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COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – The Minnesota Chapter of the National Football Foundation will honor former head coach John Gagliardi and the 1963 Saint John's University NAIA national champion football team with the 2013 Murray Warmath Legendary Team Award at the sixth annual “Honoring Legends, Inspiring Leaders” awards dinner on Sunday, April 28, in St. Paul.
Social hour and the silent auction is scheduled for 5 p.m., followed by the dinner and awards ceremony at 6 p.m., at the James B. Woulfe Alumni Hall in St. Thomas' Anderson Student Center. The event is open to the public and seating is limited. – Purchase Tickets
This is the second team to be selected to receive the Warmath award. The first was the 1960 University of Minnesota football team, which was coached by Warmath.
The Johnnies finished the 1963 season with a 10-0 record (7-0 in the MIAC) and defeated Prairie View A&M (Texas) 33-27 in the NAIA championship game, which was played Dec. 14 in Sacramento, Calif. It was the first national championship for a Gagliardi-coached team.
Although 11 players from the 1963 Prairie View team went on to either sign free-agent contracts or be drafted to play professional football in some form or another (including legendary wide receiver Otis Taylor), the Johnnies lacked athletic scholarships and were largely a home-grown lot. Of the Johnnies' top 34 players in 1963, 12 were from within a 14-mile radius of Collegeville and no fewer than 26 hailed from distances of 80 miles or less.
But it was a highly-skilled team. In eight regular-season games in 1963, Saint John's outscored its opponents 298-45 and allowed only 12.8 yards rushing per game in an era of college football that was still primarily run-oriented. Offensively, SJU averaged 396.1 yards per game with an average of 37.3 points per contest.
Following the 1963 regular season, 12 Johnnies were named All-MIAC, including the entire offensive backfield consisting of quarterback Craig Muyres '64 and halfbacks Bernie Beckman '64, Bob Spinner '64 and Rich Froehle '65.
The halfback tandem of seniors Spinner and Beckman, both two-time All-MIAC selections, combined for 20 touchdowns and 48 percent of the Johnnie scoring in 1963. Spinner led the Johnnies in both rushing yardage (78 carries for 619 yards and seven touchdowns), yards per carry (7.9) and receiving yardage (11 receptions for 272 yards and three touchdowns) for his second consecutive MIAC scoring title. Beckman followed with 96 carries for 558 yards rushing and 10 touchdowns to earn MIAC Most Valuable Player honors. Muyres ended the 1963 regular season with 473 yards passing and four touchdowns on the season, connecting with receiver Ken Roering '64 on 12 occasions for 233 yards and two touchdowns.
The Brooklyn (N.Y.) Tablet named the small Catholic college All-America teams just two days before the title game. Roering, Beckman, tackles Dave Honer '64 and John McDowell '64 were named first team, while Spinner and Paul Labinski '65 were named second team. Gagliardi received Coach of the Year honors for the second consecutive season, though he shared the honor in 1963 with John Ray of John Carroll (Ohio).
