Past, Present, Future
After 49 stellar years, John Gagliardi takes aim at Eddie Robinson\'s record 408 wins.
St. Cloud Times©
More from this issue
“I don’t have all the answers. As soon as I retire, then I’ll have all the answers. I’ll stay up in the stands with the rest of the fans who have all the answers, and I can answer it all then. Right now, I still have to go do it. It’s never easy to go out and get it done.” - John Gagliardi
SO HOW MUCH LONGER IS JOHN GAGLIARDI GOING TO keep coaching?
It’s a question the St. John’s University football coach gets so often, he actually has developed two answers – one designed to draw laughs on the lecture and interview circuit, the other more matter-of-fact.
• Answer 1, as told at a recent luncheon marking the start of his 50th season in Collegeville: “Amos Alonzo Stagg coached until he was 90 and (all-time collegiate victory leader) Eddie Robinson had 408 wins. If I can win two games a year until I’m 90, I’ll knock off two birds with one stone.”
• Answer 2, in an interview in his office: “I’ll only consider retiring if my health starts slipping or we start struggling out there. Of course, if we start struggling, that will probably wreck my health anyway. But I feel good and I think we’re still producing.”
There are those who whisper – mostly on anonymous Internet message boards – that Gagliardi is only hanging around until he breaks Robinson’s record. Not surprisingly, he dismisses such talk.
“First of all, those people don’t know,” Gagliardi said. “Neither do I, really, so how could they? It will depend on a lot of factors. Right now, we’re winning, and I don’t want to stop.”
Does that mean the record is unimportant to him?
Well, no. Someone doesn’t spend as long as Gagliardi has in a profession and not want to plant his flag at the top of the all-time heap.
Record in sight ...
Gagliardi was 20 wins shy of Robinson’s mark at the beginning of the 2002 season. Based on his team’s recent record of success, he could pass it as early as next season.
“I don’t think it’s his driving force, but it’s certainly something that’s important to him,” his son and offensive coordinator Jim Gagliardi said. “Look at who he’s passed already."
“When I was little, Eddie Robinson’s record (which was set in 1985) wasn’t there as a benchmark. It was Amos Alonzo Stagg and Bear Bryant. Guys like that. He’s passed those guys now. I think he finds it amazing he’s survived long enough to do that. So, of course he wants to set the record.”
But more than that, Gagliardi said he is still on the job because of the people it brings him in contact with.
“What would I be doing every day if I was retired?” Gagliardi asked. “Who’d want to stop by and talk to me? Right now, there’s not enough time in the day for all the people who stop by my office and say hello. I like that. I like being around people.”
Those who do stop by the coach’s office should plan on clearing a couple of hours on their schedule. Gagliardi’s friend John Quinlivan recalled telling his daughter, Colleen, to drop by and say hello to Gagliardi when she began classes at the College of St. Benedict.
“Surprisingly, she did, and at about a quarter to one in the afternoon my phone rings,” Quinlivan said. “It’s Gagliardi and he said he was looking across his desk at my beautiful daughter.
“Late that night, my daughter called home and said ‘Dad, when you told me to stop by, I didn’t know I was going to need four hours.’ It turns out they talked all afternoon.”
Gagliardi does enjoy conversation, particularly with his immediate family (wife Peg, sons John Jr. and Jim and daughters Nancy and Gina).
He expresses shock when he hears about others in his profession who have not felt the same way. For example, he was dismayed to read a recent biography of Vince Lombardi that portrayed the legendary Packers coach as distant from his family and consumed by winning.
“It’s impossible for me to sit with anybody, but especially my kids, and not talk,” Gagliardi said. “(To not feel that way) is just inconceivable to me.”
Those closest to him say, unlike with Lombardi, football is only part of Gagliardi’s life.
“During the season, if a game is on, he can’t help but watch it,” said son John Gagliardi Jr. “He’ll always be thinking about what’s going on (with his team). Get him away from the season, though, and he’s off into whatever.
“For example, in the 1980s, my brother and I were talking about getting him to use a computer. We bought him one, and he threw himself into learning how to use it. He’s got the thing mastered now. He’s always using the Excel spread sheet and stuff.
“Most guys his age are afraid of the keyboard. Not Dad. He was able to make the transition and make it well.”
Looking back ...
Adapting to the modern has been a consistent theme during Gagliardi’s 50 years in Collegeville. Now, looking back, he beholds a game that has changed a great deal since that August evening in 1953 when he first arrived in Central Minnesota to open practice.
“The biggest difference is that people in those days played the whole game – offense, defense, special teams, everything,” Gagliardi said. “Even in 1963, when the opposition two-platooned, we still had seven guys going both ways. I’m not so sure we couldn’t still do that yet. Your best players are usually you’re best players either way. But this is the way we’ve learned to go.
“That’s probably the biggest change. The other is that, with face masks, you don’t see as many guys with broken noses or with their teeth knocked out. Thank God for that. It used to be gruesome.
“They used to have three officials, and they got the job done. Now they have six, and they don’t always. Of course, they could get 15, and they wouldn’t always get it right. They are going to ask for seven soon. Maybe they’ll eventually get 11, or 22. One for each player on the field.”
Ah, yes – officials. Gagliardi can take a bad call by the officials as hard as anyone. At that recent luncheon, he joked that former player and current NFL referee Bernie Kukar is the only player he has coached who has “gone bad on me.”
“Officials don’t make bad calls intentionally,” Gagliardi allowed. “They’re not corrupt. They just have to call what they think they saw. (Bad calls) are part of the game, an unfortunate part, but a part just the same.”
Gagliardi has seen many in his profession shown the door by their employers over the years. Even Robinson was forced from his job at Grambling when his team began to struggle in the late 1990s. One would think Gagliardi’s own status is pretty solid after all these years, but he knows he won’t be around forever.
“(Former Vikings coach) Bud Grant was a pretty wise guy, and he quit when he wanted to,” Gagliardi said. “But very few coaches are able to do that. Most of them are thrown out or fired. Thank God, I’ve avoided having that happen all these years.”
Assisting With Gagliardi’s Success By Frank Rajkowski When John Gagliardi started coaching at St. John’s, he had just one or two assistants. In 1965, when he won a national title, his two assistants were injured players. But by the 1990s, his staff expanded. That allowed the coach to delegate some of the tasks he had previously taken care of himself.
Haugen had already taken over much of the coaching duties on defense. Now Gagliardi’s son, Jim, who joined the staff in 1992, began to take more of hand in running the offense as well.“I think it’s good for a team to see a father and son getting a long so well,” Gagliardi said.
The coaching staff also benefited from the arrival of Gary Fasching in 1995. Fasching, a standout linebacker for Gagliardi in the late 1970s and early 1980s, won state championships as the head coach at St. Cloud Cathedral in 1993 and ‘94. But he was lured to his alma mater by the chance to work with his old coach.
“I wouldn’t have gone anywhere else,” said Fasching, who assists Haugen with the defense and handles many of the recruiting duties. “I pretty much made up my mind that the only place I’d come would be St. John’s. When you have the chance to coach with John, how could you not take that opportunity?”
But the increased role of his assistants does not mean Gagliardi has not remained hands-on. He still has the final say, and Fasching said he remains much the same as he was 20 years ago.
“He’s a little more mellow now, but that’s probably due the fact that he has more assistant coaches and he doesn’t have to carry the ball by himself all the time,” Fasching said. “I think that’s taken a load off of him. But other than that, he’s a model of consistency. Nothing has changed about the way he treats players. He really likes people. That’s something basic about him that hasn’t changed.”
Legacy ...
What will Gagliardi’s legacy be? What will it say on the plaque or statue that will eventually arise at St. John’s when the veteran coach departs?
Gagliardi himself has a simple request.
“I hope it says I was a decent guy, I guess,” Gagliardi said. “Especially to my family. I hope they think I was a wonderful guy.” They do, but they also believe his contributions to the game of football should be remembered.
“Over the years, he’s done a lot of things that have spread,” John Gagliardi Jr. said. “Look at the numbering system they use in football now. Very few people know this, but a lot of that is because of him. His was one of the first programs to take linemen and skill players and assign them different numbers. If you look at older programs, most teams were all over the place.
“But if the running back was running over the center, the play was called a 52. So the center’s number started with a 5 and the running back’s number started with a 2. If the play was going over the guard, it was a 62. The guard’s number started with a 6, and so on.”
His former players say Gagliardi has built a kind of extended family, one in which those who played for the coach in the age of Clinton and gangsta rap feel a shared bond with those who played from him in the era of Eisenhower and bobby socks.
“John Gagliardi taught all his players quite a bit about life,” said Jim Lehman, a star at quarterback/halfback in Gagliardi’s first few seasons at St. John’s. “He taught us to love the game and to love our teammates. That hasn’t changed.”
“To the guys that have played for John, he’ll always be the coach there,” said Tom Linnemann, a quarterback on the 2000 team that advanced to the NCAA Division III national championship game. “No matter who the next person is, it will always be John. Actually, I think they’ll probably shut down St. John’s when he goes.”
Looking Ahead ...
But legacies can wait, and Gagliardi isn’t writing his own epitaph yet. Nor does he feel like writing a how-to guide for other coaches to follow.
“I don’t have all the answers,” Gagliardi said. “As soon as I retire, then I’ll have all the answers. I’ll stay up in the stands with the rest of the fans who have all the answers, and I can answer it all then. Right now, I still have to go do it. It’s never easy to go out and get it done.”
No, it’s not. But his drive to do it remains strong. And that may explain why looking at the past, though enjoyable, is not high on his list of priorities. And he concludes his lengthy set of interviews with the Times in much the same way as he started them: Looking forward.
“Each year is important, but when it’s gone, it’s gone,” Gagliardi said. “It makes no difference if it’s my job or any other. The next task is always the most critical one.”
Gagliardi Still Connects By Frank Rajkowski Though he is now separated from his players by two generations, John Gagliardi still manages to make a connection at St. John’s.
“It’s amazing,” said Brett Mushatt, who played cornerback at the school from 1994-97, earning All-American honors in 1996. “You’ll go into his office and end up staying there for three hours. He’ll just sit around talking to you and telling stories. It’s amazing that a guy who’s done as many great things as a football coach as he has will still take the time to sit down and talk with his players like that.”
“When the season is going, he can be pretty intense, but outside of the season, he’s really laid-back,” Auger said. “I remember he taught this football coaching course, and he’d always be trying to set up his football players with the girls he had in that class. It was pretty hysterical.”
“He has a sense of humor that a lot of people who aren’t around the team don’t get to see,” Mayew said. “He’s much different around people he doesn’t know than he is around his players. I think he’s a little more guarded.”
In an age where year-round conditioning has become the norm in many programs, Gagliardi still leaves all of that to his players to do on their own.
“He’s been around long enough that he can tell who’s in shape and who’s not by watching practice,” Mushatt said. “He relies on you to come into the season in shape and to do stuff on your own. That makes you develop some personal responsibility. If you want to play, you’ll do it. If you don’t, you won’t.”
Auger said Gagliardi is a coach with high expectations.
“He can get snappy when you’re not running something the way you’re supposed to do it,” Auger said. “If you don’t, he’ll get someone else in there who will. He demands perfection and that’s why his teams do so well.”
“He was big on life lessons,” added Loretz, who now sells insurance in Anoka. “That’s one thing about John and St. John’s football, he was very concerned with what kind of person you were and what kind of man you were becoming in four years there."
Digital Download - 304 Pages of Football Forms for the Winning Coach
