Legendary St. John's coach John Gagliardi dies at 91

John Gagliardi several years after his retirement as St. John’s football coach was asked which single word best described his coaching style. His choice: “Unorthodox.”

Gagliardi, the winningest coach in college football history, has died at the age of 91, his family announced Sunday. He defied conventional football coaching wisdom with no-tackle, no-whistle practices and a request his players call him John, not coach. The unorthodox approach resulted in a career record of 489-138-11 and four national championships in 64 seasons, the final 60 at St. John’s.

He credited much of his success with his “winning with no” philosophy, a list of “no’s” that steadily grew throughout his career to more than 100. He gained the most notoriety for his no-tackling in practice and his refusal to cut players, which yielded rosters approaching 200 players annually. His one basic team rule, he often said, was “the golden rule — treat everybody like you’d like to be treated yourself. For the most part, we tried to do that.”

His former players say his coaching affected their lives long after they were finished as players. He would introduce freshmen to college football by holding up a dime against a bright sun and saying that the dime was football, the sun their life. Remember that, he said, and there would be no trouble keeping football in perspective.

“I can tell you that I built my career modeled after the things I learned from John — the way he prepped for a game, the way he made you believe in yourself,” said Joe Mucha, a retired General Mills executive who played on Gagliardi’s first two national championship teams. “Very few people in the world affect you that way.”

Gagliardi in a wide-ranging interview in the summer of 2014 said his unorthodox style is linked to the fact that he never intended on becoming a coach. So everything he tried, everything that worked, became a part of his style. A little bit here, a little bit there, all added together to become that ever expanding list of coaching no’s.

He published a pamphlet titled “Winning with No” that was used as a recruiting tool, and a reminder for current players on why they had chosen St. John’s. The list of 100 no’s included these:

• No mission statement.

• No surviving without humor.

• No blocking or tackling dummies.

• No use of the words “hit,” “kill,” etc. …

• No rules, except the Golden Rule.

“Why?” he said when asked the origin of his coaching style. “Because I didn’t know any better. … I was just hanging on by my toenails. No goals. I was just trying to survive.”

Gagliardi’s first coaching assignment came without warning, as a high school senior at tiny Trinidad Catholic High School in Trinidad, Co. Gagliardi’s teammates approached him with the idea of being a player/coach after the team’s head coach was summoned to serve during World War II.

The school was considering disbanding the team, a perennial loser, before Gagliardi convinced school officials he could handle being a player/coach. A rare winning season followed, and Gagliardi was asked to stay on, and produced another winning season.

“The thing I really remember is that our coach before didn’t allow us to have water [during practice],” Gagliardi said. “That was the prevailing thought back then: Don’t drink water during practice. I just ignored that. … A lot of the things I did later were because I started that way, and it worked so I never changed. As I got to a higher level coaching, people thought I was nuts. But eventually I think I’ve won over most of those people.”

Gagliardi started taking night classes at the local junior college so he could play with the college’s basketball team, not necessarily pursue a college education. That allowed him to spend a total of four seasons coaching the Trinidad football team, and he did well enough to attract the attention of St. Mary’s High School officials of Colorado Springs.

A priest at the school offered him two years of tuition at nearby Colorado College in exchange for coaching St. Mary’s. After two seasons, Gagliardi had a college degree and an offer to coach Division III Carroll College in Helena, Mont., where his teams went 24-6-1 with three conference titles in four seasons. He also coached basketball, winning two conference titles in the four years.

A high school coach from Billings, Mont., who had attended St. John’s, convinced Gagliardi to visit the Collegeville campus and talk about the school’s vacant coaching positions for football and hockey.

“I was happy at Carroll College, perfectly content,” Gagliardi said. “I didn’t even what to look at this job. But I went, it was a much bigger school and they doubled my salary. I figured, what the hell. I’m single, why not? If it doesn’t work out, so what.”

Gagliardi coached football 60 seasons at St. John’s, and had the hockey team five years. He won 78 percent of his football games, and had 42-25-1 record (.630 winning percentage) with the SJU hockey team.

“I coached a lot of sports along the way I didn’t know much about,” he said. “You just have to learn on the job, somehow. If there’s a key, I think it’s that I didn’t alienate my players.”

Gagliardi always steadfastly refused naming a favorite player from his years at St. John’s, and he also fought against the school having a Hall of Fame. He was fortunate, he said, to have had an ally in that view in longtime men’s basketball coach Jim Smith.

“It would be like picking your favorite child,” Gagliardi said of his opposition.

He did have a favorite victory — well, more like a 1 and a 1A. The top choice would be St. John’s first national title, coming in a 33-27 victory over Prairie View A&M in the NAIA title game.

His fourth and final national title came in 2003, when the Johnnies defeated perennial power Mount Union 24-6 for the NCAA Division III championship.

His toughest loss? “Every one was like a dagger in the heart,” he said.

An interview with Gagliardi was always entertaining. He was known for his quick wit, which produced lines such as these:

On his SJU salary: “When I came to St. John’s, the monks told me there was a vow of poverty. I didn’t realize that included the football coach.”

On receiving a note from the White House upon retiring in 2012: “Maybe I better change my vote.”

On Johnnie quarterback Willie Seiler, who became a star when he got his first shot at regular playing time as a senior: “I remember people saying to me, ‘Willie really improved.’ I said, ‘No, Willie didn’t improve. My judgment improved.’ I finally had the good sense to play the guy.”

Even after retirement Gagliardi continued teaching a “Theory of coaching” class at St. John’s. Normal class size for St. John’s is around 20. The class was so popular that Gagliardi lined his classroom with folding chairs, and always had around 75 students in his classes.

Gagliardi said the school did have one problem with his teaching.

“I used to give all A’s,” he said. “They told me I couldn’t do that. I said, ‘Look, these are smart kids, and I’m a helluva coach. What else am I supposed to do?’”

School officials decided to make the class a pass/fail offering only.

Didn’t faze Gagliardi one bit.

“I did everything my way,” he said. “The classes. The coaching.”

Unorthodox to the end.

Let's block ads! (Why?)