Soccer’s popularity in St. Cloud started with a college swimming coach and rose to high school dominance
ABOUT THIS SERIES: "Growing the game: The rise of St. Cloud soccer" is a three-part series diving deep into soccer's evolution in the St. Cloud Area.
COLLEGEVILLE — One year after graduating from St. John’s University, Pat Haws was hired to take care of the new pool on campus and serve as the first head coach of the men’s swim team in 1973.
Four years later, he was asked to help coach another program on campus, founded a decade earlier in 1967. It wasn't an extremely popular game in Central Minnesota at the time: soccer.
“A student that had just graduated was hired to be the head soccer coach,” Haws said. “They wanted me to kind of be a part of that, guide him along; before the ’78 season he quit. John Gagliardi, who was the (athletic director), called and said, 'I want you to be the soccer coach.'”
More:Soccer is gaining popularity in St. Cloud. Here’s why.
“I said, 'John, I don’t know anything (about soccer),'” Haws recalled. “He said, 'What did you know about swimming?”'
Gagliardi clearly had an eye for leadership, achieving his own national records as the all-time winningest college football coach with 489 victories in a 64-year career. Haws also experienced some incredible longevity with the Johnnies, remaining head soccer coach for 32 seasons until 2010.
Haws guided teams to seven MIAC titles and seven national tournament appearances, including Division III quarterfinals trips in 1986 and 1989. His career record of 341-140-50 makes Haws the winningest coach in Minnesota college men’s soccer history.
More: John Gagliardi leaves an unrivaled football legacy at St. John's
“In the '80s we were unbeatable ... one loss in four years at home," Haws said. "We were nationally ranked; we were knocking on the door of something huge."
"But it wasn't me. My knowledge was (small)," Haws added. "We had good players. It was spectacular the pieces we put together."
His son John was born in 1977 and was around the Johnnies from the time he could kick a ball, serving as a ball boy for the team before playing high school soccer at St. John's Prep.
"That family has to take a lot of credit... They did a ton of work there."
- Steve Kimble, head soccer coach at College of St. Benedict
John also played for the Johnnies in college, coaching Prep during his senior season before graduating in 1999. He immediately began serving as an assistant coach for SJU and served in that capacity for 10 years before taking over as head coach after his father. The younger Haws has many years ahead to chase his dad's record of 341 wins, but he's already tallied 100 wins in his 12 seasons.
John Haws has been in Collegeville his entire life; he attended his first SJU swim meet when he was three days old. And he now coaches games on Haws Field, opened in 2013 in his father's name.
"I didn't want to coach college soccer. I wanted to coach Johnnie soccer," John Haws said. "I believe in Division III, and I think St. John's does it better than anywhere else."
The Haws tradition carries on in expanding soccer in St. Cloud
John Haws didn't only get his early soccer training from his father. Another Haws was also key in his development.
"I was a part of a team out of St. Cloud that wasn't like other teams," John Haws said. "(Pat's) uncle Larry Haws was the coach of the team. ... We weren't his first soccer team, but he had a deep understanding of sport and how to become better. He knew to motivate young athletes and they'd run through walls for you, but also you have to get the base skills from a sport. With that understanding you can go to any sport."
Larry Haws took the Central Minnesota Youth Soccer Association under-12 team and grew with them through the years. John Haws remembered a summer of going 35-0 overall, and the "St. Cloud Rollers" went on to win multiple state titles and AAU national championships in 1992 and 1993 in the U15 and U16 divisions.
"A lot of what I did, a lot of what John does, we learned that from Larry," Pat Haws said. "Just from being around him and watching him. In Central Minnesota soccer ... Larry Haws blows it out of the water."
Larry Haws wore many hats, working in the St. Cloud Parks and Recreation Department for over 30 years and later serving three terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives. He died at age 72 in 2012 after battling brain cancer.
College of St. Benedict head coach Steve Kimble has been coaching in the area since he graduated from Sartell High School in 1995. He's seen huge development in the 27 years since he coached his first U-14 girls team, much of which he traces back to a legend like Larry Haws.
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"Larry was critical in starting a lot of good soccer in the area," Kimble said. "He was critical for developing Whitney Field complex up to a standard of play when Whitney was the heyday. He started a number of teams for minorities in the area; he really leveraged soccer to support a number of different people."
"That family has to take a lot of credit for development of interest, development of players, expansion of opportunities and development of facilities in that early-mid 90's era. They did a ton of work there."
That legacy continues to live on. John Haws can name multiple players from his St. Cloud Rollers teams that are now coaching their own kids' teams, bringing more experienced soccer knowledge to youth coaching. He said that can lead to more intelligent conversations between parents and kids about the sport they're passionate about, which further enhances development.
More:What’s next for soccer in St. Cloud as the sport continues to grow in popularity?
"I've always been very high on soccer skills, and I get that from Larry Haws, who basically kicked off my coaching career," Kimble added. "He was all about technical abilities: foot skills, foot skills, foot skills. That's always been a priority."
John Haws and Kimble now get the chance to pass down those same lessons to dozens of players every season at the Division III level, and those ideas get spread even further when college players return to their own communities post-graduation.
Larry Haws planted a small seed through years of dedication, and its blossoming has already had immeasurable impact on the soccer community.
St. Cloud high school soccer started out as outsiders, rose to state champions
While St. John's kickstarted the local college soccer scene with an early string of success in the 1970s, high school soccer took a longer time to gain a foothold in the area. The Central Lakes Conference, home to the largest public schools in Central Minnesota, didn't sponsor soccer as a girls sport until 1997 and boys until 2000.
St. Cloud Tech girls were an early dominant force, winning the first five conference titles and making trips to state in 1997 and 2001. Brainerd girls have owned the conference the past two decades, winning 15 of the last 19 CLC titles and the past eight from 2014-21.
"It had to be the most people watching a soccer game in St. Cloud ever, the stands were just full."
- Logan Lommel, younger brother to 2014 Apollo soccer player Leighton Logan
CLC titles have been more spread out on the boys side, with Tech and St. Cloud Apollo earning at least a share of the title in 12 of 22 seasons. Tech has been a regular at state in recent years with four consecutive section titles, including top-three finishes in 2015 and 2019. But their first state appearance didn't come until 2008 under first-year head coach Nantha Viswanathan.
By that time, two other schools from St. Cloud had already established themselves as state regulars. St. Cloud Cathedral qualified for state 10 times between 1997 and 2012, and Apollo qualified in 2006 and 2007.
Reaching state would only do so much to establish Central Minnesota as a legitimate contender for titles. Someone had to go out and win the whole thing.
Enter the 2014 Apollo boys soccer team.
The Eagles went undefeated in 23 games, only allowing 10 goals the entire season. Apollo junior Leighton Lommel scored on a free kick in the 67th minute of the Class A championship over DeLaSalle to win 1-0 at St. Cloud State's Husky Stadium.
It was the only shot on goal of the game, and Apollo senior goalie Cooper Gray helped his team record its 16th shutout of the season.
"Going to the section finals as a junior, we knew we'd be back again because of the squad we had," Abdiaziz Handule said, who was a senior on the 2014 team. "The guys we had gave that commitment to reach a higher level and reach state."
Raising the state title trophy on that late October morning, the Eagles cemented themselves as another in a wave of soccer pioneers in Central Minnesota.
"It had to be the most people watching a soccer game in St. Cloud ever, the stands were just full," Lommel's younger brother Logan remembered. "The atmosphere was just electric and the boys were fighting so hard ... it was just nail-biting being in the crowd."
Logan Lommel would go on to star for the team in later years before graduating in 2019 to play Division I soccer at Western Illinois. He tried out for that 2014 team as an eighth grader but didn't make the cut. He rests easy knowing he wasn't good enough to make the best high school team in St. Cloud's history.
"They had two overqualified coaches in Manny Campos and Ganard Orionzi," Lommel said. "The coaches were able to just unite the team and it was really fun to watch. All the guys grew together every year."
They were the first team (boys or girls) from the area to even reach a state soccer title game, let alone come away victorious. No soccer team from beyond the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area has claimed a state title since Apollo in 2014.
Apollo had proven Central Minnesota could have a legitimate state contender, and Tech was on the precipice of becoming a soccer power in the area.
The work of the Haws family decades prior was continuing to pay dividends at the youth level. Local soccer was seeing rising participation from high schools and gaining more mainstream appeal.
But as with any growth, it created new obstacles. Talented players who'd had soccer deeply ingrained in their lives wanted to be challenged in new ways. An established soccer scene was already booming in the Twin Cities hardly an hour away.
How could the St. Cloud Area keep its homegrown talent local and maintain steady growth?
The answer isn't a simple one.
This is part one of a three-part series on soccer's evolution in the St. Cloud-Area. All three parts are subscriber-only content at sctimes.com.
Here's the remaining print publication schedule for "Growing the game: The rise of St. Cloud soccer".
Sunday, August 28 — Part 1: Emergence
Monday, August 29 — Part 2: Challenges
Tuesday, August 30 — Part 3: Future
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This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: How soccer became popular in St. Cloud schools, colleges
