John Gagliardi Dies At Age 91

The Record-Setting Coach Leaves A Unique Legacy At St John’s and. Across The Football World

Early this past Sunday morning came the sad news from Minnesota that Coach John Gagliardi had died. He had been hospitalized the preceding day, and on Sunday, his unique life of 91 plus years came to an end. Exact cause was not cited.

John had coached at St.John’s for 60 years. He had long since eclipsed the existing NCAA record for all-time football wins when he retired following the 2012 season , with career win 489. Coaching records aside, by all accounts John Gagliardi was a stand-alone figure in all of American sports.

I met him several times. The first occasion was in 2008. Just one more random visitor to his school, I was curious about the institution, the team, and mainly, the coach who was the reason for the decades of success.There had certainly been many others over the years who had preceded me to borrow a few minutes of his time, to gain insight into his accomplishments and his person. And yet he was as congenial as if we were next-door neighbors.

I had traveled to Minneapolis for a medical meeting. On a whim i contacted the St John’s head athletic trainer Scott Bierscheid who generously offered to show me around his area of the St John’s athletic facility. I made the drive up to Collegeville on a Thursday. Scott told me I could possibly find Coach in his office and he gave me general directions from the clinic.

Once out in the main hallway, I was momentarily unsure of which way to go. A passing gentleman asked if he could be of help. I said " I’m looking for Coach Gagliardi’s office. His soft reply was disarming- "I’m John".

I mumbled the "purpose" for my visit. He proceeded to walk with me to his office, giving me a 10 minute audience for no good reason whatsoever. He recommended I come see a game. His Johnnies were to play that Saturday against St Olaf’s in Northfield. So I made the drive down and watched a very common thing–a St John’s win—in this case, a narrow overtime victory on the road..

I returned for another visit in 2009, this time to report on a game.
I saw another dramatic Johnnies’ victory, this one by 2 points at home over rival Bethel. The game was settled on a last-second record-setting field goal. The post-game press conference in his office was more of a free-ranging group chat. John and the several reporters obviously knew each other quite well. He held court, entertaining us as much as informing us with his take on various aspects of the game. He deftly deflected any pointed questions with his sly sense of humor. John allowed as how he’d had to restrain himself from leaping out of the press box window when the long winning field goal flew true.

After the group had departed, John answered a couple of extra questions from me…and then he asked a few of me. "From Georgia?" he asked. "Doesn’t it get hot down there?”Yes, I told him , but Georgia was also fertile football recruiting ground. He agreed but reminded me that there were plenty of good footballers right there in Minnesota and surrounding areas–calling to mind John’s frequent assertion that the Johnnies were just ordinary people trying to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.. When I told him I had yet to see the Johnnies lose , he jokingly urged me to return soon , offering a plane ticket if needed .

Long before my first visit, I had stumbled upon the St John’s story randomly, when, for a gift , I bought Austin Murphy’s book titled The Sweet Season. Murphy was a writer for Sports Illustrated who covered the NFL. He took a year away from his hectic regular gig to hole up in central Minnesota, embed himself with the Johnnies and cover their 1999 football season from summer to summation. In his book, Murphy captured concisely the essence of the long term football success at St John’s. That essence was one John Gagliardi.

The larger story is well-known in the college football world. Gagliardi grew up in tiny Trinidad, Colorado. His high school football experience was nearly cut short by the sudden departure of the coach who left to join the service during World War II. Gagliardi and pals struck a deal with the school administrators. The boys would coach themselves.

Two unexpected things happened. First , they completely reconfigured the way they learned and practiced and played football…..and second , the team had a unusually strong season, winning their league.

From there, Gagliardi made his way to Colorado Springs where he coached high school and graduated from Colorado College. He then took a coaching position in Montana at Carroll College. Four years later , in 1953, he made the jump to St John’s where he coached for the next 60 years. The story goes that while on his interview visit, Gagliardi was told by his predecessor at St John’s that no one could win at the small Catholic all-boys school—the Benedictine monks who controlled tbe budget were just too frugal.

Enter Gagliardi. The St John’s media guide said his approach to football "stressed the mental aspect and relied on a player’s own self-motivation". Interwoven into that philosophy were all the things Gagliardi’s teams would famously NOT do– no laps or sprints, no blocking sleds, no tackling in practice, and no denying water when you wanted it, He eschewed hallowed football drills such as monkey rolls, and "bull-in-the-ring".Instead, he had his team concentrare on learning the plays, and the best alignments needed to run those plays for optimal results.

And one more "No". There was no calling him "Coach". To his players, administrators and fans, he was simply John.

Gagliardi abhorred waste. And to him, the biggest waste of all was injuring your own players. Thus was born the rule of no tackling in practice."We can’t control contact in a game",he said," but we can sure control it in practice". In today’s safety-conscious era, that philosophy sounds downright straightforward.

These radical ideas were in fact just holdovers from John’s earliest days of coaching–in high school– not at this later stage where the new Johnnies coach was a worldly…. 26 years old..

Somehow, by combining his guile and charm with a strong will to win, John found his way around the rumored excessive frugality of the Monks to build a record of success unparalleled at any level of football. Ever. 489 wins, 4 national championships and thousands of grateful players and associates were the result. And if that’s not enough, note that his first and last national titles were 40 years apart. 40 years. Consider how different things were, in football and in the world, in 1963 vs 2003. Consider what kind of a coach could so successfully lead 19 year-olds in those very different times.

In 2012, i returned to St John’s for another dose of the experience. That season’s final home game was against Gustavus Adolphus on October 27. There had been gentle speculation about how much longer Gagliardi would be coaching. As the game clock wound down on a 31-17 St John’s win, John did not hurry to the locker room as was his habit. Instead he lingered out on the field, moving and talking among the players and coaches and fans.. When he eventually made his way to the office, there were several gentle questions as to his long- term plans. He demurred, instead cracking wise on the occasional game-related question.

Once the group Q&A concluded, he agreed to a picture for me and offered to sign a souvenir football that had found its way to the room. He wished me luck getting back to Georgia.

Three weeks later, 9 days after the last game of the 2012 season, John Gagliardi announced that the 2012 season had been his last as the head coach of tbe Johnnies..

His final season brought an uncharacteristic 5-5 record. Win number 489 would be his last.
From then on, he played the role of advisor and ambassador. And in 2013, for the first time since 1953, St. John’s had a new head football coach, as former assistant Coach Gary Fasching took over the head spot.

Austin Murphy’s book finishes with one last nugget from Gagliardi–namely, John’s sly acknowledgement that the St John’s "way" is far bigger than any one person– that the method is the primary thing. Speaking of the program’s unparalleled long-term success, Coach John said,
" Every year we have to replace irreplaceable players," says Gagliardi ‘" and every year, somehow, we manage to do it."

Austin Murphy’s denouement in The Sweet Season said it this way…
."..That is the good news and the bad news awaiting all Johnnies. No matter how good you were, you can and will be replaced….Things are the same without you."

Of course, there is one man for whom the adage above does not hold true. He died last Sunday morning in Minnesota. His name was John.

Captions:

1) The Johnnies’ logo, with the embedded #1, is ubiquitous on game day in Collegeville ,Minnesota.

2) The posted team schedule for 10/27/12 game day at St John’s. Note the not-so-subtle confidence expressed in the last entry on the to-do list –"Take Game".

3)The Sweet Season is Austin Murphy’s excellent re-telling of the Johnnies’ 1999 season.

4) Coach John Gagliardi in his office post-game 10/27/2012

5) Signed off, John Gagliardi

Patrick Conarro