Terry Haws might not have ended up at Saint John's University in the first place were it not for a rule change and an illicit cigarette.
It was the fall of 1966 and Haws was the athletic director and head football and wrestling coach at St. Cloud Cathedral High School. The previous spring, the school had elected to make a change to its disciplinary policy, increasing the punishment for being caught smoking from a three-day suspension to expulsion.
It was a move Haws – who had also been the boys guidance counselor at Cathedral – strongly opposed.
"His argument was that some kid was going to make a dumb mistake and it was going to cost them a full year of school," recalls his son Pat, a student at Cathedral at the time. "He thought it was way too harsh."
But Haws had no way of knowing how close to home the new policy was about to hit. On the first day of classes that fall, with his senior year about to start, Pat was caught with a cigarette on school grounds and expelled.
"He was disappointed in me, but he was mad about the whole thing," Pat said. "I remember driving with him afterward and he asked me what I was going to do. I said I'd probably transfer to (St. Cloud) Tech. But he told me there was no way that was going to happen. So instead, I worked at A to Z Janitorial in St. Cloud, then came back for my senior year at Cathedral the next fall.
"In the meantime, he was still fuming about all this. And that January, John Gagliardi called to say Bob Dumonceaux, the wrestling coach at Saint John's at the time, was stepping down and there was an opening. The guy that they hired was going to be an assistant under John with the football program. John had never had a full-time assistant before, and he knew my Dad because he had coached several key players on John's 1963 and '65 national championship teams.
"It was a great opportunity, and it came at a time when my Dad was really open to looking at a new challenge. So he took it."
Cathedral's loss proved to be SJU's gain. In just a short time, Haws built the Johnnies into a national wrestling power. Over his five seasons in Collegeville, his teams went a combined 73-10-1 in dual meet competition, won three MIAC titles (in 1971, '72 and '73) and two National Catholic championships (1971 and '72).
His wrestlers captured 16 MIAC titles in their respective weight classes, 11 National Catholic championships and one NAIA national title.
"He was a master motivator," recalls Gary Svendsen '72, one of Haws' first recruits who went on to win three MIAC titles, two National Catholic championships and the NAIA national title at 134 pounds as a senior in 1972.
"He had a way of making you feel like when you stepped onto that mat, you weren't going to lose. He just instilled that sense of confidence in his wrestlers."
That he was so successful should not have come as a surprise to anyone who looked at his track record in previous stops. After graduating from Tracy (Minnesota) High School, he played college football at both Mankato State and Oregon and served as a forward observer with the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.
In 1948, he started the wrestling program at St. James (Minnesota) High School where his teams went 67-28 over 10 seasons. He was also the head football coach and led St. James to an undefeated record during the 1957 season.
He then moved on to start the wrestling program at Cathedral, leading the Crusaders to five state Catholic titles in eight years and compiling a 31-match dual meet winning streak from 1962-65. He also coached football and led his teams to three conference championships.
"We grew up watching all of his teams and he was a hero to us," Pat said. "All of us kids were so proud he was our Dad."
But Saint John's always had a special pull. It was Gagliardi, after all, who put in a good word for Haws before he was hired at Cathedral. And he relished the chance to join the Johnnie athletic department.
"He'd had athletes he coached go on to be very successful there, and now he was out there himself," Pat said. "It was a great fit."
Especially for his wrestlers who won 51-straight dual meets at one point - at the time the longest winning streak in the nation.
"I can't say it any more clearly than this," said Svendsen, a 2021 inductee into the Hall of Honor. "He was a second father-figure for me. He would have done anything for his athletes – whether it came to our schooling or making sure we had everything we needed at our disposal to be successful in both wrestling and life.
"He was a well-rounded guy. He wasn't just focused on wrestling, wrestling, wrestling. He cared about you as a person, not just as an athlete."
Sadly, though, his time at Saint John's was tragically cut short when he suffered a fatal heart attack in Cleveland while with his team at the National Catholic Invitational in February of 1973. He was only 49 years old.
He had already suffered a heart attack the previous year that kept him out of action for the final portion of the 1971-72 season. But he chose to return to his job after he recovered.
"He shouldn't have been anywhere near the mat," said Pat, who went on to a long career as the head soccer and swimming and diving coach at SJU and preceded his father into the Hall of Honor in 2019. "He should have been home in bed. But he had such a strong work ethic. He wanted to make sure he was out there bringing home a paycheck to support his family."
"I often think about what he could have done had he lived," Svendsen said. "He was the pilot of a program on the rise. In just a short amount of time, he'd turned Saint John's into a name in wrestling - not just in Minnesota, but nationally.
"Success breeds further success. I don't think it's a stretch to say that had he been given more time, he could have turned Saint John's into a wrestling dynasty."
But the fact that his time at SJU was cut short did nothing to lessen the impact he left.
"He was a builder," Pat said. "He had success everywhere he went. He started programs from scratch at St. James and Cathedral. Then he built Saint John's into a national power. He was just an incredible head coach."
