Don Roberts attended Gustavus and returned there later with designs on coaching basketball. Instead, he wound up coaching hockey — a sport he had never played nor coached. That was in 1964, and he wound up staying until 1997. He retired with 532 career victories and was the MIAC Coach of the Year seven times. Tonight, he will be honored with the Hobey Baker Legends of Hockey Award at a ceremony in St. Paul. We had a chance to chat with Roberts — now 75 and still living in St. Peter with Nancy, his wife of 50-plus years — to get his reflections on a few things:

On getting his start in coaching: I came back to Gustavus with the idea that basketball was the sport I always wanted to coach. … But when I got back, the wrestling program was started and the ADs son was a wrestler, so I was named head wrestling coach. I had to learn how to wrestle. Fortunately I had the conference heavyweight champion. I went home like a pretzel every night, but I learned how to wrestle. … Little things happened, and the MIAC decided to bring hockey back into a competitive league and play inside. We played in Aldrich Arena, and everybody played on one day. You got to see every team. Coaches always got together. Players all knew one another. That was a great time for hockey.

On the difference between how coaches are hired now and how they were hired then: When I was hired, you were hired as a faculty member. I went into the physical education and athletic department. I was a professor in physical education and I ended up being a full professor. I taught classes, and coaching was part of your class load. They could move you around any way they wanted to. … I coached football, hockey, baseball, golf and wrestling. I never did coach basketball, the sport I really wanted to coach.

On how he adapted to coaching hockey, a sport he knew nothing about: I learned the key in the marine corps: You get better players than the other team, and your chances of winning are darn good. The training in the marine corps was very good for me. … I found hockey to be just like basketball. I coached hockey just like I was going to coach basketball. Hockey is so similar. Positioning, defense, zones, whatever. It was easy for me to understand. The thing I used most in coaching is if I had kids from Edina, I’d ask what Willard Ikola did. When I got kids from Warroad or Roseau, I’d ask them what their coaches did.

On his recruiting philosophy: I loved hockey players. They were kind of like a platoon in the Marines. If I wanted to be in a fox hole with a kid, I recruited him. It seemed to work out pretty good.

On a good story from back in the day: I call up John Mariucci and I say, “Geez John, we have our first hockey banquet. Will you come down and speak?” He said, sure, and I’ll bring Gump Worsley with me. They came down and I tell you, they would put Saturday Night Live to shame. Not anything out of line, but they were just funny, funny, funny and my players will never forget that.

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