Dennis Denning, center, introduces his grandson, Logan McQuillan, a fifth-grader at Highland Catholic School in St. Paul and member of Lumen Christi, to Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player Paul Molitor at the Catholic Athletic Association Hall of Fame and Gold Plate Dinner Feb. 22, 2010 at Mendakota Country Club in West St. Paul. DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT

Former Cretin-Derham Hall and University of St. Thomas baseball coach Dennis Denning died Nov. 15 at age 76. 

The St. Paul native who attended then-St. Francis elementary school and played for Cretin High School (now Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul) in the 1960s, and coached the team from 1977 to 1994, winning six state championships. He went on to coach at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul from 1995 to 2009, winning Division III national championships in 2001 and 2009. He also coached at Nativity of Our Lord School and the former St. Luke School, both in St. Paul. 

While at St. Luke, he coached former Major League Baseball player and former Minnesota Twins coach Paul Molitor. At Cretin, he coached Bill Lentsch, chief operating officer for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. In 1981, Lentsch and his teammates won the first of six state titles by Denning’s Cretin teams. 

“He was a remarkable human being and a remarkable coach,” said Lentsch, who played in the outfield for Denning his junior and senior years. “He taught me a lot of life lessons. He taught me how to compete, and to compete fairly — fairly and fiercely on the field.” 

When Lentsch played at Cretin in 1980 and ’81, the infield was not in good shape, he recalled. There were so many rocks in the dirt that ground balls could take all kinds of funny bounces, making infielders more than a little nervous when the ball was hit their way. 

Denning took action to solve that problem, Lentsch said, and the coach formulated a routine after practices in which players would walk the infield, remove rocks and put them in their baseball gloves. Not only did this make the infield smoother and easier for fielding, it also yielded one important life lesson that has stuck with Lentsch to this day. 

“He taught me that there’s nothing more valuable than hard work; hard work is what matters,” Lentsch said. “And, whether it’s with your family, (or) it’s on the ball field, (or) it’s your career, if you work hard and if you perform, you will get rewarded.” 

Denning’s hard work as a coach won him respect throughout the Twin Cities and beyond, and earned him special honors from the Catholic Athletic Association in 2010 for his coaching achievements, which also included being inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2012 and being inducted into the St. Thomas Athletic Hall of Fame.