Jack Gause

Study. Study, study, study. That’s probably the best advice you can have in this new world that you’re living in. I still don’t own a cell phone, I don’t run a computer. The world has changed. I’m an old specimen of society from a long time ago. The modern society you’re in, if you don’t study, you’ll have a hard time finding a job. It’s not like the old days where everybody went out and got a pick and shovel and started doing something. It just isn’t done that way anymore.

Jack Gause

I was born in 1930, in Portland, Oregon. My folks drove an old automobile from Portland back to Minneapolis in 1931 and I’ve been here since I was one year old. We moved several times as a youth, but ended up in a house in Robbinsdale in 1939. That house still owned by a member of the family to this day.

In 1945, when I turned 15, my father who thought everybody should be working no matter what, took me to East St. Louis, Illinois, put me in the diving suit and put me down for my first job. When I came back from St. Louis, I went to work for Parson’s Electric over the summer. So at 15, I was working as an electrician and a commercial diver.

From 1949-1950, I went to St. Cloud and I spent a year of college there and during that time I started the wrestling team at The College of St. Cloud. They didn’t have wrestling and I am the founder, the first coach of wrestling for what is now the University of St. Cloud.

Then, the Korean War began. So my roommate and I decided we’d go take tests with all of the different services and see which one would guarantee us the best kind of schooling. It happened that the Navy had the best system for us. I was stationed on the USS Asprow, the oldest submarine afloat at that time. I got married while I was in the service and we had three children together.

After the Navy, I worked half days at Al’s Electric as I finished school. I have my degree from St. Cloud. I majored in Social Sciences, minored in both Math and Physics, and got my masters degree in the Social Sciences with Economics as the strongest field. All three of my children were able to walk into my graduation at St. Cloud after I got out of the Navy.

I once had a math teacher by the name of Mark Woodward. He was just the greatest guy I’ve ever known and so I patterned my life after him. I became a teacher and a coach. I taught math and coached wrestling in Columbia Heights High School. That’s also where I became involved with the international officiating of wrestling.

In 1970, I was made the head of officials for the United States AAU program. From 1970 – 1976, I officiated the Pan-American Games and four World Cups. I’ve refereed seven World Tournaments and the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. I refereed four gold medal games before I resigned as the head official and I have not refereed a match since 1976.

During all this time, I would still take time to go to diving jobs. After I finished teaching, I ran my own business for a period of about six years. That was doing lawn service and tree removal. I’m 80 years old now and to this day, I still do all kinds of handy man work. If you have driven on Vicksburg and seen the diver on the corner, that’s my house and I moved in there in 1960. That’s fifty years ago. I’ve seen a lot of change in Plymouth.