Saint John's (MN)

Location: Collegeville, Minnesota Division: NCAA Division III Conference (football): Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Stadium: Clemens Stadium Conference (basketball): Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Arena: Sexton Arena

The Saint John's University Johnnies compete as members of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in NCAA Division III football and basketball. As a men's college, the school does not sponsor women's basketball. Saint John's is a private Catholic (Benedictine) men's-only institution located in Collegeville, Minnesota, about 90 minutes northwest of Minneapolis. The school is in partnership with the women's-only College of Saint Benedict, located seven miles away in Saint Joseph, Minnesota. The school has an undergraduate enrollment of around 2,000.

The bucolic campus is served by three exits from Interstate-94 (Exit 153, on MN 9, south of Avon, is used by those coming from the West. Exits 156 and 158, both of which serves the campus directly, are used by those coming from Saint Cloud and the Twin Cities).

For Johnnies fans, no one gets under their skin more than Saint Thomas (MN), their saintly rivals from Saint Paul. The two play to overflowing crowds in football (The NCAA Division III record for game attendance was established in 2010 when 16,421 attended the game at Clemens Stadium) and packed houses in other sports, too. Bethel (MN) has also emerged as a rival recently, though still a minor one. Nationally, the Johnnies usually run into Mount Union and Wisconsin-Whitewater in the Division III playoffs.

Four former Johnnies have taken to an NFL field, the most prominent being Johnny Blood, member of the first class of 17 men enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. While in Collegeville, he was John McNally, but when he and a friend needed secret identities to play professionally (while still maintaining their amateur statuses under their real names), he took the name Blood from an old silent movie. Yet even he has been upstaged recently, if not forgotten completely, by the Johnnies' long-time coach, John Gagliardi. Using a simple system of "No's"-as in no scholarships, no spring practices, no mandatory weightlifting programs, and no practices in pads-he has recored 484 victories since 1949, both in Collegville and at Carroll (MT). And he has four national championships to show for it (NAIA: 1963, 1965; NCAA Division III: 1976, 2003). No former Johnnie has played in the NBA, but the basketball team also has a longtime coach in Jim Smith, who has over 600 wins himself since his first season in 1964.