 Well, go for fans. This one's for you. The annual athletics road trip has been making its way across the state this past couple weeks. Today they made stops in Park Rapids this morning and then Bagley this afternoon at the Timbers Event Center. Athletics director Mark Coyle along with select coaches from Richard Petino and PJ Fleck, a basketball and football, the Bagley native and head coach John Carlson. We're all in attendance. Getting to Carlson's hometown on this road trip has been a goal for a while now. He's very excited to come back to family and friends representing the Maroon in Gold. It certainly means a lot to me. When they asked me about coming to Bagley or coming to Bemidji, I immediately said let's go to my hometown and the coaches, they're excited and they're excited for me and my family and they're just excited to have go for athletics here in town. A lot of energy within the crowd with new football coach PJ Fleck in his speech introduced himself to Gopher Nation. Excited to meet all the new fans. He's ready to get this program to the next level winning some championships also with rowing the boat in the land of 10,000 lakes. States absolutely have been elite to us and I think that's really good for me because I'm not from Minnesota. I don't know Minnesota very well. So to be able to see all of our towns and our state and just see how many people really support the Gophers and that's one of the reasons why I came here. Our football program hasn't won a championship in 50 years but we've sold out every single place we've been. There's a ton of Gophers excited about Gopher Athletics and it's really special. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.