An April 15 sold-out banquet will honor former Catholic Athletic Association (CAA) players — Joe Mauer of Minnesota Twins fame and Hannah Brandt, a center for Boston in the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) — and will celebrate the CAA’s 75 years serving parochial schools in the Twin Cities and sites beyond.

Also celebrating 75 years is the St. Patrick’s Guild book, gift and church goods store with May 31-June 1 in-store specials, music, refreshments and a short program June 1 with a blessing from Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

The late Bob Doran, a faith-filled family man, was instrumental in founding both St. Paul fixtures.

“He was very spiritual and a devout Catholic — the Dorans would often pray the rosary on their knees as a family in the den,” said one of his sons, Tim Doran, who runs the store now with his wife, Barb, and with help from their daughter, Teresa, in marketing, and their son, Robert, a sales manager.

Tim’s older brother, Mike Doran, oversaw the store after their father died in 1972 at age 48. Mike Doran is now retired; Tim and Barb Doran bought him out in 2004.

The Dorans also remain involved with the CAA; Tim Doran, a member with his wife of Assumption in St. Paul, is a former president of the board. In an interview on the March 18 “Practicing Catholic” radio show on Relevant Radio 1330 AM, two other leaders of the CAA talked about the organization’s mission and growing network of schools.

“Beginning in 1948, our (late) founders Father Otto Neudecker, Bob Doran and John Hajlo saw a need in the Catholic community for some kind of program to augment and add to what was going on in our Catholic schools,” said Kevin McCloughan, board president and parishioner of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul. “We provide this framework that allows our member schools to plug into a multitude of programs in a very easy fashion.”

Hajlo, a friend of Bob Doran, served as the first CAA athletic director and carried on his friend’s vision for more than 50 years as executive director. That vision included boys’ and girls’ athletic and non-athletic programs serving the Catholic community. Hajlo’s daughter, Nancy Hajlo Johnson, has been a CAA board member for over 20 years. She recalled a line from a letter Bob Doran sent to her father, asking if he would be interested in the athletic director’s job: “This new program is taking hold, we think it will be a dandy.”

The CAA offers programs in cross country running, soccer, volleyball, hockey, swimming, baseball, basketball, softball, golf and track. Swimming is currently its most expansive program with over 1,000 participants, McCloughan said. The association serves 57 schools in the Twin Cities area and western Wisconsin. While maintaining a Catholic identity, the CAA offers athletics to private schools with religious associations.

Megan Jacobson, also a member of Nativity and CAA’s director of operations, told “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley that the association’s athletic offerings expand what small schools can provide. Students have “an opportunity to participate in sports they maybe wouldn’t otherwise,” she said.

The banquet marking CAA’s anniversary will be held April 15 in Woulfe Alumni Hall at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Archbishop Hebda will offer closing remarks and a final blessing.

The event comes only months after January’s first-round election of Mauer, a St. Paul native and retired Twins catcher and first baseman, to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Growing up in St. Columba parish and a graduate of Cretin-Derham Hall High School, both in St. Paul, Mauer played in the CAA from 1994 to 1997. His mother, Teresa Mauer, was the office manager at St. Patrick’s Guild while Mauer and his two brothers, Bill and Jake, were growing up and playing in the CAA, Tim Doran said. All three Mauer siblings also played in the Twins’ organization.

Hockey player Brandt, who grew up attending St. Odilia in Shoreview, is a graduate of Hill-Murray School in Maplewood. She played in the CAA from 2001 to 2007. Her career has included representing the United States in two Olympic Winter Games, winning gold in 2018 and silver in 2022. She also has been on the U.S. Women’s National Team, winning gold in 2015, 2017 and 2019 and silver in 2012 and 2022.

At the CAA banquet, Brandt and the Mauer family, including Teresa Mauer’s late husband, Jake, will be inducted into the CAA Hall of Fame. Brandt and Joe Mauer also will be honored as the outstanding athletes of the last quarter century.

The Mauer family plans to attend the event. Brandt’s team was in the hunt for a playoff spot in the PWHL, and as The Catholic Spirit went to press, her attendance at the banquet had not been determined.

Retired sports broadcaster Dick Bremer, the lead TV announcer for the Twins from 1983 until he retired last year, will be the evening’s emcee.

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ST. PATRICK’S GUILD

Founded by Bob Doran in 1949 in St. Paul with pamphlet racks stacked with Bibles, books and more in the back of Catholic churches and honor-system collection boxes attached to the racks.

• First store front established in the 1950s in St. Paul.
• Four or five branch stores were open at any one time in the Twin Cities.
• Main store at 1554 Randolph Ave. in St. Paul was remodeled in 1998, adding a bookstore, Irish store and delicatessen.
• The Great Recession of the early 2000s, the internet and growth of online sales prompted the closing of branch stores.
• Main lines of business: Church goods and gifts, including vestments, chalices and other sacred vessels, altar linens and banners; and gifts for those celebrating baptism, first Communion, confirmation or other sacraments; books and stationery; church renovation through subcontractors for work including painting, stained glass, statue repair and renovations.

— Joe Ruff