Bernie Kukar's path eventually led him from Saint John's University – where he was a standout in both football and basketball – to the NFL, where he officiated for 22 seasons, including as part of the crew for two Super Bowls (and serving as the alternate for another).
But it's a journey the Gilbert High School graduate likely never would have embarked on were it not for another Johnnie alum.
"His name was John O'Dougherty '46 and he was a teacher in Gilbert," Kukar recalled. "He taught English and his good friend across the hall, Hjelmer Anderson, taught math. John left Gilbert for Coleraine (Greenway High School) my sophomore year, but he remained friends with Hjelmer, who was a great teacher and the reason I majored in math in college.
"Graduation was coming up and John called me to ask about my plans. I said I was probably going to Eveleth Junior College. He said he had a different plan for me. He told me that next Saturday he was taking me and another guy – Pete Gareri from Coleraine - down to Saint John's. I didn't know much about the place other than it was just outside St. Cloud, and that someone else from Gilbert had gone there a few years before."
Still, Kukar agreed to make the trip, though he didn't think SJU was a real option.
His father John (better known as Dex) died of throat cancer when he was 13. His mother Catherine worked for a mining company on the Iron Range collecting oar samples to take back to the lab. That meant the single mother sometimes worked the overnight shift just to keep enough food on the table for Kukar and his older sister.
"We got down there and walked right into the office of the president at the time, Fr. Arno Gustin," Kukar remembered. "He asked me 'Do you want to go to school here?'
"I told him I'd love to, but I didn't think I could afford it. He said 'I didn't ask you how much money you have. I asked if you wanted to come to school here.' Then he turned to Pete – who went on to become my roommate and best friend at SJU. He asked him the same thing.
"We both said yes. So he said they'd figure out jobs for us on campus and various grants to help us afford the tuition. That's how I ended up at Saint John's."
It proved a wise investment. Kukar went on to become an All-MIAC selection in both football and basketball, where his 1,389 career points still rank 10th in program history – a total that would have been higher still had he not suffered a broken collarbone twice in his senior season, the first time coming in December in a game that had been scheduled in his old high school gym in Gilbert in his honor, and the second in January just after he'd been able to return to the court.
His career also came before the advent of the 3-point line.
Still, he was the first freshman to lead the Johnnies in scoring – "A record that can never be broken" – then went on to lead the MIAC in scoring the following year before serving as team captain as both a junior and senior.
Meanwhile, in football, he tied for the team lead in touchdowns in 1961 and his 95-yard punt return against Concordia-Moorhead that season remains a program record.
"I can remember playing with Bernie in both football and basketball," said Craig Muyres, a fellow member of this year's class of inductees into the SJU J-Club Hall of Honor who was two years behind Kukar at SJU.
"We were both guards in basketball so we played together a lot. He had such a beautiful jump shot that I was jealous. He had a great attitude. He was always on top of his game and made sure everyone else was too – including the refs."
Indeed, Kukar's interest in officiating began during his time in Collegeville where one of his on-campus jobs was serving as a referee for intramural leagues.
"I knew enough about the rules to get by," he said with a laugh. "But my main job was just to keep those guys from killing each other.
"I started to realize, though, that after playing, officiating was probably the best way you could find to stay involved in sports. I remember during my senior season (in 1961), we beat Bemidji State (30-6) on a Saturday (a game in which Kukar rushed for a touchdown and returned a punt 47 yards). Then the next day, we went down to Met Stadium in Bloomington to watch the Vikings play their first game in the NFL against the Bears. The Vikings won (37-13) in a huge upset. I knew I probably wasn't going to make the NFL as a player. But I remember watching the officials come out onto the field before the game and thinking maybe that was the way to approach things."
Kukar spent a year after graduation at Saint John's helping coach both football and basketball, while at the same time starting to officiate nearby high school basketball games.
That continued (and began to also include high school football) when he moved to the Twin Cities to work for Control Data. Before long, he was working college games – including in the MIAC where he occasionally crossed paths with his old football coach John Gagliardi, who joked often that Kukar had "gone bad" by crossing into the refereeing ranks.
He eventually worked his way up to the Big Ten, then to the NFL where he was a back judge from 1984 to 1990 before being promoted to referee at the start of the 1991 season.
That's right about the same time Pat McKenzie Sr., a 1979 SJU graduate, became the team physician for the Green Bay Packers.
"It was so fun when Bernie worked our games," said McKenzie, who is now in his 34th season in Green Bay. "I didn't know a lot of the guys back then. But I'd walk on the field before the game and Bernie would find me to chat about Saint John's. As we got to know each other more, we'd talk about other things too. But Saint John's always came up."
"People would ask why I was talking to a team doctor," Kukar added. "I'd tell them 'This is a Saint John's Alumni Association meeting. Get out of here.'"
Kukar also had a chance to meet childhood heroes, including former Minnesota Gophers and Boston/New England Patriots star Gino Cappelletti, a fellow Iron Ranger from Keewatin who was doing radio broadcasts for the Patriots.
"We had a Patriots game, and one of the public relations guys came into the locker room to get information on the officials," Kukar remembers. "I asked him if he knew Geno. He did, so I asked if he could give him a message for me. I said to tell him another guy from the Iron Range says he's full of it.
"Five minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was Geno asking who the idiot from the Iron Range was. I said 'The idiot is standing right here. I'm from Gilbert and I want you to know you were my hero growing up.' From then on, whenever we went to New England, he was in the locker room waiting for me. We became friends and stayed in close contact until he passed away (in 2022)."
Kukar was an alternate official for Super Bowl XXX between the Steelers and Cowboys in January of 1996 before being selected to the officiating crew for Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami in January of 1999.
The only hitch was a rule preventing officials from working a Super Bowl if a team from their home state was playing.
With the Vikings going 15-1 and boasting a record-breaking offense during the 1998 season, his prospects appeared dim until Minnesota was upset by the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game – a loss that still stings for many in the state.
"Jerry Seeman (a fellow Minnesotan and the NFL's Senior Director of Officiating) called me up and told me 'you're the top-ranked official, but you know darn well that if the Vikings win that game, you can't go,'" Kukar said.
"I was watching the game with my wife and the Vikings were rolling along, so I told her it looked like we weren't going anywhere. Then Gary Anderson missed that field goal late (the first field goal or extra point he had missed all season), it went to overtime and the Falcons won.
"I was probably the only guy in Minnesota rooting against the Vikings that day."
He went on to work Super Bowl XXXVI between the then-St. Louis Rams and the New England Patriots in February of 2002 in New Orleans – a game New England won 20-17 on Adam Vinatieri's 48-yard field goal as time expired, jump-starting the Patriots' long run as a dynasty.
"There were six or seven seconds left on the clock and he came out to try the game-winning field goal," Kukar said. "I knew he'd gone to South Dakota State, and I'd worked a lot of SDSU games when I was refereeing in the old North Central Conference. Stan Marshall was the longtime athletic director there. So as Adam walked past me, I said 'Stan Marshall is going to kick your *** if you miss.' He laughed and asked me how I knew him. Then he said not to worry because the kick was going to be good.
"Sure enough, it was."
Throughout his travels, he also fielded questions about his old head coach Gagliardi, whose 489 career victories remain the most in college football history, and his legendary list of No's (no tackling in practice, no whistles, etc).
"Whenever people in the NFL ranks – from assistant coaches to team owners – found out I went to Saint John's, the first thing they'd always say is 'Tell me about this Gagliardi guy,'" he said. "They wanted to know if he was for real."
Kukar stepped away from officiating following the 2005 season and now splits his time between residences in Edina and at Lutsen on the North Shore. But his son Matt is an official in the Big Ten.
"He's keeping up the family tradition," Kukar said.
Throughout the years, Kukar's ties to SJU have remained strong.
"Saint John's has really given me everything I have," he said. "They took me in and helped me when I didn't think I could afford it and I'll always be grateful for that. If I hadn't come to Saint John's, I'm not sure where I would have ended up."
