Herbie

They flocked by the thousands to the old church on the hill on a sweltering summer day to say goodbye to the man who turned the Gophers into a championship destination and a team of shaggy-haired college kids into heroes during that bygone winter when America badly needed them.

A lone bagpiper played while a soloist sang the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as 33 honorary pall bearers raised their hockey sticks in unison. Vintage World War II aircraft flew over Saint Paul Cathedral and the capital city skyline, their whirring propellers piercing the somberness before disappearing over the Mississippi River.

The aging men who wore the Maroon and Gold or Red, White, and Blue in their youth choked back tears as the casket bearing their coach, their mentor, their friend was carried down the sun-scorched steps and into a hearse for a private burial.

Herbert Paul Brooks earned fame as the hard-nosed head coach who defeated the mighty Soviets to win Olympic gold in the 1980 "Miracle on Ice." He was feted at the White House, glorified by Hollywood, and stalked by corporate titans for inspiration on the lecture circuit.

But Brooks always considered himself a lunch-pail guy from St. Paul's hardscrabble East Side, an Episcopalian who called himself a "back-door Catholic." He would rather drink light beer from a can than sip Cabernet out of stemware.

The iconoclast undoubtedly would have been tickled to see casually dressed laborers and clock punchers rubbing shoulders with politicians and hockey glitterati in designer shades and suits celebrating his life inside such a resplendent house of worship.

Attending the funeral were 19 of the 20 players Brooks coached on the U.S. Olympic team. He was the last to take credit and the first among them to go.

"It's the one reunion that nobody wanted to go to," said Buzz Schneider.

Brooks turned 66 less than a week before he was killed midday August 11, 2003, driving back to his suburban St. Paul home after playing in a charity golf outing for the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in northern Minnesota.

Brooks was ejected from his Toyota minivan when he swerved and lost control on southbound Interstate 35, about 20 miles from his front door. He was not wearing a seatbelt, according to Minnesota state police.

Unrivaled as a transformative hockey coach, sharp-elbowed innovator, and restless intellect, Brooks figured to have one more big play to make, which made the pain from his untimely death cut bone deep. His vagabond career started at the University of Minnesota in 1972 and included layovers in Switzerland, New York City, Minnesota, France, and Pittsburgh before a 2002 encore with Team USA that closed the circle on Brooks' professional life.

"America's Coach" was more than a taskmaster in a track suit with a whistle between his lips.

He was married for 39 years to his indefatigable wife, Patti; dad to son Danny and daughter Kelly; grandfather of five; David's and Gayle's big brother. His closest friends were Minnesota hockey royalty, from the late John Mariucci, Glen Sonmor, Warren Strelow, and Wendell Anderson to John Mayasich, Lou Nanne, John Harrington, and Tom Vannelli.

Most, however, knew him simply as "Herbie." The guy who returned to his East Side barber for haircuts, hobnobbed with the regulars at Vogel's Lounge on Payne Avenue, and once spent two weeks helping an old friend clear brush because the tree trimmer's workers bailed on a major landscaping project.

"I'm sure he was the greatest coach ever," eulogized Bill Butters, Brooks' first Gophers captain. "But he was a father figure, a man of integrity, a man of character, and a man of passion."

People were drawn to Brooks' everyman quality and his sardonic wit, which could leave dinner companions in stitches and the press eating out of his hands.

Even his players chuckled at his barbed-wire "Herbisms."

"You're playing worse every day and right now you're playing like next month!" he would bark from behind the bench.

Flying to Nagano for the 1998 Winter Olympics, Brooks was seated next to a woman who started breastfeeding her infant.

"I hope you're not offended, sir, but it's the only thing that will stop his ears from popping," she said.

"I'm not offended but all these years I've just been chewing gum," Brooks quipped.

One night Brooks was waiting for a table at a Philadelphia restaurant when he spotted a picture of former President Jimmy Carter.

"He called me three times in two days a few years ago but I haven't heard from him since."

Hockey made Brooks a global celebrity, but his passion for the sport matured on the tiny 10-by-20-foot rink his father built alongside the family...