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Gophers offense in good hands with receiver Eric Decker

Adam Weber was surprised Eric Decker was walking around their apartment pain free Sunday.

Weber’s roommate and go to wide receiver took a vicious hit and tweaked an ankle Saturday in Minnesota’s 35 21 loss to California and luckily had only three stitches on his chin to show for it.

“I told him, ‘There goes your modeling career,’ ” said Weber, the Gophers’ junior quarterback. “I was surprised about how well he was moving around. His face looked the worst, but it was probably good for him humbled him a bit.”

The Gophers (2 1), who open Big Ten Conference discount nfl jerseys play Saturday at Northwestern (2 1), are able to joke with custom mlb jerseys Decker now, but they dodged a major blow with Decker being healthy this week. He’s especially important to a team with the least productive rushing game in the conference and few other passing options for Weber.

Decker, who set a school record with his fourth consecutive 100 yard game last weekend, ranks second in the nation with 415 receiving yards and 27 catches through three games. Troy Stoudermire is second on the team with 10 catches.

Michael Floyd, another former local star receiver, was putting up similar numbers for Notre Dame when his season abruptly ended over the weekend with a broken collarbone against Michigan.

“This is a rough game,” said Decker, who said he felt bad for Floyd.

Decker took a brutal hit from Cal safety Sean Cattouse,throwback nba jerseys, who Decker thought led with his shoulder pads and helmet and hit him in the chest area and not in the head. Decker said he was more vulnerable with his hands extended, and ended up suffering whiplash dwight howard jersey when he hit the ground after the hit.

“I’m just thankful I caught the ball, held on to it and was able to get up and play the rest of the game,” he said. “I got the wind knocked out of me a little bit, but it took me about two minutes to catch it back.”

As a marked man,nhl jerseys cheap 356,throwback nba jerseys, Decker has tried to be aware of where defenders are on the field to protect himself. But there wasn’t much Decker or Weber could have done russell westbrook jersey on that kyrie irving jersey play.

“You love to score points, but hate to do that at the expense of really hurting somebody,nike nfl jerseys 408,” Weber said. “As a quarterback, it’s your job to keep your receiver safe. But in that situation I don’t know where else I could have put the football.”

Sophomore receiver Brandon Green, who ranks second on the team with 93 yards receiving on eight catches, said Decker’s willingness to risk his body to make those leaping catches is contagious.

“It just makes me want to play every play like it’s my last and do anything to help the team win,” Green said. “He really does make some customized nfl jerseys unbelievable catches.”

Last year, Decker’s big play ability was limited after eric bledsoe jersey suffering an injury steve nash jersey to the same left ankle in a loss to Northwestern. He could barely walk the next day but tried to play the following week against Michigan.

The high ankle sprain kept Decker from being a factor in final three games of the regular season. He also needed knee surgery before the Insight Bowl, which the Gophers lost to Kansas.

But since that point,throwback nba jerseys, Decker has been building his body back up to be tougher.

The 6 foot 2, 225 pound Cold Spring, Minn., native added 15 pounds of muscle since the spring, specifically to bounce back from physically challenging games.

“I was the type of guy that said I could play through anything last year,” Decker said. “Really, when it got down best nhl jerseys to it, it was worse than I mlb throwback jerseys thought. I really underevaluated it, but I know my body better (now).”

New city schools chief extolled at previous job

For all the sticky situations a superintendent faces, there is one type of mess Paul McKendrick seemed to relish.

Several years ago, teacher Kathy Hudson recalled, McKendrick dropped by for one of the most chaotic experiences the division has to offer kindergarten cheap authentic nhl jerseys on Valentine’s Day.

School board members have not publicly discussed his departure, but several commented in interviews recently on some of the high points and challenges of his tenure, as well as his contributions to the cheap nfl nike jerseys division.

Board members and fellow educators said cheap authentic nfl jerseys McKendrick’s compassion for students laced his legacy in Lynchburg.

“You can talk about a guy whose laser like focus was always on kids,” Linkhorne Middle School principal Robert Kerns said. “Sometimes that wasn’t the easiest decision, but it was what was right.”

During his time at the top,cheap nfl authentic jerseys, McKendrick pioneered changes in teacher training and evaluation, re tooled parts of the alternative education system and expanded program offerings for both advanced and struggling students.

He also weathered a series of trials including division financial missteps, state funding cuts and sometimes strained relations between school officials and the City Council.

Recently, McKendrick took a moment to reflect on his time as superintendent as nike nfl jerseys he moves toward the exit. He hadn’t yet packed his office penguin figurines, signed baseballs and children’s books still sat on his shelves. His Harvard University diploma still hung on the wall.

Seated in front of his desk, McKendrick spoke about what he has accomplished and mlb jersey size chart the tasks that lie ahead for the next superintendent.

There are a few things he wishes he could see completed, he said, like finding a new home for the division’s high school alternative education center. On the other hand, his general philosophy is that a school administrator’s job is never done, no matter what fixes are put in place.

“I bought a T shirt at the Nike store and I really liked it that said, is no finish line,’ ” McKendrick said. Glass High School.

Both took jobs with the school division, McKendrick as deputy superintendent, his wife as an art teacher.

After former Superintendent James McCormick announced his departure for another school division, McKendrick told The News Advance that he expected he would be named as McCormick’s permanent replacement.

School board member Albert Billingsly said the statement exposed a different aspect of the soft spoken administrator his confidence.

“Quiet strength, if you will,” allen iverson jersey Billingsly said, “but very sure of the direction he was going and the path.”

As nba all star jerseys it turned out, school board members did appoint him in 2005,cheap nfl authentic jerseys, after what they describe as near unanimous support for McKendrick among other Lynchburg City Schools staff members who were interviewed during the superintendent search process.

Once in office, McKendrick expanded on previous relationships with staff and cheap nfl jerseys china school board members and made the acquaintance of superintendents around the region.

Former Campbell County Superintendent George Nolley,cheap nfl authentic jerseys, who retired in 2009,custom mlb jerseys 826, said he saw McKendrick as professional, ego less and straight forward.

“He didn’t seem the least bit political,” Nolley said, “and cheap nfl jerseys that may have hurt him a bit.”

Early in his tenure,john wall jersey 129, McKendrick became convinced the division’s system for evaluating teachers wasn’t cutting it.

Good teaching, he felt, hadn’t been defined, and standards weren’t uniform across the division. He thought much of the current criteria missed the crucial point of whether students were learning.

His solution was to begin implementation of a program called Skillful Teacher, based on the idea that teachers must believe in all their students and make that clear everyday.

Skillful Teacher emphasizes that it’s not enough for a teacher to present the lesson the teacher must check for comprehension, rather than waiting till the test before they discover whether the students are catching on.

This year, the division was set to have graduated just under half of its more than 700 teachers from the skillful teacher program training. The plan is custom nfl jerseys that eventually all teachers to whom it is relevant will be trained and evaluated via Skillful Teacher precepts.