Johnnies' baseball field gives Jerry Haugen coaching immortality

St. John's was at Occidental College in Los Angeles for an NCAA Division III football playoff game in November 1985. The officiating crew working the game was from the Big Eight.

The officials came to the visitors' locker room before the game. They talked with coach John Gagliardi for a couple of minutes and then the referee said, "Coach, we are ready to meet your staff."

Gagliardi nodded and said: "OK. This is Jerry."

The officials waited for further introductions. There were none.

"We had a couple of head coaches from other sports working with us, and a 'stipend' coach or two," Jerry Haugen said. "They didn't make the trip, though. It was just John and me."

The Johnnies lost 28-10 to Occidental that day, not a routine outcome for Gagliardi's Johnnies in a first-round playoff game.

Gagliardi coached college football for 64 seasons, with the final 60 of those at St. John's. He left after the 2012 season with 489 victories, the record by 81 over Grambling's Eddie Robinson.

Haugen was a defensive assistant and then the coordinator for 363 of those Gagliardi victories. He has been in on another 27 with Gary Fasching as the head coach over the past three seasons.

St. John's has undertaken an aggressive upgrade of its athletic facilities in the past several years. Hey, if athletics are important, you have to try to keep up with the Joneses, or in this case, the Tommies.

Construction is underway on an artificial turf practice field that will have a bubble dome over it in the cold-weather months. That will carry the name Gagliardi Field.

Jim Smith resigned as the basketball coach in May 2015 after 51 seasons and 786 wins. The court in Sexton Arena carries the name Jim and Adrienne Smith.

There are gaudy standards for a coach to have a name attached to a facility at St. John's. The football coach for 60 years … yeah, we'll put his name on a shiny new practice field. The basketball coach for 51 years … OK, we can honor him and his wife by naming the court.

"I was surprised when they gave me the news this week, because I'm a short-timer here, by comparsion," Haugen said.

Haugen will be starting his 41st season as a football assistant when 200 candidates report on Saturday and start practice Sunday. You don't get off that easy as a coach at St. John's:

Jerry also completed his 40th season as the Johnnies' baseball coach this spring with a 32-victory season that fell one short of a trip to the Division III World Series.

Scott Becker donated and led a fundraising campaign to bring a grand new ballpark to St. John's in 2013. It started with an artificial turf field, fences and dugouts. A grandstand and other improvements have followed.

The complex was named Becker Park. This week, it received an additional title: Haugen Field. The name was emblazoned on the turf and the coach's No. 21 was engraved for posterity in the third-base coaching box.

Haugen has 762 wins as the Johnnies' baseball coach to go with his share of 390 football victories. And consider this: He's 61. Gagliardi was 86 and Smith was 80 when they retired.

"I also coached hockey for four years, by the way," Haugen said. "I graduated here in 1976 and was starting grad school at St. Cloud State. John figured I knew the defense from playing for him for four years, so he gave me a few bucks to help coach that fall.

"We wound up beating Towson State to win the D-III national title."

Gagliardi was the athletic director, and when hockey coach Dave Igo quit John called Haugen and said: "You can skate, right? You can be on the staff here as my assistant and the hockey coach."

That was for the winter of 1976-77. "Then, Denny Lorsung left for St. Cloud State to be the baseball coach, and that job was open, too," Haugen said. "John gave me a $1,000 raise, to $8,500, to be his defensive coach, and the coach for hockey and baseball."

Could you skate? "Yeah, I grew up on 37th and Logan in north Minneapolis, and played a lot of hockey with the neighbor kids at Folwell Park," Haugen said. "We would get all our sports equipment at Stock & McCormick's a few blocks away on Emerson.

"Got my first real glove, a MacGregor. It was beautiful."

Now, Jerry Haugen has a baseball field named after him that is also beautiful.

"Now that we have lights, the 5½ weeks we have of fall baseball are a lot easier," Haugen said. "I can schedule practice at night, after football practice gets over. But the best part is that turf. I'll never have to edge, chalk or mow a baseball field again in my life."

Patrick Reusse can be heard 3-6 p.m. weekdays on AM-1500. • preusse@startribune.com