The Chicago Bears have hired St. Louis Park native Marc Trestman as their new head coach, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Trestman, 57, is a former Golden Gopher football player, who also worked as an assistant coach for the Vikings. The past five years he’s been the head coach of the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League, winning two Grey Cup titles.
Trestman was one of 13 known candidates to be interviewed for the Bears job. As the Star Tribune’s Jim Souhan wrote, Trestman — an offensive guru who specializes in coaching quarterbacks — might be the perfect pick to coax a career season out of quarterback Jay Cutler.
For more on Trestman, check out his web site, coachmarktrestman.com. We especially like his article for Sports Illustrated a few years back on how to watch NFL training camp through the eyes of a coach.
Trestman writes: “One of my great thrills growing up in Minnesota was taking the 90-minute drive with my dad to watch Coach Bud Grant’s Vikings train in Mankato … It was a thrill to cross paths at camp with my boyhood idols, FranTarkenton, Alan Page, Bill Brown and Carl Eller.”
You had us at “Bud.”
For the record, Mr. Grant, who hired Trestman as an assistant in 1985-86, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press today: “It’s about time.”
