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| Mike Zauhar stepped in front of Randell Knapp on the goal line, and the rest is history. Photo by Todd Allred, D3sports.com |
By Mark Simon
D3football.com Emeritus
Dr. Mike Zauhar gets asked about his 2003 Stagg Bowl moment on average about once a week. Sometimes the questions come from his chiropractic patients in his hometown, Brainerd, Minnesota. It came up quite a bit at St. John’s homecoming last month, with everyone wanting to hear his recollection of the 100-yard interception return that clinched a national championship win against a Mount Union team that had won 55 games in a row.
But the funniest question about it came from his 7-year-old son, Michael, who is just getting his first experience playing flag football and watching the Minnesota Vikings with his dad on Sundays.
“Holy cow, dad, is that you?” Zauhar’s son said. “Did you ever play with (Vikings star receiver) Justin Jefferson?”
“The innocence of your own child recognizing how cool of a play it was and how cool the game was, that was pretty neat to me,” the elder Zauhar (pronounced ZA-harr) said.
It was a pretty cool play and a pretty cool game. Mount Union scored its only points in the second quarter to go up 6-0. St. John’s scored the last 24. Blake Elliott, a wide receiver playing with a hamstring injury, rushed for 110 yards, including a 51-yard run early in the fourth quarter to put the Johnnies ahead 17-6.
But there was still the thought that the Purple Raiders had a comeback in them, especially after it converted a fourth down to get a first-and-goal from the 2-yard line with just under 11 minutes left.
The Johnnies got stops on runs on both first down and second down. On third down, Mount Union lined up in shotgun, perhaps telegraphing that a pass was coming. Quarterback Jesse Burghardt took a three-step drop, turned, and threw to his slot receiver, Randell Knapp. Knapp scored two touchdowns in the quarterfinals against Wheaton and three in the semis against Bridgewater, but St. John’s nearly completely shut him down, holding him to one catch.
On this play, Zauhar thought that Knapp telegraphed what was coming on his first step. He stepped in front of Knapp and picked the pass off at the goal line. Zauhar had a clear path up the left sideline to the end zone. He took it the distance for the score that put the game away.
“He took an elongated jab step and then I kind of felt his shoulder turn,” Zauhar said of Knapp. “That tipped me off that he was running an out (route). I turned around and the ball was right there. After that, you’ve just basically gotta catch it and don’t trip and fall.”
As ESPN’s announcer noted “It’s the fastest hundred yards he ever ran in his life.”
That’s not entirely accurate.
“It’s probably the fastest 50,” Zauhar said. “The last 50, I ran out of steam.”
Jim Gagliardi, son of legendary St. John’s coach John Gagliardi, told Zauhar at their recent reunion that play was one of the few times he saw his dad smile during a game.
“That made me feel pretty good,” Zauhar said.
The next year Zauhar was a senior and during two-a-days he and a teammate receiver both went up for a pass. Zauhar landed awkwardly and spent four days in the trainer’s room trying to heal his hip injury. The trainer referred Zauhar to a local chiropractor. The treatment worked immediately on Zauhar.
It also set him up for his future career.
Zauhar, a biology and natural science major, graduated and went to medical school. He got his doctorate in 2010, moved back near his hometown the next year, currently lives in Baxter, Minnesota, with his wife and two children, and has been practicing ever since. He gladly fields any questions anyone has about his championship moment, that team, and that win.
“It basically came down to believing in each other,” Zauhar said. “The farther along the game got, you could feel our confidence growing. ‘Hey, we can play with these guys. You know, we're winning now. We're keeping up with them.’ So, yeah, it was fun to end their streak.”