MANTORVILLE – If Daunte Cullpepper shows as much poise in the huddle as he does at the dinner table, then the future Minnesota Vikings is in good hands.

Tuesday, August 10, 1999

MANTORVILLE – If Daunte Cullpepper shows as much poise in the huddle as he does at the dinner table, then the future Minnesota Vikings is in good hands. Just as long as touchdowns aren’t judged on vocal talent.

Cullpepper and other rookies each had their chance to show their talent in one of the teams long standing tradition of veterans making first-year players stand up during meals and sing a few line of a song.

Cullpepper, the Vikings first-round pick, needed only a few seconds before breaking into a bluesy rendition of "No Pain" when his turn came up.

"It’s cool and it’s a tradition so it’s not a big deal," the quarterback out of Central Florida said. "It helps break up routine."

Cullpepper and the rest of his teammates continued with another tradition Monday, as the Vikings made a brief stop at the Hubbelll House in Mantorville before scrimmaging the New Orleans Saints in LaCrosse, Wis. Monday night.

This was the third time in the past six years the team stopped for a meal in the small town.

The Vikings make the stop every other year when the team travels to Wisconsin to practice with the Saints. Fans started lining up early in front of the old hotel to get an autograph from their favorite players.

The tradition started out of a mutual friendship between Hubbell House owner/operator Don Pappas, who estimated about half of Mantorville was waiting outside to see the defending NFC Central champions, and Vikings director of research and development Mike Eayrs.

Rookies took turns finding the strength and sometimes the words whenever veterans tapped their drinking glasses with their silverware.

Orlando Thomas, one of the more vocal veterans insisting the rookies sing, said the meal-time entertainment was the worst non-drill related initiation the rookies go through at training camp.

"It’s all just for fun," said Thomas, who had help from Chris Carter, Leroy Hoard and Robert Griffith when it came time to make the rookies sing. "This is the farthest we take it."

"That was the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done in my life," said Don Morgan, a rookie-free agent cornerback out of South Carolina, after giving a impromptu performance of LL Cool J’s "I need love," the meal’s only rap song. "I don’t mind though. If everybody has to do it, it’s no big deal."

Players weren’t the only members of the Vikings traveling party that had to show off their vocal talents. First-year assistant strength and conditioning coach John Kasper got the whole group singing Kenny Rogers classic "The Gambler."

Randall Cunningham took a bystander role to the rookie initiation. The veteran quarterback, who is entering his 14th year in the NFL and third with the Vikings, said he stays out of the Viking meal-tradition.

"They don’t sing too well," Cunningham said. "Plus, I don’t sing too well, so I wouldn’t want anybody making me sing. I just laugh."