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Legendary Leader – John Gagliardi retires after 64 years, 489 wins and countless changed lives.

by: Bo Carter
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Amos Alonzo Stagg coached college football for 57 years in the first half of the 20th century, winning a then-record 314 games. Bobby Bowden tallied 377 wins in his 44-year coaching career at Samford, West Virginia and Florida State. Eddie Robinson coached Grambling for 55 years and won 408 games.

John Gagliardi bettered them all.

In a coaching career that spanned 60 seasons at the helm of Division III St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and four prior seasons at Carroll College in Montana, Gagliardi’s teams were victorious 489 times in 638 games played, making him the winningest coach in college football history. When he retired, at age 86, after the 2012 season, he left a record that may never be broken.

Gagliardi also left his mark on the thousands of student athletes who he coached. While he was obviously a dedicated football coach who was driven to succeed, he was also known as a gentle man who truly enjoyed being around his players, and vise versa. “He is genuine, smart, unique, fun to be around, and does all the right things to remind the players to represent the university well and that they are student-athletes,” according to St. John’s Director of Athletics Tom Stock, a 21-year employee of the university.

Stock has the unenviable task of finding Gagliardi’s replacement – someone with the courage to follow the most successful football coach in college history. Gagliardi was legendary on the field, of course, but off the field he is a humble, approachable man who insisted that players call him by his first name instead of Coach.

“John always has preferred just being called John instead of Coach or Coach Gagliardi,” said his son Jim, who just completed his 21st season as an assistant coach on his father’s staff. “He’s very unassuming in that regard, and John is polite enough to tell the players just to call him John – especially the younger ones – when they slip up and call him coach in practices or meetings. It is just ingrained from the time most players start the game, so he will tell them to use John and get a bit of a laugh most of the time. The players respond to that, too.”
 

Tom Stock added more praise for Gagliardi and reinforced the qualities of leadership that he possessed and developed over decades. “John epitomizes all the qualities you would want for a coach in any sport, but especially football,” he said. “He gets the most out of every young man he coaches, and his practices are among the most efficient I have ever seen. Players and administrators see the same qualities in him. At first impression he is a no-nonsense guy, he stresses results, repetition and execution, he believes people from players to coaches need to get it and get it right away; John also has the philosophy to hire good people and get out of the way.”

Not only has Gagliardi coached for more years than perhaps any other coach, he has definitely mentored more athletes than any coach in history. The reason – St. John’s has a long-standing tradition of huge rosters, approaching 200 players each year. “We really max out at 188 players as we have that many lockers in the field house,” Jim Gagliardi explained. “It has become a case of participation. John wants to see as many people get out and have the experience of being on a college team as possible. It causes a few hardships at times, but the kids can tell their children and grandchildren they played for one of the all-time greats at St. John’s.”

Gagliardi himself appreciates giving more students a chance to participate, but laments that he was not able to get as close to all his players as he did years ago. “My assignment has been tremendous,” he reflected. “Because of our admissions standards and the kind of kids who attend the university, we have had the cream of the crop with no baggage academically. My only sad thought when we expanded the rosters – and I think we hit close to 200 a couple of times when we doubled up people in some of the lockers - is that you don’t get to know as many players as we did with the smaller squads. I appreciate the relationships, and I still speak with people we had playing here 50-60 years ago. They have become and remain good friends after their careers.”

While you would expect any coach with such a long tenure to evolve his coaching philosophy over time, Gagliardi’s reputation is clearly that of an innovator. “In the 1950s, ‘60s and early ‘70s we recruited and won with the local kids – still do,” he noted. “Then in the 70s, many college teams started running the option, triple option and Veer. Well, we pushed it two steps further and developed quadruple and quintuple options. They really confused the defenses, and we had the personnel and skill people to run it. That (new option plays) was the difference when we won the 1976 national championship.”

When the rules covering defensive pass coverage changed and offenses evolved to the spread and pro-style, Gagliardi adapted again. “In the 1980s, we had some quarterbacks who could throw the ball,” he observed, “and we moved into that mode of attack. Much of it was repetition and good routes, and it just seemed to click. We didn’t copy the Houston Run-N-Shoot, but we just spread people out and just started throwing the ball.”

“John is creative in that sense,” said his son. “If we try a counter play with a pitchback, and it works in practice, it will be in our playbook that week. He just has this great vision of the whole field and situational football. It’s like his recall of past players, their parents and events; he has an amazing knack for it.”

Unorthodox Philosophy

Gagliardi has developed a unique approach to coaching over the decades – a philosophy surprisingly based on the things that he doesn’t do that most coaches do. He doesn’t use a whistle. He doesn’t use blocking sleds or dummies. He doesn’t allow tackling in practice. Practices are always short, but efficient. No tackling. He doesn’t require players to participate in strength and conditioning programs.

There is no scripting of plays. Gagliardi and his son Jim look over the defenses, analyze what the defenses are giving their offense and try to build on what works early in the game. His theory – what happens if you script plays and then get sacked, penalized or fumble?

Gagliardi’s philosophy also includes lots of interaction with the student body – now numbering approximately 4,000 undergraduates. “He is always interested in a person’s background,” noted Jim. “He asks questions in a complimentary way and finds the things he can build on – especially in the players.”

“I tell our guys and coaches every day at practice to treat people the way they would like to be treated,” said Gagliardi. “It is a simple philosophy, but there are many parts to it.” St. John’s students have responded in kind. Student ticket sales run just over 3,000 per home game - one of the largest percentages of students attending football games at any college.

Streamlined Practices

Gagliardi’s desire for efficiency and philosophy of making game plans strong through repetition translates into one of the shortest and most organized practice schedules in college – usually no longer than 90 minutes. “Our practices are organized with no wasted motion,” according to Gagliardi. “We have repetition of every formation until we get it down to where we wanted it, and we adapt to our personnel.”

“It makes the players concentrate,” said Jim Gagliardi, “and we get enough repetition of the basics to work some new things into the offense and defense from practice and tape study. John is always open to new things and ideas, and he looks at them all as a means of getting the edge and winning.”

A typical midweek workout for
St. John’s includes:

3-3:15 p.m. – Stretching and special teams work on the side.

3:15-3:30 p.m. – Agility and individual technique drills.

3:15-4:00 p.m. – 11-on-11 drills – The first teams on offense and defense against the scout team units with rotation among the scout teams due to the large squad size.

4:00-4:30 p.m. – More 11-on-11 repetition with emphasis on special situations, goal line work, two-minute clock management drills, and some specialty teams’ review.
   

Most workouts are conducted in shorts or sweats with helmets. Some midweek drills are in full pads with very limited contact. Gagliardi believes that fresh legs and bodies are a “must” as game day comes closer. There is major repetition of play execution until the coaching staff reaches a comfort level in the 11-on-11 phases.

Looking Ahead

While now retired as a coach, Gagliardi still plans to teach his wildly-popular course at St. John’s – Theory of Coaching Football. “I’m a great teacher,” Gagliardi said with a smile. “In several of my first classes in football coaching, students made all As, and so the administration changed it to a pass-fail class. We were supposed to have 20 in the class, and then we squeezed 50 desks into the room. Later we had 80 people in there, and I think the young ladies have as much enjoyment as the young men who hope to become coaches or business people. I told them if I could coach 180-200 players, I can teach a class with 80 or more.”

“I also spoke to the 2012 state convention of Minnesota County Commissioners,” he added, “and told them I was using one my three talks – the one I give, the one I think I give, and the one I wish I had given. I’ll keep using those at some speaking engagements when I am invited.”

John Gagliardi is not sentimental but is reflective on a career record and legacy that may never be surpassed. “I’m just coming to this conclusion,” he noted. “Some will win conference and national championships, but no other coach is the winningest coach of all time. This is all quite a thing for me to ponder. Some are saying it’s a record that will never be broken. When I passed Eddie Robinson I was stunned to think it happened, and I just kept breaking that record.

“It makes you think that you should enjoy the moment in coaching,” he continued, “and then that moment is gone. It all is uncharted territory, and I honestly don’t have definite plans. Don’t even know what I’ll be eating for lunch or dinner later today. I’m just taking it a day at a time.”

Upset Special

John Gagliardi’s ability to innovate and adapt to situational football were evident early in his career and gave St. John’s the capacity to pull off such stunning upsets such as the 33-27 shocker over Prairie View A&M in the 1963 NAIA championship. Eighteen of the PVAM mostly-scholarship-team either had tryouts or later played professional football. Four members of that team made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Many still call it the Football Upset of the 20th Century, and copies of the DVD regularly make coaching clinics, the St. John’s campus and alumni meetings nationwide.

The key to the victory was St. John’s moving a defensive back to the wide side of the field and shadowing PVAM’s Little All-America and future Football Hall of Fame WR Otis Taylor. The defender was called the “monster man” and was the prototype of today’s strong safety. The strategy did not stop the Panthers’ vaunted passing offense, but it did slow down the scoring and big plays enough for the Jonnies to build an early lead and hold on for the championship victory.
“We had two major factors going for us entering that Prairie View A&M game – ignorance and confidence,” quipped John Gagliardi.

“I get asked about the Prairie View game all the time,” said Gagliardi, who guided the Johnnies to four national championships (1963 and ’65 NAIA, 1976 and 2003 NCAA Division III) and a record 27 MIAC football crowns. “Prairie View was the most dominant team in the South at that time. Integration had not occurred at most of the Southern schools, and we had no scholarship players.”






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