By Frank Rajkowski, SJU Writer/Video Producer

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. - The 1971-72 Saint John's University swimming and diving team may have finished last at that season's MIAC Championship meet.

But the Johnnies – in their first season competing intercollegiately in the sport – already accomplished the mission they were tasked with simply by getting into the water in the first place.

"The Warner Palaestra hadn't been built yet," recalls Jim Smith, the legendary former SJU basketball coach who was just beginning his first stint as the school's athletic director 50 years ago – in the fall of 1971 – when the work of organizing the team began.

"But we knew it was coming and the plans for it included a swimming pool. So we wanted to start laying the groundwork for that. But the other piece was the (MIAC) All-Sports Trophy. We had been losing out to schools like Macalester and Gustavus by a point or two. And we weren't getting any points in swimming because we didn't have a team. I figured if we could put a team together, even if they went to the conference meet and finished last, we'd still get a point out of that. 

"And that could be enough to put us over the top."

With the men's MIAC All-Sports champion about to begin receiving the George Durenberger Trophy (first awarded in 1972-73, and named after the longtime SJU athletic director who had just retired from his post), winning the competition became an even bigger deal around Collegeville.

So Smith began looking for any student who might have had a swimming background, and who possessed the needed skills to organize a team on short notice.

That search led him to David Van Landschoot, who was finishing his final credits at SJU in the fall of 1971.

Van Landschoot was a leader on campus at the time. He'd been elected as freshman class president during his first year in Collegeville, and he'd gone on to be elected as both vice president, then president of undergraduate student government (the youngest student ever to be elected to either post), as well as serving on the school's administration board. He was also a member of the rugby team and had represented SJU at various alumni meetings.

But, perhaps even more importantly, he'd been a high school diver in Rock Island, Ill. before his family moved to Pequot Lakes, Minn. prior to his senior year in high school forcing him to give the sport up.

"I got a message from (Smith) asking me to stop by his office," said Van Landschoot, one of the many former SJU swimmers from over the years who plans to attend a reunion to be held as part of Homecoming on Oct. 9. "I went over there and he introduced himself to me. He got right to the point. He talked about the All-Sports Trophy and how we hadn't been able to get over the top the past couple of years. Then he asked me if I knew that only five schools in a conference of 10 had a swim team.

"He said he knew I had a swimming background. I told him that was true, but I'd given the sport up and hadn't been involved in it for a long time. But he told me he thought I could do it, and he convinced me to take the challenge on."

Van Landschoot said Smith was able to provide around $500 in seed money to pay for travel and other expenses. So he set about posting notices around campus trying to drum up interest. Around 30 students responded and 15 were on hand when the team actually began practice – only two of whom had any competitive experience to speak of.

While Van Landschoot served as the team's organizer and director, he did not compete. Then-sophomore Steve Smith became the team's first captain in December of 1971. 

"The swimming team at Osseo (Minn.) High School started during my senior year, so I was on the first swim team there," recalls Tim Phenow, a freshman on that first SJU team who spent the first two years of his collegiate career in Collegeville before transferring to the University of Minnesota to pursue his engineering degree.

"Then I got up to Saint John's and there was interest in starting a program there too. So I figured, what the heck. I'd give it a shot. I remember Steve Smith was the captain and he was the guy who helped keep our morale high and kept us together as a group."

"I went to a Catholic High School in Owatonna that no longer exists and we didn't have a swim team," Steve Smith said. "The public school at the time didn't have a team either. But I liked to swim and I'd taken Red Cross classes. So when I saw they were starting a team (at SJU), I decided to give it a shot.

"When I became the captain, I went out and got a book by Doc Counsilman (who had coached legendary U.S. Olympian Mark Spitz). He wrote the bible on coaching swimming at the time and we took a lot of workouts from there."

Van Landschoot was able to schedule a total of four intercollegiate meets were scheduled in advance of the MIAC Championship, the first of which was a double dual against nearby St. Cloud State and Hamline at SCSU's Halenbeck Hall on Jan. 15, 1972.

Of course, the biggest issue the team faced was finding a pool to practice in as none existed on campus at the time. That meant turning to area high schools, or occasionally sharing space at Halenbeck Hall with St. Cloud State.

"I remember going to places like Rocori High School (in Cold Spring), which had a pool." Van Landschoot said. "But it was always at odd hours, like 8 p.m. when the high school team had already wrapped up. So we'd truck over there in the dark in the dead of winter and jump into the water at 8 p.m.

"We'd get done around 9:30 or so, then we'd have to dry off, go back out into the cold and drive ourselves back to campus. It got to be a real grind."

But the Johnnies hung in there and made a decent showing in competition. Their final meet before the conference meet was a dual at Gustavus in St. Peter in late February of 1972. 

The Gusties won 57-45, but there were a number of SJU highlights.

"Capturing first-place honors for SJU were Brad Pazandak in two one-meter diving events," The Record reported in its Feb. 29, 1972 edition.

"Bob Stoy in the 60-yard freestyle, Pete Petrini in the individual medley, Tim Phenow in the 100-yard freestyle and Mike White in the 200-yard backstroke. Freestylers Kevin Murphy and 'Porky' Harmeyer and breaststroke Steve Smith took seconds with Murphy taking to of them in the distances. St. John's also had three third places."

The article went on to chronicle the team's nomadic nature.

"The St. John's team, having wandered from the pools of St. Cloud Apollo and South Junior High to practicing with the St. Cloud State team at Halenbeck Hall, now has a temporary 'home' at the Albany High School pool," it read. "All coaching is done by team members, and swimmers provide their own transportation to practices.

"The future of the team, however, depends on a pool on the St. John's campus. Only then will team members be able to get in the practice time needed without being bound to the schedule of a pool owned by someone else."

While they waited for that day, however, there was still the matter of competing at the MIAC meet March 2-4, 1972 at Hamline University in St. Paul. There, the Johnnies finished in sixth-place in the six-team field with 85 points.

But that still scored in the all-sports competition, which helped lift Saint John's to first place for the 1971-72 school year – making the first time since 1968-69 that the Johnnies had won the award and just the second time overall.

"I'm just proud we made it through that season," Steve Smith said. "I remember for the meet at Gustavus, five of us climbed into my Volkswagen and we drove down there. That was our team. But we kept competing."

Swimming returned to Collegeville the following year with St. Cloud broker Peter Johnson (a former swimmer at Hamline) managing the team on a part-time basis. 

By the 1973-74 season, Warner Palaestra had opened with a swimming pool (Steve Smith was on the committee that helped design it) and Pat Haws had been hired as the program's first real coach - though he did not have a competitive swimming background.

Haws, though, built SJU into a conference contender, remaining at the helm until 1998. And in that time, his teams placed in the top three at the MIAC Championships in 23 of 25 seasons – including 15 runner-up finishes.

There were also 11 finishes in the top 25 at the Division III national meet. And his swimmers earned All-America honors 40 times and won one national diving championship.

Another swimmer whom Haws recruited and coached for part of his career, Matt Zelen, won a national title in the 50 freestyle when he was a senior in 1999.

But he said the groundwork that had already been laid out helped make that happen.

"You don't know how much that helped," Haws said. "I came in as a blank slate. And those guys who were here and had a swimming background were so willing to train me. Guys like Steve Smith, Jeremy Raths and so many others. They were all so open to helping me out and patiently letting me get my feet under me.

"It meant a lot to me and to the program."

3 years ago (2018) - Saint John's University senior forward Guy Mohs' (Long Lake, Minn./Orono) second goal of the season, 1:21 into the second overtime, gave the Johnnies a 1-0 Homecoming win over St. Olaf on Sept. 22 at Haws Field. 

5 years ago (2016) - Then-No. 8 SJU posted a 44-0 shutout of St. Olaf in front of an announced crowd of 10,347 fans on Sept. 17. Quarterback Jackson Erdmann '19 ended the day 9 of 14 passing for 158 yards and four touchdowns in a quarter and a half of play. The Johnnies forced five turnovers, out-gained the Oles by a 406-88 margin and held the visitors to 14 of 28 passing for 61 yards and three interceptions. St. Olaf entered the game with the MIAC's top passing offense at just over 354 yards per game.

8 years ago (2013) - Saint John's forced five turnovers and St. Thomas missed a 32-yard field goal on the game's final play as the Johnnies knocked off the second-ranked Tommies 20-18 on Sept. 21 in St. Paul. The victory snapped three UST win streaks: 18 consecutive at home, 36-game regular-season and 27-game MIAC regular-season, preserving the Johnnies' conference record of 28 consecutive MIAC wins from 2001-04.