Out of Miracles? : Herb Brooks Once Went for Gold, but Now Will Sell It--and Says He’s Through With Coaching

Herb Brooks went for the gold in 1980, coaching the United States Olympic ice hockey team to an upset of the heavily favored Soviet Union and on to a gold medal in the Lake Placid Winter Games.

Next week, Brooks will be selling the gold.

Fired as coach of the New York Rangers in midseason last winter, he will start working Thursday as a national sales representative for Josten’s, a company that makes Olympic medals, Super Bowl rings and college and high school class rings.

He said that he is through with coaching and that he would like to think that this is the last job he will ever take.

His friends tell a different story. They say he would probably take a job in hockey if the right offer came along.

Brooks may even have other options.

A newspaper in St. Paul reported that the leaders of the Minnesota Independent-Republican party have asked Brooks to consider running against Gov. Rudy Perpich, a Democrat.

Brooks told the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch: “I can’t imagine that 15 years in the locker room prepared me for a position as lofty as that. We didn’t talk about the issues of the day in the locker room.

“I’ve always said that coaching is like being a king. It prepares you for absolutely nothing,” Brooks said.

He also said, however, that he hasn’t met with anyone yet.

State Sen. Jim Ramstad, a member of the party’s candidate search committee, said of Brooks: “He has leadership abilities, high name recognition, he’s a hard worker and is very intelligent. The idea that only politicians can become governor is too prevalent.”

Brooks described himself as a conservative with some liberal tendencies, but called the idea of running for governor ridiculous, saying he isn’t qualified.

Still, if a movie star can become President, why can’t a hockey coach--one still regarded as a hero in the land of 10,000 lakes, which freeze into hockey rinks in the winter, run for office?

When a reporter called Brooks’ house the other day to ask about his political bid, his wife Patti, quipped: “He’s not here. He was supposed to be here at 1 p.m. (it was 4:30). We can’t trust the governor.”

Herb Brooks, acknowledged by many as a hockey genius, a jewelry salesman? A politician?

The last year has been a tough one for Brooks, 47, the man behind the “Miracle on Ice.”

First, his father, Herb Sr., whom he idolized, suffered a heart attack while playing golf last September and died at 76.

“It was a devastating blow to Herb because his father was one of a kind,” Mrs. Brooks said.

Then his pro coaching career, which had begun with such promise, crumbled in New York.

In 1981-82, his first pro season, Brooks guided the Rangers to a 92-point season and a second-place finish in the Patrick Division behind the defending Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders. The Sporting News saluted him as coach of the year for that feat.

In 1983-84, the Rangers had a 93-point season and their best since 1973-74.

But the team started poorly last season after losing four key players to injuries, and Brooks was fired in January, after 3 1/2 seasons and shortly after a messy argument with Barry Beck, the team’s captain.

Beck reportedly threw a garbage can and his sticks onto the ice during the argument, and the New York Times ran a story in which Brooks was quoted as calling Beck a coward.

In a twist lost on few, General Manager Craig Patrick, the man doing the firing, had served as Brooks’ assistant coach in the Olympics.

“I don’t consider myself fired,” Brooks said. “I wasn’t fired. There was no name calling. I was treated fairly.”

With time on his hands, Brooks immersed himself in gardening, a long-time hobby. He is landscaping his house on Turtle Lake, which is really just a big pond in Shoreview, Minn., about 15 miles north of St. Paul. He has just finished transplanting three 20-foot spruce trees.

“He can tell you all the botanical names of every tree around our house,” Patti said.

Some who know Brooks well, though, say he is restless and frustrated because he’s out of hockey, and that landscaping and painting are just ways for him to kill time.

“Every time he gets mad he plants another tree,” joked sports columnist Doug Grow of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune.

Said hockey writer John Gilbert, who has known Brooks for 20 years: “He painted his guest house because he had absolutely nothing else to do. He plants things in his garden and as soon as he gets everything perfect he digs it up and starts over again.

“He seemed extraordinarily depressed the last time I talked to him. (Patti) was calling people on the sly and asking them to take him out and get him drunk.”

His wife denies that story.

“He’s had his moments, but I think he’s been really good,” she said. “I think he enjoys being home. He’s been gone 15 years. In a way, it’s great to have him back.”

Brooks has had a number of coaching offers, most notably from the University of Minnesota, where he coached before accepting the Olympic job, and from the Minnesota North Stars. He joked recently, however, that his best offer was to become an assistant coach for a youth team coached by sportswriter Gilbert.

His time off gave Brooks a chance to watch his son, Danny, 18, play hockey. Danny, a 6-foot 3-inch, 205-pound senior defenseman, earned all-state honors last season at St. Thomas Academy, a small, private military school in St. Paul. He was drafted in the fifth round by the St. Louis Blues last month.

Brooks, who played defense on the 1964 Olympic team, served as a co-captain for the 1968 Olympic team and is recognized as one of the most innovative, tactical coaches in hockey, is taking a hands-off approach when it comes to his son.

“Basically, over the last four years, my wife has raised the kids,” he said. “I don’t want to screw him up too much, so I’ve got to stay away.”

After Brooks was dismissed by the Rangers, Patti thought they might get a chance to do some traveling. They went to Acapulco.

“But it turned out to be a total disaster,” she said. “Herb ate something and got food poisoning. He’ll never go back.”

They have been married for 20 years and also have a daughter, Kelly, 13. They met while Brooks was playing at Minnesota.

“I was his nurse, when he broke his arm,” Patti said. “I know it doesn’t happen very often that a nurse marries a patient. I was working orthopedics and I thought I’d meet Joe Namath.”

Many thought that Brooks would return to the university as coach. He had, after all, led Minnesota to the NCAA championship in 1974, ’76 and ‘79, and had compiled a 175-100-20 record in seven years at his alma mater. The job was his for the taking, and the rumor was that he would have been in line to become the school’s athletic director when Paul Giel retired.

“Paul Giel asked me to come back,” Brooks said. “A lot of people feel that it’s the best job in sports, and they have some good players. But the bottom line was that I had achieved my goals there and there was nothing left to accomplish.”

Then there were the negotiations with the Minnesota North Stars. That seemed to be a match made in hockey heaven. Brooks and Lou Nanne, the controversial general manager of the North Stars, have been friends for 25 years.

Those negotiations, however, bogged down when the North Stars wouldn’t give Brooks a signing bonus.

Brooks may drive a Honda, but he doesn’t work cheap. He was reportedly the highest paid coach in the NHL with the Rangers. His contract was estimated at $200,000 a year and reportedly included a provision that if he were fired he would receive double the amount remaining on his contract.

Art Kaminsky, a New York lawyer who represents Brooks, said of Brooks and Nanne in a Minneapolis newspaper during the negotiations: “They are two of the most dramatic men in the western world.”

In any event, negotiations dragged on for weeks last spring and were reported daily in the Twin Cities newspapers.

The Minneapolis Star and Tribune reported that Brooks asked for a $75,000 signing bonus, then later dropped the figure to $50,000. Nanne, it was reported, offered $10,000, and Kaminsky said that Brooks and the North Stars were about $40,000 apart.

“He was willing to take a salary cut that is far in excess of what you make,” Kaminsky said to a reporter. “But there’s a limit to how far you can go. The bottom line is you had two very strong personalities and we couldn’t work it out.”

Said Nanne: “The signing bonus was really a firing bonus. He wanted a bonus if we fired him at any time. It was ludicrous. Some of the things he asked for were totally out of the question. He knows what we offered.

“Herb’s offer would have been in the top echelon of the National League,” Nanne said. “He would have been up there with guys like Al Arbour (New York Islanders) and Bob Johnson (Calgary Flames).”

Brooks said: “We accepted the salary and the terms, but we couldn’t agree on a couple of points, and I have set some standards for myself. I’m sure that I’ll miss it (coaching) when the snow starts to fly around here, but it will pass.”

Asked if he might get back into coaching or take a job as a general manager if the right offer came along, Brooks said, “Never say never. I’ve been coaching 14 years.”

Unable to sign Brooks, the North Stars eventually hired Lorne Henning, a former assistant coach with the New York Islanders. Sportswriter Gilbert said his paper has received calls and letters from long-time season ticket-holders who are threatening to cancel because Brooks wasn’t hired and that attendance will fall at the Met Center (where the North Stars play) next season because hard-core fans will stay away unless the team plays better than it did last season.

Added sports columnist Patrick Reusse of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch: “People still think he’s a god around here. If (the North Stars) don’t play good, that place (the Met Center) is going to be a morgue. It made too much sense (to hire Brooks), and people got pumped up.”

The North Stars, say they don’t know how much ticket sales will be affected by their decision not to hire Brooks.

There are reports that Nanne has been personally calling season ticket-holders and asking them to renew.

“Our initial sales are up 5% from last year, but I’m sure they’re going to be down a little,” Nanne said.

So Brooks, the local favorite, will not be coaching either the university or the pro team. As of now, he won’t be coaching at all. How does he intend to scratch his hockey itch?

“I may go to some high school and college games, but I don’t know if I’ll go to many pro games,” he said.

At the moment, he said, he is looking forward to his new job. He’ll be based here but will travel around the country, meeting with sports teams.

“I have a lot of friends in the company, guys who are ex-athletes and coaches,” he said. “I’ll be calling on amateur and professional athletic teams. It’s one of the leading companies in the field.”

Brooks said that although he was not qualified for politics, he was eminently qualified for his new job.

“I once had a job selling fire and casualty insurance,” he said. “Coaching is just selling X’s and O’s.”

And is he happy?

“I have peace of mind,” Brooks said. “I think peace of mind is having a certain value system and sticking to it. I think if a person has peace of mind, life has greater rewards. I’ve had a lot of fun coaching.”