From John Gagliardi, the praise didn't come much higher.
Speaking to the assembled media following his team's 33-27 victory over Prairie View A&M (Texas) in the 1963 NAIA national title game, the soon-to-be-legendary Saint John's University football coach lauded Craig Muyres, the quarterback who helped deliver the Johnnies their first national championship.
"Craig Muyres, our quarterback, is absolutely the greatest clutch player in the country," Gagliardi said in Sacramento (Calif.) – site of that year's Camellia Bowl.
"I'll take my quarterback before any of them (including that year's Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach of Navy). Give me a close ballgame in the second half, and give me Craig at the controls, and I'm in good shape."
The evidence supported that lofty pronouncement. During his final two seasons as the starter at SJU, Muyres was a two-time All-MIAC selection who led the Johnnies to a 19-0 record – a stretch in which his team outscored its opposition 659-156.
"We had a lot of offensive weapons on those teams," Muyres said modestly. "My job was just to make sure everybody was happy. I knew if I could do that, we'd continue to win, and that would make John happy."
But Muyres was the key cog in making sure all those weapons were utilized.
"Craig is a winner," said Joe Mucha '66, who arrived at SJU two years after Muyres and was his teammate in both football and basketball. "He has a winning mentality and that's infectious. I compare him to Ryan Keating (the quarterback who led the Johnnies to the 2003 national title). They both had a lot of confidence and I think that was infectious to the entire team."
Muyres' passes were not always pretty. But that didn't matter because they almost always found their intended target.
"I think Craig occasionally threw a spiral," joked Randy Hallstrom '66, who was two years behind Muyres at St. Cloud Cathedral, then followed him to SJU. "But he was accurate, and more importantly, he hated to lose. He worked hard and did everything in his power to create a winner."
And not just on the football field. Muyres was equally impressive in basketball, where he was a two-time All-MIAC pick in 1961-62 and 1962-63. He finished his career with 1,344 points – a total that still ranks 12th in school history all these decades later.
That number is even more impressive when you consider he missed almost all of his senior season. The Johnnies didn't finish up in football until almost Christmas and an ankle sprain in January kept him out the remainder of the year.
He was also invited to try out for the Pan-Am Games team in 1963.
"He was a phenomenal shooter," said Mucha, himself a
Hall of Honor inductee in 2021. "He was a gunner and he had the most accurate flat shot I've ever seen in basketball. The ball would go up super flat, then boom, it would go through the hoop.
"He was such a prolific scorer and a guy you wanted to play with and for. Because we knew he was a winner, everyone around him stepped up their game too. He made all of his teammates better."
Muyres' best game at SJU came on Feb. 2, 1963, when the junior scored 47 points in a 79-76 win over Concordia in Collegeville – leaving him just two points shy of
Bill Sexton's single-game school record of 49.
He finished the night 15-for-27 from the field and was 17 of 24 at the free-throw line. He scored eight points in the final 3:55 of play to help his team hold on for the victory.
"I loved basketball," Muyres said. "I was lucky enough to make all-conference as a sophomore, but my junior year I really came into my own and caught fire. I remember scoring 31 points when we beat St. Cloud State (73-72 on Feb. 13, 1963). They had a great team at the time and we were able to beat them for the first time in a while (since 1956).
"I honestly thought I was a better basketball player than I was a quarterback."
Those who know him best, though, say he was excellent in both roles.
"We wouldn't have won nearly as many games as we did without Craig," said Ken Roering '64 (
right, #82), his boyhood friend on the north side of St. Cloud who went on to become his top receiver at both Cathedral and SJU. "His passing has been much-maligned. Guys teased him all the time about wounded ducks. But if you were open, he found a way to get you the ball.
"And when the game was on the line, there was no one better. There was no quit in him at all."
That attitude remained strong throughout his many successful years in the accounting world, as well as recently when he's battled health issues.
Muyres was diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago and bladder cancer in late 2024 that required a bladder removal. But through it all, he's continued to battle.
"I'm still hanging in there," he said. "I'm still kicking."
And he still looks back with fondness and pride on his time at SJU.
"You never let Saint John's go," said Muyres, who has been married to his college sweetheart Carol for 62 years now and has lived near Maple Lake since 1975.
"The people you meet there, and the memories you make, stick with you forever. Everyone I met there was just a tremendous guy. Not just the guys on the football and basketball teams, but across the entire campus."
