Scanlon called to one more hall of fame

AVHS coaching legend honored by national organization

Chuck Scanlon thought he wouldn’t be asked to attend another hall of fame banquet, but he was proven wrong.

The winningest high school soccer coach in Minnesota history was called to another last month in Bismarck, North Dakota, where he was inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

It’s the 10th sports hall of fame for Scanlon, whose Apple Valley High School teams won nine state championships in boys soccer and two in girls hockey. Among the other organizations that have honored him are the Minnesota State High School League and Bemidji State University, where he starred as a hockey goalie in the 1970s.

But there’s always time for one more. “It was a lot of fun,” Scanlon said. “At the banquet, we were at a table with a woman who had a part in the movie ‘Jaws.’ She was a water skier in the movie, but she’s in the credits.

“It was great to be there with my wife, Barbara, who’s supported me through all of this. And my son Chris (one of the Scanlons' four children) was able to make it to this one. He couldn’t go to some of the others because he had obligations to his own kids.”

Also inducted into the national hall of fame was Hibbing’s Gail Nucech, the winningest coach in Minnesota high school volleyball.

Scanlon retired from coaching in 2015 and from teaching at Apple Valley in 2016. He was the last faculty member from the school’s first year (1976-77) to retire. But his influence on the AVHS soccer programs is still evident. Current boys head coach Nic Barclay and former girls head coach John Christiansen played for Scanlon. Chris Scanlon coached the boys team for several years after succeeding his father.

The state high school soccer coaches association credits Chuck Scanlon with 574 victories from 1977 through 2015. The Apple Valley boys reached the state tournament 17 times during his tenure and the first of nine state championships came in 1984. Three times, the Eagles won back-to-back state titles (1988-89, 1997-98 and 2009-10).

One of the more remarkable statistics from Scanlon’s career was his teams were undefeated in state championship games – 9-0 in boys soccer and 2-0 in girls hockey. Scanlon is convinced that in at least some of those championship years the Eagles weren’t the state’s most talented team.

But his skill at motivating his teams to play as teams is legendary at Apple Valley. Scanlon said he got most of it from Bob Peters, his hockey coach at Bemidji State, and 1980 Olympic gold medal coach Herb Brooks, for whom Scanlon worked at hockey camps. Both were known as hard-nosed, no-nonsense types who didn’t mind pushing players harder than they might have wanted to be pushed. They didn’t tolerate entitlement or complacency.

He was able to adapt that to Apple Valley, which in its early years was regarded as a school with students from affluent families.

“I remember one year we got the soccer team together and I asked, ‘How many of you have cars in the parking lot?’ Most of the kids raised their hands,” Scanlon said. “I asked, ‘How many of you have credit cards?’ Again, most of them raised their hands.

“Then I asked, ‘How many of you paid for those things?’ A couple of hands went up.”

The point – it was different on the soccer field because nothing would be given to them. And the point was taken, Scanlon said, because the majority of his teams played with passion and determination.

He also coached baseball, boys hockey, ringette and golf at Apple Valley. In 1994-95, he led Apple Valley into the inaugural season of Minnesota high school girls hockey. South St. Paul was heavily favored to win the first hockey state tournament because it had been a ringette power. But the Eagles defeated the Packers 2-0 in the championship game. Three years later, Apple Valley defeated Hibbing 1-0 in overtime in the first televised state girls hockey final.

This week Scanlon was scheduled to meet with a Minnesota Historical Society representative working on a project about the early days of Minnesota girls and women’s hockey. One subject likely to come up is whether he had to change his coaching style after working with boys teams for so many years.

“Not really,” Scanlon said. “The girls were eager to play and ready to learn. After the first year I was getting a lot of calls from boys coaches who were tired of it for one reason or another, asking me what it was like to coach girls.”

Although he’s no longer coaching, Scanlon isn’t far away from high school sports. He and his wife live seven months of the year in Destin, Florida. For five months in the spring and summer they split time between Farmington and Balsam Lake, Wisconsin, so they can be close to their grandchildren. Scanlon is a frequent visitor to AVHS when in Minnesota and spends a lot of time scouring the internet for Minnesota high school sports news and statistics. To him, it’s still a passion.

“You hear about a lot of bad things these days,” Scanlon said, “but if I had it to do over again, I’d do it the exact same way.”