The University of Minnesota Gophers women’s basketball team is trying to bring in the daughter of a Minnesota sports icon.
Ari Peterson, the eighth-grade daughter of former Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, received an offer from the University of Minnesota this week, she posted on Instagram.
“After a nice talk with Coach [Dawn] Plitzuweit, I am so blessed and excited to receive my first offer from the University of Minnesota! Go Gophers!” Peterson wrote, adding the hashtag “notcommitted” at the end.
Peterson is still several years away from playing college basketball but is already playing at an elite level at Providence Academy in Plymouth, Minn.
She’s averaging 11.8 points per game this season and Peterson, a member of the class of 2028, is likely to get more scholarship offers as she progresses.
Providence Academy is 17-3 this season, as the program also boasts another ex-Vikings player’s child, Maddyn Greenway, who is the daughter of Chad Greenway.
Greenway is another highly touted prospect coming out of the school and among one of the top players in the Class of 2026, according to ESPN’s HoopGurlz Recruiting Rankings.
Peterson’s father, Adrian Peterson, is best known for the 10 years he played for the Minnesota Vikings where he became a star for the purple and gold.
He bounced around several teams in the later stages of his career and went unsigned for the 2022 and 2023 seasons despite expressing the desire to play last year.
In an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram last May, he said that he “mentally” hasn’t “hung it up.”
“We’ll see what happens,” he said at the time. “My mindset is, if God’s willing, maybe an opportunity presents itself and maybe it happens this season. I’ll go from there. But [if] nothing happens this season, for sure, I will be hanging it up.”
