1955-75 Highlights

July 26, 2002
1957/Sweep of Johnnies
Certain Tommie football letterwinners always get the last laugh when talking football with their St. John's peers. Only once in history -- from 1954 to 1957 -- has St. Thomas beat St. John's and legendary coach John Gagliardi in football four consecutive years.

The 1957 win also came in the final season for Cigar Bowl Coach Frank Deig, who won 56 football games in 10 seasons (56-37-2) and still ranks No. 1 in school history for wins. (Deig also won 75% of his games as men's basketball coach from 1940-46 with a 16-1, MIAC championship team in 1945-46.)

Deig's 1956 team was the last Tommie team to go unbeaten and untied in one season. That squad averaged 28 ppg and shutout Loras and Gustavus. UST beat the Johnnies 33-25 in Collegeville -- the third most points a UST ever scored on the Johnnie campus. Senior Richard Trafas was drafted by the Detroit Lions.

Among the individuals who had great moments vs. the Johnnies include RB Jake Barkley, who had three career 100-yeard rushing games against St. John's; Dick Gill, who broke a punt return for a touchdown with five seconds left in the first half as the 1967 Toms halted a long losing skid to St. John's with a 13-2 victory. (One of Gill's teammates wearing #50 was Mike Ciresi, who later became a world-renown attorney.)

1962/Hiller Hit Heard 'Round the World
One of the great underdog stories in UST history is Chuck Hiller, believed to be the only MIAC alumnus to play in the World Series. He played eight seasons in the majors, mostly with the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets and part of one season with both the Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates.

On Oct. 8, 1962, with 66,607 fans watching game four of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, Hiller had his day in the sun. The Giants' starting second-baseman, a lefthanded hitter, stroked a seventh-inning grand slam off New York reliever Marshall Bridges and helped rally the Giants to a 7-3 win. It was Hiller's first grand slam of his life at any level and only the eighth in World Series history. He had hit only three homers that season. He finished the day 2-for-5 with two runs and five RBI.

Hiller told reporters after the game, "Baseball sure is a funny game. All year I've been fighting for my life. And suddenly I'm a hero."

In the seven-game series, won by the Yankees, Hiller batted .270 with seven hits, four runs, five RBI and four walks despite playing on sore ankles.

Hiller had 516 hits in 704 career games with 152 RBI and 20 homers while batting .243. He later worked for the Kansas City Royals organization. He was a Royals bench coach from 1976-79 and was part of teams that lost in the American League Championship Series to the Yankees in 1976, 1977, and 1978.

Hiller batted cleanup for the Tommies' 1956 MIAC championship team and batted .576 as a Tommie junior in 1955.

1960s/Diamond Dandies
Tommie baseball in mid-1960s has three players drafted by pros and all three later become UST head coach - Dennis Denning, Steve Schmid and Jim McDonald.

1954/Tom Feely era begins
Tom Feely began his long affiliation with St. Thomas when he enrolled as a student in 1939. He returned to campus in 1946 to coach the St. Thomas Academy basketball team, and took over the college team in 1954. He served UST for parts of seven decades as a student-athlete, two-sport head coach coach, instructor, athletic director and development staffer. In 34 years as a Tommie head coach, he had 28 championship teams and coached more than 1,000 games in basketball and baseball. Feely's teams won 417 games from 1956-80 with seven MIAC titles.

St. Thomas re-emerged on the basketball scene in 1965-1966, in Feely's 12th season, as the Tommies won the MIAC championship for the first time since 1949. That team posted a 16-0 conference mark -- the first unbeaten MIAC season in Tommie basketball history.

Feely's teams won back-to-back crowns in 1965-66 and 1966-67 and complied a 31-game conference winning streak. From 1969-1974, St. Thomas captured five consecutive MIAC championships -- a feat not matched in the 30 years since.

St. Thomas advanced to the NAIA national tournament in Kansas City six times in a nine-year span from 1966-74. Those teams produced several UST Athletic Hall of Famers, including Feely, Steve Fritz, Dan Hansard, Bob Rosier, Fred Korba, John Blum, Dennis Fitzpatrick and Terry McMahon. Hansard also became St. Thomas' first Verizon Co-SIDA Academic All-American.

The 1971-72 team won two games in Kansas City before losing to national power Kentucky State in the quarterfinals.

The 7-foot-4 Rosier broke Fritz' career scoring record (1,944 points) and surpassed 2,000 career points and 1,300 career rebounds. An NBA draft pick of Chicago in 1974, Rosier helped UST to a 99-21 record in his era (59-5 MIAC). His 27 rebounds in 1974 game vs. Coe are still a school record.

1969/"Doc" Joins Staff
One of the wise moves athletic director Frank Mach made in his early years came in 1969 when he hired Larry "Doc" Russ as cross country and track coach. A practicing chiropractor with limited coaching experience, Russ gradually built UST into a national cross country power until he retired in 1993. He coached track and field until 1980, when Mark Dienhart replaced him. The Tommie programs made huge strides in the 1970s under Russ.

Russ' 1984 and 1986 men's cross country teams won the NCAA Division III team championships, and his 1985 team won the National Catholic Championship meet by outrunning Division I schools Villanova and Notre Dame. Russ coached 23 All-Americans, led by 1982 national champion Nic Manciu. Russ' teams qualified for nationals 17 out of 18 years from 1975 to 1992, and placed in the D-III top seven 11 times from 1978 to 1990.

In MIAC competition, Russ' 1974 team won St. Thomas' first conference title in 29 seasons. The Tommies won the conference again from 1978 to 1980, then won 10 in a row from 1984 to 1993. Russ had five MIAC individual champions.

"Winning a national championship takes your breath away," Russ said. "What those kids did for the school was something. You remember the day you were looking at the strong MIAC teams like Hamline, Macalester and St. John's and wondering how you're ever going to break into that company. It took awhile but we started getting a few of the elite runners; then it just took off from there. If you get the horses, they can make a coach look pretty good."

Then Governor Arnie Carlson proclaimed Jan. 30, 1993 as , Dr. Larry "Doc" Russ Day upon his retirement.


1970s/From NAIA to NCAA
St. Thomas phases out its affiliation with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and migrates into NCAA Division III in late 1970s. St. Thomas athletics thrives in the new affiliation. In last 22 years, Tommies win 10 NCAA team championships and 42 individual NCAA titles.

1974/Athletic Hall Created
The inaugural St. Thomas Athletic Hall of Fame class was inducted in 1974 with 15 charter members. The first class consisted of Don Adee and Wee Walsh (coaches); Thomas Gibbons (boxing); George Conroy (hockey); Popcorn Brandt, W. Joe Gibbs, Walt Kiesling, Gene O'Brien, I.A. O'Shaughnessy, Bob Pates, Jack Salscheider and Don Simonsen (football); Thomas Hamper (golf); John Rigney (basketball); and Smith Eggleston (soccer). Females joined the mix in 1989, the sixth overall class, with the induction of Kathryn Ostrom (basketball) and Deb Thometz (CC/track). Athletic Hall of Famers are added every three years. The 2004 induction class will bring the total membership to 146 individuals and one team.

1973/Making His Mark

Quiz time: Who's the Tommies' first two-time Academic All-American? Who is UST's first individual national champion? Who is the holder of the oldest St. Thomas track and field record still on the books? Who briefly was a teammate of O.J. Simpson with the Buffalo Bills? Who coached the first UST football team to reach the postseason playoffs? Who's the only person to coach an MIAC team to national title in track and field? Who's the father of a current All-MIAC women's soccer player and the university's executive vice-president and chief operating officer?

The answer to all the above is Mark Dienhart.

Dienhart's quest for excellence and his passion for St. Thomas is well documented. With all his success as a shot put champion, NFL draftee as an offensive lineman, championship coach and administrator, he said he's as proud of his academic successes as anything he accomplished as an athlete.