Chuck Ceronsky had an impressive high school career as a distance runner at Minneapolis' DeLaSalle High School.
But after graduating in the spring of 1966, he didn't expect to hear the crack of the starter's gun again.
He was listening to a higher calling.
"Somewhere in grade school, I'd decided I wanted to be a priest," said Ceronsky, who was the 1966 champion in the mile at the Minnesota State Catholic track-and-field meet.
"So I was going to the seminary. I didn't want to run anymore."
Ceronsky did enroll at Nazareth Hall Preparatory Seminary – which was located on the shores of Lake Johanna in Arden Hills. But it didn't feel like the right fit, which led him to look at transferring to Saint John's after the first year – around the same time he started to rediscover his passion for running.
"I'd seen material from Saint John's at a college recruitment table when I was a senior at DeLaSalle," Ceronsky said. "But the only time I'd actually been there was for the state Catholic track championships my junior year, and I was focused on competing, so I didn't pay any attention to the campus. But when I started to look around at places to transfer, Saint John's seemed like it made sense.
"That same spring, myself and another guy started training again. So I went up to talk to Jim Smith, who was coaching track and cross country at the time, about whether or not I'd be good enough to run there."
Smith picks up the tale from there …
"I'd been out shopping and I had all our kids with me," Smith said. "I pulled back up to our house on Sixth Avenue (in St. Cloud) and I see a guy leaning against his car. He said 'Are you Coach Smith?' I told him I was, and he told me he wanted to go out for track and cross country. He laid out his resume and I was pretty impressed.
"Now, here's the part he denies to this day. But I remember him asking me if I wanted to win conference championships in cross country and track. I said 'Sure, I do.' And he said … 'Don't worry. We will.' So he had that confidence about him even then."
Whether Ceronsky said it or not, that's exactly what happened.
Though transfer rules kept Ceronsky from competing in cross country as a sophomore in the fall of 1967, he began forming the core of a talented group of distance runners that also included future multi-time All-American John Cragg (who finished second to Ceronsky in the mile at the 1966 Catholic state meet while running for Cretin) and multi-time All-MIAC performers like Jeff Brain and Joe Skaja (also an All-American in cross country in 1971).
When the MIAC meet was held in Collegeville during the 1968 season, Ceronsky finished first overall and the Johnnies came away as team champions – ending Macalester's dynastic run of six-straight titles and 11 of the past 12.
"Macalester had t-shirts made that said 'Perennial MIAC champions,'" Ceronsky recalls. "That turned out to be a big mistake."
Indeed, it was the first of five-straight conference crowns for SJU, including during Ceronsky's senior season in 1969 when he finished second behind only Cragg, who won the first of his back-to-back individual titles that year.
He attributes some of that success to having Ceronsky around to push him.
"Chuck's strong point was that he was a born leader," recalls Cragg, who
was inducted into the SJU Hall of Honor in 2019. "He was the core of our track and cross country teams, and more mature in many ways than most of the other developing personalities.
"He had a dogged persistence in everything he attempted, and he was a great friend. He was always willing to give advice, and we did listen because he was usually right on the mark."
Ceronsky also had success in track-and-field, including in the steeplechase. That was the event in which he earned All-American honors twice as a senior – first at the NAIA national meet in Billings, Montana where he finished second overall, behind only Larbi Oukada of Fort Hays (Kansas) State who had already competed for Morocco in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
He then finished third at the NCAA college division meet held at Macalester in St. Paul.
"I was a reasonably good overall athlete back in those days so hurdling came easier for me than it might have to other distance runners," he said. "That made the steeplechase a pretty good fit.
"I didn't really run it during the season. I think that year I ran it once at the Drake Relays just to get a mark. We didn't have a water jump at Saint John's. But Roy Griak, who was the coach at the University of Minnesota, was really good at letting me come down there and train in between when school let out and the national meets (in June)."
Ceronsky also helped the Johnnies win the first of four straight MIAC outdoor track titles as a senior in 1970, snapping Macalester's 11-year championship run.
"That was exciting," Ceronsky said. "The thing that was so fun is we kept improving every season I was there – in both cross country and track. We just kept getting better and better."
Ceronsky helped that improvement continue as an assistant coach to Smith in cross country and track-and-field as he pursued his master's degree in theology.
It was he who
devised a strategy to use other SJU runners to push Hamline standout Dave Teague to the limit in both the mile and six-mile at the 1973 MIAC championship meet, paving the way for Johnnie sophomore Kevin Carlson to edge him in the three-mile – the meet's second-to-last event. That helped SJU hold off the Pipers for the team title.
Meanwhile, Ceronsky continued to train himself and could have contended for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon in 1972 had injuries not kept him out of the trials.
"He was the glue who kept our distance runners together in those years," Smith said. "He was so intelligent about all things in regard to running and he was such a hard worker. He was an amazing guy."
Though Ceronsky eventually decided against being ordained as a priest, he still followed that call to service – going on to serve as staff chaplain at St. Mary's Hospital in Minneapolis from 1973-78, then founding the facility's in-patient hospice program and taking on the role as director of pastoral care.
He later became the director of spiritual health services at University of Minnesota Health in Minneapolis before retiring in 2017.
He was named the 2018 recipient of the Ezekiel Prophet of Hope Award, which is presented to graduates of Saint John's School of Theology and Seminary "who, through their example, have challenged students, alums and the entire Saint John's community to promote the work of building collaborative environments in which lay, ordained and religious can live out their prophetic ministries to the church and the world."
"I really enjoyed my time at Saint John's, especially the relationships I formed with my teammates in cross country and track-and-field," Ceronsky said. "We put in so many miles running those roads around Saint John's, which were almost all gravel at the time.
"Then we'd go to the refectory and eat and have fun together. It was a really special time."
