8 Comments

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8 Comments: Hide/Show Comments

(#1) On April 16, 2009, Chris Dohman says:

hi david,

i agree it was a bit of an unexpected twist to madsen's post but it made it worth reading. nice job maddog.

i also find it refreshing that mchale wasn't toeing the politically correct line for the nba.

ok, here's where i'm going to nitpick with you for conversation sake. since when does a spouse's political views determine the other's view? i think its a stretch that kevin's views on this are because of lynn mchale's republican chants. i understand you are having some fun with this(at least i hope so) so i won't even address the politicl angle of why taylor keeps mchale around.

oh, and as far as comparing folks that don't buy the sky is falling global warming hype to michele bachmann. please don't go there. i don't buy the global warming view either and i find bachmann to be an embarrassment to mn politics. the real world does not comform into nice and neat little repub and dem packages. many of us have viewpoints on such things without caring what the political party lines are.

thanks for the fun...
@dohman

(#2) On April 16, 2009, Author David Brauer says:

Chris - yes, the Taylor comment was made in jest (the whole piece pretty much was), especially since Glen keeps Fred Hoiberg, who seems to be a Democrat, around, too. (Though I wonder about Fred's future under a new GM; he no longer appears the heir apparent.)

I agree, too, about spouses, who don't always agree. I recalled the Strib piece on Lynn McHale last fall, and it just seemed to mesh up here with Kevin's opinions.

As for Michele, just using the best foil to make the best (or at least, the best that I can make) joke. She does use that Global Cooling line a lot, even if it ignores the vast advances in climatological science in three decades.

But that's a debate for another day ...

(#3) On April 16, 2009, William Souder Grant says:

Seriously? Climate change is a matter of "opinion?"

Let's try a simpler example:

1. If I say Kevin McHale was one of the best forwards ever to play the game...that's an opinion. A defensible one, but still an opinion.

2. But if I say that, in my opinion, NBA players dunk easily because the rim is really only nine feet high...well, then I'm really just misinformed and wrong.

I think what you must have meant is that McHale has a right to believe whatever he wants to believe...including the tired, right-wing canards Madsen says he parrots.

(#4) On April 17, 2009, Eric Ferguson says:

http://www.ravensblog.net

Just for balance, let's find a congenial, universally liked climate scientist spouting uninformed opinions about basketball.

William, my opinion is you have a good example of the difference between a fact and an opinion. It is a fact that it is my opinion.

(#5) On April 17, 2009, Mike Haubrich says:

http://tuibguy.com

The "global cooling" myth has been exposed as a media misinterpretation of what the climatologists were saying. Anyone who has been paying attention to the issue on more than a superficial level will understand this.

Unless that person has an ideological reason to ignore the evidence, cherry-pick contrary facts and beg Congress to "Drill Baby Drill,," that is. Michele Bachmann is not a skeptic, she is a denialist and is making political hay out of this (now that she sees she is losing the battle against individual liberties in the area of same-sex merriage.)

If a basketball coach wants to kid about it to loosen up a bit, I don't think it does much harm. But a congresswoman should, in theory at least, be concerned with examining the facts.

Unless she likes those donations from the oil industry, of course.

(#6) On April 17, 2009, Chris Dohman says:

@william souder grant

i think mchale's opinion that david is referring to is that mchale does not believe climate change is man made. that's completely different than believing avg temp is up by a degree or two.

(#7) On April 17, 2009, Ron Gotzman says:

Why is this a story?

I know a major university scientist who believes in intelligent design. However, he is afraid to let anyone know.

Kevin thanks for being serious about what you believe.

(#8) On April 20, 2009, Wayne Bateman says:

http://www.speakshakespeare.com/climate.php

Even Shakespeare is speaking out on global warming:

Worrisome Falter of Global Climate

On day of Feb. 2, 2007, `twere the thinking panel for United Nations wherewithal to ponder unhappy climate change in vantage to declare with a sudden vigor sooth that proof of warming this world o`er be "unequivocal," alack th` effect of human contrivance hast "very likely" come to be cause of greater import in nature as in name for well on fifty year. . .

http://www.speakshakespeare.com/climate.php

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David Brauer authors Braublog and is MinnPost's local media reporter. He's covered media and politics as a writer and editor since 1983 for City Pages, the Southwest/Downtown Journal, KFAN and KSTP-AM, Mpls.St.Paul, Minnesota Monthly, Law & Politics, the Business Journal, KARE11 and national outlets. Follow him on Twitter. Email: dbrauer [at] minnpost [dot] com.

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