The news that Thomas Tapeh has signed with the Vikings made us feel a little, well, old. A little dig through the archives revealed a story we remembered writing about Tapeh for the Newspaper of the Twin Cities; what we had forgotten is that it’s been more than nine years (Jan. 31, 1999) since it was published. He was a high school senior at St. Paul Johnson. And we were 22. In any event, it was a longer piece as part of our “Super Preps” package. We’re going to throw it out there right now as a little trip down memory lane. Remember: Comments between 4-8 today will be lost forever as we change servers. So e-mail your COW votes and YouTube Sunday submissions. Here we go:

It could have been the most nerve-wracking moment of Thomas Tapeh’s life. The St. Paul Johnson running back was in the middle of reading a prepared statement in which he would tell a media gathering, after months of guessing, what school was going to land the state’s top recruit.

But just when it seemed he was ready to say what everybody came to hear, he paused, and veered onto another subject. Tapeh later returned to the straight and narrow, verbally committing to Minnesota amid cheers from family and friends. It was that little deviation, however, that defines him. Nothing is above him, and nothing will rush him. Patience is a virtue, and it’s also his trademark.

It’s what gives him the security to trust his on-field instincts, which led him to rush for 1,845 yards and 27 touchdowns in just eight games as a senior. And it’s the foremost reason he was able to survive the recruiting process — the pitchman coaches, the expert advice from strangers and the constant phone calls — that have led others to rush decisions just to put the process behind them.

“My mom always told me that whatever I do, don’t rush things, don’t rush life,” Tapeh said. “If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. So I just sit back and let it happen.”

Where that philosophy has taken him is quite remarkable. He has already won numerous awards as a senior — the Star Tribune Metro Player of the Year, the Associated Press Minnesota Player of the Year, a top 50 national recruit according to several recruiting experts — and he heads the Star Tribune’s Super Preps, the newspaper’s first compilation of the state’s most highly sought major-college football recruits. There will be fewer Minnesota seniors than usual signing letters of intent with Division I-A schools on Wednesday, but if quantity is lacking, quality is not.

Minnesota’s Glen Mason and his college coaching counterparts are prohibited by NCAA rules from discussing recruits until they have signed scholarship tenders. But be certain of this: Mason is ecstatic at the prospect of Tapeh signing. The Johnson star is the only running back the Gophers coaches have recruited. Tapeh has risen to national football prominence from humble beginnings. He came to Minnesota 10 years ago from Liberia, where he still remembers playing soccer in the streets until his shoes wore out, then playing barefoot. Soccer was his first love, a sport he continued to play until a knee injury in eighth grade temporarily forced him to the sidelines.

Three years ago, Johnson athletic director Karl Dickman had Tapeh in a physical education class. He recalls seeing the biggest, fastest kid he had never heard of, and wanting him to play football. Both remember Tapeh wasn’t interested at first, his response to football being that he was “a soccer player.”

But Tapeh wasn’t playing any sports that year, and Dickman couldn’t bear to think of his talent going to waste. The clincher was a standing long jump drill during the phys-ed class. Dickman said he had a board marked off at 7 1/2 feet, and those were the `A’ grades. Tapeh jumped over the board, which was about 9 feet long.

“I said, `I wasn’t paying attention, you must have taken a step and a jump,’ ” Dickman said. “He said, `No, just a jump.’ So I made sure I watched his feet next time. He just exploded.”

Not long after, Tapeh’s football career did the same. His sophomore season was an adjustment period, but it would quickly give way to better things. His junior- and senior-year statistics are virtually identical and add up to more than 3,700 yards rushing and 51 touchdowns.

Those numbers led to others: 10, sometimes 15 recruiting letters a day, all from schools wanting a piece of Tapeh’s time. Then came the official campus visits, home visits from coaches and constant phone calls. He could hardly go anywhere without hearing the inevitable question. Even at a school dance, the person working the door joked that Tapeh wouldn’t be let in unless he said he was going to pick Minnesota.

“It’s nice, but sometimes it’s a little overwhelming,” Tapeh said of the process. “The thing is, people all think it’s something great, but they don’t see what comes with it. If you make the wrong decision, that’s it.”

Make no mistake — he had his fun along the way. He took the compliments in stride and even had his own game with recruiters, in which he’d try to steer them away from talking about football. Still, there were times when he needed a normal life.

It’s a testament to his patience that he withstood everything, and it’s a testament to his family that he was able to find an escape. Whenever he needed to relax, he’d just hang out with his sister Amy, 3, and his brother, Archie, 5. They, along with his mom, Cecily Woiwor, and his two teenaged sisters, reminded him that family is what’s truly important.

Of course, that’s a lesson Tapeh learned at a much earlier age on the flight from Liberia to the United States. His father, Anthony, told him that no matter what happened, Tapeh needed to take care of the family. After the plane landed in New York, Anthony switched flights while the rest of the family continued to Minnesota. Tapeh has not talked to or seen his father since, but he has carried the message tighter than a football in the fourth quarter. Perhaps that’s why he knew a college choice would come to him naturally.

“I said, `I need you. I need you to stay here with me,’ ” Cecily said. “He said, `OK, mom, I’ve made my decision.’ ”

It was the only logical choice.

“It’s just her and five kids. She works all the time,” Tapeh said. “I want to take some of that pressure off of her. She’s my motivation. I know she’s tired, but she still does it.”

Sort of like how would-be tacklers feel after a day chasing Tapeh. Phil Archer, a linebacker from rival Cretin-Derham Hall who also has committed to Minnesota, knows the feeling. Although the two live a block away from each other and hang out frequently, Tapeh is neither friendly nor neighborly during games. “We’ve always played against each other, so it’ll be nice to change that up,” Archer said.

But that’s about all that will change for Tapeh. School will still be a priority (he has a 3.75 GPA in his core classes). His family will still be close by for support.

And the best things in life will continue to come one handoff at a time.

“I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, I don’t know why I’m here and I don’t know what’s going to happen to me,” Tapeh said. “I just have to enjoy life while I can.”

We were starting to wonder the other day what the heck happened to formerly-frequent commenter Brandon. And then out of the blue he sent us an e-mail explaining his absence (new job) and offered up this little ditty about Michael Cuddyer and his magic habits. It’s a Friday. Why not just run with it? Also: reminder that YouTube Sunday is definitely on. Send your links! They will be posted! Become famous! Get random phone calls from women who have been in Playboy! OK, Brandon:

Michael Cuddyer is something of a brilliant magician. Apparently he’s got close to 45 minutes of top-notch sleight of hand material; he has amazed his teammates during spring training with his textbook trickery.

This leads to a question: does this information make you like Cuddyer more, or less?

On the one hand, having such an innocent hobby (one shared with Dunder-Mifflin’s Michael Scott, it stands mentioning) makes Cuddy seem more human, more of a regular guy, a stand-up sort of fellow with whimsical interests. Doing magic is eminently more relatable than some of the more common hobbies enjoyed by professional athletes, like collecting jets or diving into pools of gold medallions.

On the other hand … come on, man; magic? If it wasn’t for role-playing games and fantasy movies, magic would be the nerdiest of all adult diversions. We’ve all read the recent University of Illinois study that found no one who has perfected a magic trick has ever gotten lucky. That’s common knowledge.

Cuddyer may be “normal,” but so am I, and so are you, and everyone around us is normal as well. Do we really want the athletes on our beloved sports franchises to be someone we could easily envision joining us at our lame parties and sitting in the cubicles next to ours, discussing recent innovations of wrinkle-free slacks? The heroes of yesteryear, your Joe Namaths and Ted Williams and Eddie Gaedels, would have slapped the taste out Cuddyer’s mouth for his inherent geekiness. Have our standards been lowered to a point that an admitted dork like Cuddyer — he didn’t even try to hide his shameful hobby! It’s as if he isn’t embarrassed at all! — can remain in the general public’s good graces?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

The good Mr. Judd Zulgad passes along this information: Sunday’s SportsCenter will feature a little Slap Shot flavor. From a press release (our emphasis in bold, as always):

SportsCenter’s featured piece Sunday, March 2, will profile Christian Hanson, a junior center on Notre Dame’s ice hockey team, and his father, Dave Hanson, who played one of the brutal-yet-beloved “Hanson Brothers” in the 1977 classic Slap Shot.

Dave describes his life-changing role as Slap Shot’s Jack Hanson, who made his way to the highest levels of professional hockey as an enforcer, while Christian, who has devoted a large part of his life to the sport, never saw his father’s movie until he was a teenager. Reporter Chris Connelly interviewed Dave, now a manager of the Robert Morris University Island Sports Complex in Pittsburgh, at the Cambria County War Memorial Auditorium in Johnstown, Pa., where Slap Shot was filmed.

Sorry, but there is no excuse to not see Slap Shot if you’re a hockey player. And there is ABSOLUTELY no excuse if your dad was in the film.

We could talk about how Sam Cassell has whined his way into a buyout (and how he’s likely headed to Boston, where he will surely be helpful again until he turns into a pain in the [redacted] again); we could get into how Brad Richards had five points for Dallas last night; we could talk high school sports until we were blue in the face (good games tonight at the Fairgrounds Coliseum: Centennial vs. Blaine and Hill-Murray vs. White Bear Lake in a pair of section finals). But you know what Friday is: Movie quote time. In an effort to appease Ty Webb, we’re attempting to man-up this week’s entries. If you testosterone levels are sufficiently high, please follow us to the list of 10.
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True story: Lisa Guerrero called and left a message last night. Seems Stu’s Hunt Down on former Twins pitcher Scott Erickson (Guerrero’s husband) last week found not only a national blog audience, but a snippet – pertaining to “A Plumm Summer,” the film the two are working on — also made its way into Page 2 of the Los Angeles Times’ sports section. So she wanted to let us know more about the film; we called her back this afternoon and happily obliged. She reports that “A Plumm Summer” has received very good reviews at various family film festivals; there is a good chance that the indie flick will make it into Twin Cities theaters as part of a limited release in a couple of months. “We’re independent filmmakers … anything helps us,” Guerrero said. “We can’t afford to buy commercial time in all these markets.” In case you don’t know, Guerrero was a sideline reporter for Monday Night Football and a personality on The Best Damn Sports Show Period; she has also appeared in multiple men’s magazines and, well, her career is eclectic enough that we should probably just link to it and get on with things. She had plenty to say about the movie, Scott Erickson and John Madden’s cookie-eating habits. Folks, we give you our Q&A with Lisa Guerrero.

RandBall: Like you said, this movie sounds like a strange concept. I’m wondering how you got involved with it in the first place?
Lisa Guerrero: I’ve been an actress since I was a kid, even before I was a sportscaster or broadcaster. I had done a show for Court TV a couple years ago, and I told my agent I really wanted to get back to acting.

But every time we had submitted me for an audition, the casting director or producer would say, “Oh yeah, we know Lisa Guerrero. But she’s a sportscaster, not an actor.” It was a real struggle to get auditions. So my agent suggested we go in another direction and look for an independent production company that’s doing a small budget film and pitch you to these types of producers and directors. So my manager found out about the female lead in “A Plumm Summer.” At the time, Freddie Highmore, the little boy from August Rush and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, was attached to it to play my character’s son. They had financing in place. I went in strictly as an actress. I got the role, but about three weeks later, Freddie dropped out so he could do August Rush — a better opportunity for him than an independent film — but they lost the funding. The project was just going to go away. Scott and I had discussed it, and we wanted to form our own production company anyway. … So when the financing fell out, I went to the current director and said, “If you guys can slash the budget, by less than half and recast this with actors and a crew that will work for scale, Scott and I would like to produce this with Home Team productions.

RB: Home Team productions?
LG: Yeah, that’s our company. We work from home, and we’re sports personalities, so it make sense. … So we got the rights to it, and worked out an agreement. We paid for the film, and we’re called the executive producers of the film. We sent scripts to people we thought would be the best adult leads, and the first actor we sent it to was Billy Baldwin, who plays my husband. He immediately said yes. He plays an alcoholic, very troubled character. The second person we sent a script to for a different character was Henry Winkler.

RB: The Fonz!
LG: The puppeteer, who’s a true person named Happy Herb. Henry got back to us within three days and said, “I’ll do it, I’m in.” Once we got Billy and Henry, the entire project came together. We shot on location in Montana. The actual real Happy Herb is still alive and has a cameo. The Governor of Montana has a cameo. It’s just a really sweet film. Most family films have animations, CGI … our film is a throwback to old Disney movies that you and I grew up watching. It’s all about the story, all about the family drama. No CGI, no special effects. Just a really sweet story.

RB: So Scott’s role is financing, doing some production. How is he doing overall?
LG: Oh my gosh. First of all, he’s a huge movie fan. It’s a dream come true for him to be on the set, watching the monitor, wearing the headset, working with actors. He was an accounting major at the University of Arizona.

RB: I didn’t realize that.
LG: Yeah, he’s really good at understanding money, working with unions, doing the DVD deal. He’s a very savvy producer on the business end. I do more of the production end that has to do with design, casting, script — the creative side. We have two really different roles. And of course all the actors are baseball fans. The kid who plays the lead, Chris Kelly, he’s going to be the star of a huge Universal project called Cirque du Freak … and we discovered him in Minnesota, on a videotape. He submitted when we were casting, and we were like, “Boy, he looks like could be the son of me and Billy Baldwin.”

RB: Handsome young man, he must be.
LG: Oh, thank you. Aw, shucks. But what’s amazing is he’s an incredible actor. He looks like a young Leo DiCaprio. And he’s from Minnesota. So for us to have an opening in Minnesota, with Scott and him having ties, makes a lot of sense.

RB: You alluded to this before, but was it frustrating ever to get pigeonholed into things — you had Monday Night Football, you were in various magazines — was it hard to get taken seriously with a project like this?
LG: It’s been a very varied career –- I’ve been a lead on a soap opera, I played George Lopez’s sister on the George Lopez Show, been on the cover of Playboy, did Monday Night Football, did Best Damn Sports Show.

RB: All over the place.
LG: All over the map. But I kept taking different adventures. Every single time I try something new, people raise their eyebrows or say, “Is this a smart move?” But I just wanted to choreograph my own career. I didn’t want to walk the same path as other people. I didn’t set out to be a sideline reporter; I set out to be an actor and a writer. … I have a real passion for being a different character. It’s up to a performer or a personality to get out of that pigeon-hole. Find something else to do. Surprise people. I think I’ve surprised a lot of people.

RB: You were in “Fire Down Below” and “Batman Returns.” I don’t remember those roles. Can you refresh my memory?
LG: I was blonde for “Batman Returns.” I was a volunteer worker campaigning for Danny Devito, and I looked nothing like myself. But that was pretty fun. “Fire Down Below,” I played a reporter. I get a lot of offers to play reporters. I’ve done that a few times, but that’s another problem: people try to get me for an athlete’s wife or a reporter.

RB: I think people remember you most for MNF — it’s a huge stage. What do you remember from that experience, and what’s your best story from that experience?
LG: The funny thing, and Scott laugh about this all the time, is that when people recognize me or e-mail me, the thing I get recognized most from is not Monday Night Football; it’s from Best Damn Sports Show. People quote specific things I said to Tom Arnold or Michael Irvin years ago. They remember a huge fight I got into with John Kruk over the potential players’ strike. People remember that stuff. Monday Night Football was a more prestigious gig. But yeah, Monday Night football, best story. Here is why I love John Madden: I hit it off with John and Al, they were like uncles to me. We had just finished a production meeting in a hotel, and the whole crew, John, Al, I, the director, were walking down a hallway. And there was one of those trays that people leave out from room service. Somebody had a cart out there with all the leftover food, half-eaten hamburgers, empty wine bottles. I’m chatting with John Madden about the head coach we had just interviewed. He stops in mid-sentence and lifts up a tray that is clearly leftovers, and right there is a cookie. There were half-eaten cookies around it, but there was one pristine cookie in the middle. He picks up the cookie, starts eating it and continues the conversation as if he hadn’t just picked up leftover food from a tray. For him, it was like, “Why would that be strange?” It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Scott was actually there. He was in the hallway, waiting by the elevator. He saw it, and said, “Did John Madden just pick up food from an old tray?” That’s something that really sticks out. That’s John Madden right there.

RB: Well, it sounds like you guys are enjoying this movie experience. Sorry if we were having fun with it, poking fun at it earlier.
LG: No, it was fine … and thanks. We have two more movies in pre-production. We’d like to make our money back on this one so we can do another one.