Knights want to be gnat in Johnnies' ear

St. John's will play Carleton for the MIAC title on Saturday in Northfield, pitting legendary Johnnies coach John Gagliardi against one of his former quarterbacks, Kurt Ramler.

Gagliardi is 25-0 against Carleton. Ramler wants to blemish Gagliardi's record, but not his reputation.

Like most Johnnies, Ramler loves telling stories about his legendary mentor. "One time he had a gnat in his ear," Ramler said Thursday in his small office on the Carleton campus. "He went to his car, turned on the headlights, and bent down in front of them. He figured the gnat would fly to the light."

Ramler and his brothers, also former Johnnies football players, will spend the three or four hours it takes to canoe through the Boundary Waters telling Gagliardi stories. He also knows that any coaches in the MIAC who think of Gagliardi as more of a character than a coach are deluding themselves.

"Everybody's jealous of him," Ramler said. "Everybody wants to say he's a moron, because he does things different, and he's a genius. People want to hate him because they're doing things a traditional way and it doesn't work.

"He's awesome."

The Knights football coach likes using words like "awesome," and he calls some of his players "dudes."

That's the beauty of the MIAC. It's a league filled with smart kids playing for innovative coaches in quaint stadiums on beautiful campuses. No one knows this better than Ramler, who chose to play football at St. John's and coach at Carleton, where recruiting is more challenging.

Sitting at his desk, Ramler printed off a list of high achievers who played football at Carleton. An ambassador to Beijing. The senior VP of Piper Jaffray. The president of First Bank. And so on.

He clicked another button and showed off his spread offense. "We haven't lined up under center once in the three years I've been here," Ramler said. "We faked it once, though."

He showed off touchdown passes and trick plays. This summer, Ramler visited Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who is making Lubbock, Texas, and his version of the spread famous this fall.

"He sent one of his lackeys to get tea," Ramler said. "He told the guy, 'Make sure you don't use white sugar; stir in some cane sugar.' So that's what I learned about Mike Leach."

Ramler gets his own coffee at Carleton and says, "I can't believe they pay me to do this."

Carleton ranks first in the league in scoring offense, total offense and fourth-down conversions. Quarterback Shane Hefling has completed 67.2 percent of his passes for 2,814 yards and 29 touchdowns. Receiver Matt Frank has 79 catches for 892 yards and 11 touchdowns. Safety Drew Ziller has 91 tackles and three sacks.

"If a kid's a genius, and he can 'ball,' we're all over him," Ramler said. "If he's really good at football but doesn't have the grades, we don't even bother."

Ramler reeled off talking points about Carleton's academic excellence, then offered the kind of football philosophy that separates MIAC coaches from their more one-dimensional brethren.

"I'm going to get a little geeky on you," he says. "It goes back to the Grecians, and Olympia and sport in general, and excellence. Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy. The soul is not complete without the development of the mind and the body.

"You open the paper on Monday morning, and the Vikings are on the front page. What does that say about our society? That we love competing, we love excellence, and the pursuit of personal excellence. I think in Division III, and in this conference, I think that's what we're all about.

"You can't go to a better school in America than Carleton and compete for a D-III championship. You just can't."

All that from the protégé of a coach who uses headlights to get gnats out of his ears.

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m.-noon on AM-1500 KSTP. jsouhan@startribune.com