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Masters of the unappreciated work that drives
franchises, Duwelius, Smith, and St. Peter will be remembered for everything
they gave to the Lynx and Twins and the fanbases that follow.
By Jim Souhan
The Minnesota Star Tribune
November 17, 2024 AT 8:00AM
From left, Clare DuWelius departed her job as Lynx general manager
to take on a role with the new three-on-three women's league starting up; Katie Smith is leaving as a Lynx
assistant coach for a position at Ohio State, where she is one of the greatest
players in program history; and Dave St. Peter is stepping down as Twins
president after 22 years in that position.
The
departures of Clare Duwelius, Katie Smith and Dave St. Peter leaves the Twin
Cities sports scene a lesser place.
They were masters of the unappreciated work that drives franchises.
This past week, Duwelius left her
position as general manager of the Minnesota Lynx to become executive vice
president and general manager of Unrivaled, the women’s three-on-three
basketball league founded in part by Lynx star Napheesa Collier.
Smith left her position as Lynx
associate head coach to become an assistant coach at her alma mater, Ohio
State.
Dave St. Peter retired as the Twins
team president and CEO to take an advisory role with the team.
All three will be difficult to
replace, just as, because of their roles, they were difficult to fully
appreciate.
Take Duwelius. She worked her way
up through the Lynx organization from the most menial jobs to become the
primary adviser to basketball boss Cheryl Reeve. Last season, the Lynx
overachieved grandly, going from middle-of-the-pack projections to within a basket
of winning another WNBA title.
During the years when I spent time
behind the scenes with the Lynx, I found Duwelius to be the kind of person who
considered no task too small for her to tackle. She’d fix the coffee machine,
break down video of a potential free agent, then throw passes to a player
during shooting drills.
Smith,
too, was known for putting in extra work. Last season, she helped the Lynx
become the best three-point shooting team in the league, after finishing 11th
in the 12-team league the season before.
She coached Kayla McBride and Bridget Carleton so well on shooting
mechanics and mentality that both broke her Lynx franchise record for
three-pointers made in a season.
Neither Duwelius nor Smith sought
attention, but the players knew their value.
St. Peter followed a similar path
to Duwelius, getting a low-level job with a big-league franchise and slowly
climbing the organizational ladder.
What’s different about St. Peter is
that he invested his entire adult life in THE … of one franchise.
He went from running the Twins pro
shops you’d see in strip malls back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s to becoming
team president and eventually CEO. He’s one reason the Twins went from threats
of relocation and contraction in the late ‘90s to becoming a stable franchise
with a state-of-the-art ballpark.
I know St. Peter better than
Duwelius and Smith, in part because I spent months doing a profile of St. Peter
after Target Field opened.
I came away from that assignment
with two strong memories:
Every Twins employee I spoke with,
on and off the record, marveled that St. Peter knew virtually everyone’s job
better than they did.
Before games, St. Peter would walk
through the bars at Target Field, thanking employees, and then walk through the
stands to thank ushers. He knew everyone’s name.
St. Peter also ranked among the
most accessible team presidents in all of professional sports.
He ranked among the most
forthcoming, too.
During a series of interviews, he
volunteered that his dedication to his job cost him his marriage. During my
many years covering the franchise, I had always found that Twins employees
worked almost untenable schedules. St. Peter agreed, and vowed to make working
for the franchise a better experience.
Without Duwelius and Smith, the Lynx might not have produced a magical
season in 2024.
Without St. Peter (and his
predecessor, Jerry Bell), the Twins might not have Target Field, or a Minnesota
zip code.
Duwelius is positioned to be a
power player in a promising new league. She could run a WNBA franchise if she
so chooses.
Smith should be a head coach in the WNBA or college, and probably will
be when the time is right for her.
St. Peter? His retirement will
probably consist of going to lots of ballgames, and if anybody with the Twins
calls, he’ll probably pick up before the second ring.
