From 1977 to this past spring, a whole lot of student-athletes played baseball at Saint John's University.
But there was just one man who served as their head coach. And the values and expectations
Jerry Haugen set for the program remained a constant.
"He was a no-nonsense guy," remembers Neal Binsfeld, an All-MIAC pick in each of Haugen's first two seasons at the helm in 1978 and '79. "He stressed doing what you're supposed to do and doing it well. And when you had success, you didn't brag about it. That was just the expectation."
"He always made sure we remembered we were Johnnies," added
Joe Becker, a three-time All-MIAC pick who earned All-America honors in Haugen's final season as head coach last spring. "That meant we cleaned out our dugout after away games. We didn't leave messes for anyone to pick up. We were always respectful of our opponents. We wanted to do things the right way."
That, more than anything, is the legacy Haugen hopes he left during his long tenure in Collegeville.
"I hope people say we approached the game the way you're supposed to," he said. "That we didn't recruit negatively. That our guys came away from the experience of playing here with positive memories, and that they understood there's more to life than strikes and balls or errors and home runs. There's a right way of doing things and a wrong way, and we always tried to do things the right way."
But taking that approach didn't mean Haugen's teams weren't successful. Far from it. He finished his career with 916 wins, making him just the 27th coach in history at the Division III level to reach the 900-win mark.
In all, he led the Johnnies to three conference titles (1994, 1998 and 2018), four MIAC playoff championships (2012, 2015, 2016 and 2019) and 17 conference playoff appearances (including the past 15 seasons in a row).
"There was always a lot of attention to detail with Jerry," recalled Brent Schloe, an All-America pick for the Johnnies in 2000. "He was able to break things down in a way that was easy to understand. There are a lot of things he taught us that I still use today when I coach my sons."
A football and baseball standout for the Johnnies as a player, Haugen didn't initially plan on making coaching his life's work.
But after graduating in the spring of 1976, he joined legendary head football coach John Gagliadi's coaching staff that fall, helping lead SJU to the NCAA Division III national title. He then agreed to take over as head hockey coach and jumped when Gagliardi offered him the head baseball coaching job prior to the 1978 season.
"It certainly fit into my passions," said Haugen, who'd been an assistant under former coach Denny Lorsung, who left to take over the head job at St. Cloud State. "I don't know if I'd call it a dream job. But it was certainly something I knew I wanted to dabble in. My plan at that time was to eventually go to law school at William Mitchell (in St. Paul). But I remember my dad, who was a 1942 Saint John's graduate, telling me 'Son, you can always go to law school. How many opportunities do you get to go back and coach a couple of the sports you love?' That's when I really decided to take this and move on with it.
"Of course, I never did get to law school."
Instead, he spent five decades in the dugout, nearly all of those while serving as the Johnnies' defensive coordinator during football season as well.
Through those efforts, Haugen had a huge impact on generation after generation of SJU athletes. In baseball alone, he coached 139 All-MIAC performers and seven All-Americans.
Among that group was Jon Dold, a two-time All-MIAC pick, who led all of Division III with a .562 batting average in 1993 and was selected by the Cincinnati Reds in the 40th round of that year's MLB Draft – making him the first Johnnie to be drafted at the MLB level.
"He did a ton to help make me a better player," said Dold, a 2023 inductee into the SJU J-Club Hall of Honor. "He really focuses on teaching the fundamentals and my hitting improved a lot during my time there."
Bill Kauffmann, an All-MIAC infielder in both 1985 and '86, said Haugen had a drive to win that was contagious, but was also able to keep things in perspective.
"He doesn't like to lose, and I think it's that competitiveness that helped sustain him for almost 50 years," Kauffmann said. "St. Thomas and St. Olaf had great teams back then, but we were right there with them. We gave them some tough games, and Jerry was as disappointed as the rest of us if we lost. But he knew how to keep things in balance. He'd say 'That was a tough loss. But the sun will come up tomorrow.' And that was important.
"He was a great teacher. He wasn't a rah-rah kind of coach. But he taught us so much about mechanics. I didn't know there were more than two ways to turn a double play until I got to Saint John's. He helped me turn into a pretty good second baseman. He knew how to develop talent and get the most out of the players he had."
Those sentiments are shared by Connor Cline, an All-MIAC pitcher and first baseman in 2012 and '13.
"There's no doubt he loves baseball and has a passion for it," Cline said. "When I was there, video was starting to become more elevated as a way to analyze pitching form and swing stances and he embraced that. He was really passionate about everything involving the game.
"And he was consistent, even in things like his walk to the mound. We used to mimic it a little. It was kind of a strut. Never too fast or too slow. It was always the same whether you were performing well or having a tough outing. It never changed."
Nor did the success the Johnnies achieved on the field, including over the last 15 years – which may have been Haugen's best stretch of all. SJU made four NCAA Division III tournament appearances since 2012, and three in the last 11 years. That included the 2016 team that advanced all the way to the regional championship round.
"I think back on the teams that have won conference tournaments and advanced to regionals and those are special years," said Haugen, who will still serve as head coach emeritus in 2026. "The atmosphere and fun with those guys just gets extended. At that time of year, school is out, so all we're doing is focusing on baseball."
The artificial playing surface at Becker Park, the state-of-the-art baseball complex that opened in 2013, is named Haugen Field in his honor – ensuring his name will continue to be associated with Johnnie baseball for decades to come.
But it isn't the facilities or the wins and losses Haugen will look back on most fondly.
"It's the relationships with the guys that I'm most proud of," Haugen said. "It always means a lot when a guy comes back after graduating and talks about what a great experience they had here. Because in the end, that's really what it's all about."
