Five Seconds of Fame

I first met John in 1990.  However, it was only after I returned to my alma mater 14 years later that I began to chat with him on a regular basis.  I spent a good portion of many mornings in his office discussing pretty much everything except football and marveling at the things I observed or heard from him.  I shared many of these stories with my Dad, who then began to pester me to get a photo with John.  “He’s a legend,” my dad would say, “and you need to get a signed picture with him before it is too late.”

For a couple years, I ignored my Dad’s repeated requests.  I suppose I was embarrassed to ask someone I now considered a friend if he would sign a picture of the two of us together.  But eventually, I relented and  took a picture with John.  I enlarged it to an 8x10 and he signed it, “Warren, you were one of the great ones, on and off the field.” 

What my Dad didn’t know was that the main reason I went through with it was so that I could have John sign a second copy of the picture.  That copy ended up as a gift to my Dad on father’s day a few years ago.  “Mort, thanks for sending Warren to Saint John’s.”

Pleased at how my Dad enjoyed receiving his copy of the picture, I figured I was now done with this autograph-seeking nonsense.  But little did I know, my Dad was on to something.

Fast forwarding to this past spring, I was one of 63 students who enrolled in John’s Theory of Football course, the most popular course on campus.  At the close of the second-to-last class period, I told the students that I would bring a nice camera to the final class and snap an individual picture of them with John.  The excitement level in the room immediately escalated.

I followed this up by telling the class that I’d have John sign the pictures with a personal note.  You’d think I had just told the students that I was going to take them to Disneyland, and it was fun to watch one student pump his first and whisper, “Yes.”  I also took the opportunity to remind the students (well, the male students) that this meant they may want to wear clean clothes and run a comb their hair. 

Forty-eight hours later, the clock on the wall showed ten past two, signifying the end of the course.  But no one left; they all waited to take their individual pictures with John.  And just prior to taking these individual pictures, I gathered everyone for a class picture.

I am pretty sure John developed arthritis in his right hand signing all those pictures, but eventually he made it through each and every one of them.  Over the week that followed, the students came to my office to pick up their souvenirs from the class.  But what John didn’t know was this - while the students were picking up their pictures, they were also signing the class picture with their own personal note to John.  The class picture was a gift to John, and it is now prominently displayed in his office.

There’s a lot more to this story, but as those details could very easily make their way into my book, I am going to wrap-up with a final story about that class picture.

One of the major television news stations in town, KARE 11, was at Saint John’s earlier this week interviewing John - below is a link to the resulting video.   If you skip to the one minute mark, you will see John proudly point out the class picture and read one of the comments that was written.

http://www.kare11.com/news/article/991066/24/Gagliardi-to-coach-600th-game-on-Saturday

Had my Dad not kept on me about getting a signed picture with John, I likely wouldn’t have come up with the idea to do the same for his students.  I likely wouldn’t have taken the class picture either.  And KARE 11 would have needed to find something else to fill those five seconds of their news clip. 

Part of me feels guilty in taking pride knowing that something I was responsible for ended up on the news.  But, John seems proud of the picture and comments, so maybe that's okay. 

I suppose I could mention that the comment John read from the picture during the newscast was written by a student who took an accounting class from me.  And I could also mention that the KARE 11 camera focused longer on the class picture than it did on a signed football from the President of the United States.  But who’s counting?  Well, I guess I am.  Well, today is John’s 600^th game as the coach of Saint John’s, so maybe that's okay, too.

 

 

A great day to be a bean counter

With just over five minutes remaining in the opening game of the 2012 season, Ben jogged onto the field.  Once the huddle broke, it was somewhat unusual to see him running out to the flanker position.  For his entire life, Ben had been a quarterback, even seeing significant playing time at that position for the Johnnies last year.  But, when the team decided to go with a different quarterback this time around, Ben was moved to a different position.  Taking the snap was Nick, a freshman and the third string quarterback.  Nick was about to experience his first ever play under center as a Johnnie.

The ball was snapped and Nick dropped back in the pocket.  The offensive line’s protection was solid, allowing Nick plenty of time to setup and step into his pass.  He threw a long, high, and beautiful spiral toward a receiver streaking down the home team’s sideline.  Initially, Ben appeared covered by two defenders, but he kept running, and the ball kept floating through the air.

At the last moment, one defender leaped to tip away the pass, but the ball sailed just out of his reach.  Without breaking stride, Ben caught the ball over his shoulder.  With two defenders giving chase, Ben kept running and running, all the way to the end zone - and all the way into the Saint John’s record books.

In the storied history of Saint John’s football, which began in the year 1900, the Johnnies have played 835 games.  At a conservative estimate of 50 offensive plays per team per game, the Johnnies have run over 40,000 plays.  During this time, St. John’s has scored 20,670 points, including more than 3,000 touchdowns.

But, the Johnnies never had an offensive touchdown, or even an offensive play, that covered more than 93 yards…until this past Saturday afternoon.

Nick’s pass to Ben resulted in a 95 yard touchdown.  Welcome to the history books, boys. 

Yes, the record will be broken someday.  And yes, at St. John’s individual records pale in comparison to team accomplishments - the announcers didn’t even mention the record and Ben did not find out until I checked the record books and sent him an e-mail about an hour after the game. 

However, setting records is still fun.  And watching from the grandstands, I found this record particularly satisfying.  You see, Ben is an accounting major and I had him in class last year - he was a delightful student.  He sat in the front row, showed up every day, and was very respectful.  He was one of the top students in the class.  When I let him know he set the record, I was touched when he replied "Boz, I couldn't have done it without you teaching me about budgets and standard costs."  Okay, maybe I made that last part up.

But it wasn’t just Ben who made me proud that day.  Another accounting student is a pre-season All-American cornerback.  He deflected the only two passes that were thrown his way, effectively taking away half of the field from the opposing quarterback.  It was amusing, however, when I was visiting with him after the game, and one of his much younger cousins scolded him, “Why did you drop those two passes?”

Yet another accounting major is the kicker, who booted a 49 yard field goal, sent all of his 7 kickoffs into or out of the end zone for touchbacks, and converted all 7 of his extra points, one of which hit the camera stand above the end-zone bleachers.

Two more accounting students were starters on the line.

As for Nick, the freshman quarterback who threw the record setting pass?  He is in his first semester at St. John’s, and as I am on sabbatical, I have not yet met him.  But sure enough, I found out that he is currently taking an accounting course, as it is as a prerequisite for his global business leadership major.  I just may have to try to convert him to an accounting major.  After all, the beautiful thing is, athletes at St. Ben’s and St. John’s are also great students, and this is especially true with accounting majors.  On the 2011 CPA exam, our students scored 8 percentage points high than the state average and 15 percentage points higher than the national average.

It was a great day for the Johnnies, but I must admit…it was a great day for the bean-counters as well.