Sixty-one years in the same career should be enough to satisfy the competitive fire for several people over several lifetimes, however for the football sage John Gagliardi – he’s just getting warmed up.
This afternoon football fans young and mostly old gathered at the College of St. Benedict in the Gorecki Conference Center for Coach Gagliardi’s annual stand-up performance to kick-off the 2009 season. If you happened to attend today or tune in live via the internet you’d know why players from as far back as Gagliardi’s earliest teams continue to show up.
Gagliardi feigned his sharp wit and supposed fading memory with the usual stories about being underpaid, monks demanding lifetime coaching contracts under the pressure of smoke filled rooms, trying to remember how he met his wife Peg and the needless luxury of athletic scholarships.
As the coach heated up his stories moved toward the curious scholarship tactics employed by at least one conference foe and his simple meat and potato approach which assures victory. Seems as though when most teams stick around and wait for a chance to win all Gagliardi’s teams require to assure victory against a certain St. Paul foe is to stick around and “wait for them to screw up – and they did it again last year!”
In checking the University website this evening there’s no recorded version of today’s event as many of the Gagliardi tidbits will undoubtedly be left behind somewhere on the school’s media center floor. Today’s performance will make Gagliardi an instant YouTube sensation and surely provide the type of bulletin board material necessary to overcome decades of incompetence by the St. Paulites in question.
Was the Johnnie institutional staff and newly elected president The Reverend Bob Koopman squirming in their seats or marveling at their geniusly outlandish coach? Just like all other events involving Coach Gagliardi and his team, don’t expect this one to make it to the airwaves either.
Stay tuned. This season is just getting started.