- The Record Archives
- Volume CXVI, No. XX - November 10, 2003 - special edition
Assistant coaches hang around to help Gagliardi
Staff writer
St. John's defensive coordinator Jerry Haugen can remember when he was a young boy, watching the SJU football team play on television in the 1963 NAIA national championship. The Johnnies and head coach John Gagliardi made history that day, as they defeated Prairie View A&M to win the school's first national championship.
Forty years and two national championships later, Haugen looked on as Gagliardi made history again. This time, however, the former Johnnie football player found himself a little closer to the action.
Haugen is one of the nine assistant coaches on this season's staff, a group that is quite familiar with Gagliardi and Johnnie football. Haugen, along with seven other assistant coaches (offensive coordinator Jim Gagliardi, and offensive assistants Mike Trewick, Jeff Bretherton and Zach McBroom, and defensive assistants Gary Fasching, Brandon Novak and Jim Wagner), all graduated from SJU.
While offensive assistant Dean Taylor did not attend SJU, his tenure as head coach at Sartell has allowed him to maintain strong ties to the area.
"In playing and coaching for John and the football team, it is really like being a part of a family," said Haugen, who has served as an assistant coach for the Johnnies the past 28 seasons, the longest time period of any active assistant coach. "Even this year, we have something like 18 former players with sons on the team."
Throughout 51 years at St. John's, Gagliardi has wavered little from his unique coaching style. It would make sense then, to hire a staff familiar with the program.
"John wants guys to buy into his unique system," said Fasching, who has been coaching at SJU for the past eight seasons. "He treats the coaches and players with a great amount of respect and gives us the responsibility to go out and do our jobs. In return, everyone shows a great respect for what he does. It's definitely a mutual relationship."
Fasching carried Gagliardi's system over to St. Cloud Cathedral. After 14 seasons at Cathedral, ten of which as head coach, Fasching produced a pair of state titles. In the mid-90s, however, he would leave to join Gagliardi and return to the place where he first began to love coaching.
"My experience here at St. John's really propelled me into coaching," said Fasching, who explains how he has adapted Gagliardi's style to his own. "As a result of playing for John, I copied a lot of what he did. To be a successful person, you need to learn from other successful people. I definitely wouldn't be here today if it was not for John."
With the past weekend's record breaking game causing national media interest to converge on Gagliardi and the Johnnies, the coaches worked especially hard to keep the players focused.
"The record has made us sort of a big time show, but we do our best to keep the pressure off the players and more on us," said Jim Gagliardi, who played for his father in the late 1980s and has coached for the past 12 seasons.
From fathers to sons, players to coaches, the St. John's football team's secret to success appears to be quite simple: stay within the program. Gagliardi's preference for internal hiring is certainly evident in his current coaching staff, and success is recognizable on the field and in the numbers.
"It is nice to have people here that understand what is going on and know what needs to be done," Jim Gagliardi said.