By Frank Rajkowski, SJU Writer/Video Producer

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – It’s been 30 years, but like most Minnesotans old enough to have experienced the Halloween Blizzard of 1991, Denis McDonough ’92 remembers the storm and its aftermath quite vividly.

“I remember we struggled to open the screen door (of) our house on Minnesota Avenue in St. Joe because of the volume of snow,” said McDonough, a former White House Chief of Staff now serving as the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. 

In 1991, though, he was a senior at Saint John’s University and in his third season as a starting defensive back on the Johnnie football team.

The storm began on the afternoon of Halloween that year, picking up steam overnight and lasting well into the following day. National Weather Service records show a total of 17.4 inches of snow was reported to have fallen at SJU.

In the Twin Cities, that total reached 28.4 inches. In Duluth, it was a staggering 36.9 inches. Such a large snowfall, of course, wreaked havoc on high school and college outdoor sporting events scheduled across the state, and the Johnnies were no exception.

McDonough had recorded an interception and a fumble recovery when he and his teammates defeated St. Olaf 67-19 in Collegeville on the Saturday before the storm to improve to 8-0. 

They were scheduled to play at Bethel on Saturday, Nov. 2. But that game was called off with the understanding it would not be made up if the Johnnies were able to clinch the MIAC title with a victory over Concordia in their regular-season finale on Nov. 9. 

The game against the Cobbers had been scheduled to be played in Collegeville, but was moved to the Metrodome. The stadium that had played host to the World Series just one week earlier was now operating almost around the clock to fit in the many high school playoff games that could not be played outdoors because of the large amounts of snow sitting on top of what were at that time almost exclusively grass fields.

“Bethel was really strong that year, and I recall a good friend of one of my brothers, Jim Schoenecker, was on that Bethel team,” McDonough said via email. “He talked a lot of smack about how good they were and how they would beat us … No way!

“So it was disappointing because we wanted to demonstrate to Bethel how good we were that year. But we all also hated missing ANY games, each one being so precious with (head coach) John (Gagliardi) and (assistant coaches) Jerry (Haugen) and Mark Mooney, and with our teammates – all of whom I think of constantly still 30 years later – and many of whom remain my closest friends like (running back) Sharm Scheuerman.”

McDonough recalls the team being forced to practice indoors during the two weeks between the storm and the matchup with the Cobbers – a game the Johnnies won 24-7, thanks in part to an interception by McDonough (right) and four sacks from All-American defensive lineman Steve O’Toole.

“I had a chance to lateral an interception to (cornerback) Morgan Donohue and I should have done it,” McDonough said. “Since Morgan assuredly would have gotten in the end zone and, of course, I did not.”

Cross country weathers cold

The football team wasn’t the only squad in Collegeville changing plans after the storm hit. The Johnnie cross country team was scheduled to run at the MIAC championship meet Nov. 2 at St. Paul’s Como Park.

Yet that course was buried under well over two feet of snow.

“That Friday morning (Nov. 1), I called my brother Bill who was the head cross country coach at Wayzata High School and I asked him about the state (high school) meet, which was scheduled for that Saturday at the (Les) Bolstad Golf Course at the University of Minnesota,” said Tim Miles ’76, who has been the head cross country coach at SJU since 1979.

“I asked him what they were going to do (the meet was postponed a week and moved to Alexandria’s Arrowwood Resort). He said ‘If you can’t follow the course, it’s hard to run a race.’ That made sense to me, so I knew our meet would be moving too.”

The MIAC meet was moved to the following Wednesday (Nov. 6) at St. Olaf in Northfield where school officials were able to plow a mile loop on their athletic fields. Conditions remained severe, with the race-time temperature hovering around 11 degrees with winds of around 15 miles per hour.

“I think the mile loop ended up being a little more than a mile, but you couldn’t tell for sure by the times because everyone was running on packed snow and ice with maybe just a little grass,” Miles said. “It was basically a pure white course.

“I remember lying in bed and worrying about if we’d be able to get down there in time because you were seeing reports even days after about how it was taking two hours to drive from Minnetonka to St. Paul. So on Tuesday, the day before the meet, I actually drove down as far as Lakeville just to get a sense of what the conditions were like.

“It was sunny on the bus ride down, but it was cold out,” he continued. “And the bus driver had WCCO tuned in on the radio. It seemed like every 15 minutes someone was coming on to talk about how it was 13 degrees with this incredibly cold wind chill. I thought about asking him to turn it off, but I decided, ‘Naw, it’s cold and we know it’s cold.’ Our guys were ready to run.”

Indeed, the Johnnies surged to a second-place finish, placing only behind a talented St. Thomas team. Junior Kris Jungels ’93 – now a battalion chief with the Rochester (Minn.) Fire Department – led the way with a sixth-place finish.

“Some teams were all bundled up,” Miles said. “Their top concern was trying to stay warm. But our runners weren’t. We had some gritty, earthy guys on that team.”

Soccer snubbed

The Saint John’s soccer team, meanwhile, found out Friday (Nov. 1) that its season finale against Macalester would be played at the Metrodome Sunday night (Nov. 3).

“That storm was a whopper,” said Chris Sankey, a senior co-captain on that team. “It definitely caught us all a little off-guard. The big thing we were wondering was what would come next. We were in the running for a berth in the NCAA (Division III) tournament and we knew we had to win that game. So we were really hoping it would get played.

“Then to find out it was moved to the Dome was really cool. You’re at that stage of your life where getting to play a game there is pretty exciting.”

Using that excitement as fuel, the Johnnies defeated the Scots 2-0 led by goals from Sankey and junior Jackson Walter. 

The victory avenged a 3-2 loss to Macalester the year before and meant the Johnnies finished their season 11-2-2 and in second place in the MIAC. But despite that success, the team was passed over for a berth in the NCAA Division III playoffs.

“It was really disappointing because we felt like we did our part,” Sankey recalls. “We beat the team that we needed to beat. We felt like if we did that we’d get in. But then we did do that and we didn’t.

“There may have been some other factors at play there because of the storm. They couldn’t put the NCAA tournament on hold because of what we were dealing with in Minnesota. So the people in charge made the decision they made and we, of course, disagreed with it.

“But we know we proved we belonged by winning the game that we knew we needed to.”

After the deluge

The cross country team ended up finishing third at the NCAA Central Regional and qualifying the entire squad for the Division III national meet in Newport News, Va., where the Johnnies finished 19th overall.

McDonough and the football team, meanwhile, went on to defeat Coe (Iowa) 75-2 at home in the first round of the Division III playoffs before knocking off national powerhouse Wisconsin-La Crosse – which won a national title the following season – 29-10 at the Metrodome.

The road ended in the national semifinals when 10 turnovers proved the Johnnies’ undoing in a 17-9 loss at Dayton (Ohio). The Flyers went on to fall to 34-20 Ithaca (N.Y.) in the national championship game.

But Saint John’s finished an impressive 11-1 overall, and McDonough said he remembers that season fondly.

“The thing that made that team so successful was John Gagliardi, John Elton, Jerry Haugen and Mark Mooney – the terrific coaches,” he said. “And the other thing that made it so good were the terrific players: Sharm, Brent Christian, Pat Mayew, Tom and Mick Ramboldt, Jay Conzemius, Jeff Windfeldt, Eric Hokanson, Matt Winston, Eric Klein, Will Steinke, Steve O’Toole, (Morgan) and Billy Donohue, Pete Skwira, Sean Daley, Craig Hawley, Steve Thein, John Beutz, Todd McDowell and so many more. Great players and even better standup and straight-shooting honest men. 

“Man, I miss all those guys. So that’s why we were a great team: the coaches and those great players.  I feel so lucky to have been a part of it all!”

5 years ago (2016) – Linebacker Carter Hanson ’17 was named a finalist for the Campbell Trophy on Nov. 1. A two-time All-American academically and athletically, Hanson and the other finalists received an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship. He earned the Gagliardi Trophy, as Division III’s most outstanding player, six weeks later.

11 years ago (2010) – SJU defender Ryan Fuchs ’13 was named to the ESPN Academic All-District second team on Nov. 1. He ended the 2010 season with three points (1g/1a) in 14 games played. His first career goal proved to be the game-winner in the Johnnies’ 1-0 victory at Saint Mary’s. The biochemistry major (pre-medicine emphasis) earned his M.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2018 and recently completed a three-year residency as an emergency physician at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.

19 years ago (2002) – The Johnnies rolled to 709 yards of offense in a 48-28 win over St. Thomas on Nov. 2 in front of over 11,000 fans in Collegeville. Sixth-ranked SJU scored touchdowns on its first three possessions to build a 34-7 halftime lead. All-American Blake Elliott ’03 caught nine passes for 145 yards and three touchdowns and running back Kent Crowley ’03 totaled 265 yards from scrimmage (153 rushing on 21 carries and 112 yards receiving on nine receptions).