Christian Reader, Jan/Feb 2002

This article appeared in The Christian Reader in the January/February, 2002 Issue.

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Ragnar the Barbarian

A Viking almost destroyed by his own anger

Julie Saffrin

The faith and fury of the Vikings mascot.

When football comes to Minneapolis, Ragnar, the Minnesota Vikings mascot, revs up his purple Victory motorcycle in the Metrodome where crazed fans in purple and gold await his rabble-rousing cue. Dressed in a fur vest that looks like he just skinned the unlucky animal, a belt sporting the Vikings insignia, and moosehide mukluks, he appears fresh off Leif Erikson's longship. With craggy, waist-length locks and a beard nearly the same length, four massive tattoos, a gold earring, beady brown eyes, and standing six feet and weighing 287 pounds, Ragnar is one behemoth brute.

His entrance is pure entertainment. Ragnar vrooms in, stops midfield, stands on the seat and handlebars made of cattle horns, and yells his savage cry. Brett Favre, Green Bay's quarterback, aims a football at the barbarian. Ragnar brings his sword across his own neck. "I'll see you after the game!" he yells. Players and fans alike know Ragnar's feigned fury adds to the excitement of the game.

Just over a decade ago, Joe Juranitch (Ragnar's real name) had anger that was anything but under control. High on drugs and alcohol, he loaded a sawed-off shotgun and a rifle intending to kill his parents.

Growing up angry

Born to a tough disciplinarian and a homemaker in Milwaukee in 1961, Joe was the third of five children. Every spare nickel the family had went into Joe's father's fledgling blade-sharpening business.

"We were dirt poor. I'd wear the same pants each week. When I got a pair of shoes, I wore them the whole year," Joe remembers.

Joe began escaping to the attic, where he'd get out his father's gun. "I would point it out the window and pretend to shoot a deer." One day Joe's father asked him to get the gun so he could pawn it.

"That was going to be my hunting gun and Dad selling it to put a meal on the table made me furious," Joe says.

Being forced to attend parochial school added to Joe's anger. "I was eight years old and the priest took me out of class, brought me to the sanctuary, and talked perverted to me. I looked at the altar, saw the cross with Jesus on it and thought, I hate this. I hate you. I can't stand this cross."

The incident was dismissed by his teacher. Rather than helping Joe, she belittled him for his academic struggles. The truth was, Joe had a learning disability. "I couldn't retain anything. I'd try and still fail."

At home, Joe's dad's temper had a short fuse. He felt the pressure of perfecting his blade-sharpening invention, while working two jobs to support his family.

When the family moved, Joe's grades continued to plummet. "One teacher told me I wasn't worthy of an F and gave me numbers for a grade. I was humiliated," Joe says. His classmates made fun of him, too, and Joe retaliated with his fists.

Another move to Ely, Minnesota, didn't help. One teacher pounded her index finger into Joe's head, asking, "How dumb are you, anyway?"

Stop messing with me, God

To hide his shame, Joe became the class clown. "It was the only way I could get good attention from anyone." In high school, alcohol became part of the mix.

Joe couldn't wait until he was old enough to get drunk with his older sister, Mary. "We hunted and fished together. I couldn't wait until I could start drinking with her. It was going to be a blast."

Mary, however, made a commitment to Jesus Christ at 19 years of age. Her decision made Joe drink and fight even more.

One summer evening in 1980, a young brunette with a tattoo on her shoulder walked into the bar and Joe asked her out. The following night, Joe was impressed. "Laurie slugged a fifth of whiskey and I thought, 'I like this girl!'"

Alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine fueled their romance, until Laurie's family left their summer cabin in Ely and returned to Minneapolis.

In September, Joe went to work for his father's blade company. The two traveled together, selling the patented blade sharpeners. Always the entertainer, Joe would show off for audiences by shaving his full beard with a four-and-a-half foot double-bladed timber axe.

It wasn't long, however, before Joe's drunken brawls got him a night in jail. "I got picked up for a DWI, for open-bottle, and for assault in the fifth degree. I had no car insurance. I was out of control and drank like a fish. I could do nothing without booze. I wanted to quit in the worst way, but it had a hold on me."

At home, Mary kept telling Joe of God's love for him. Joe told her, "I don't want anything to do with your God!"

Five years later, on a business layover in Minneapolis, Joe decided to call Laurie out of the blue. Her sister, Sherri, told him Laurie was out for the evening, then said, "Have you heard about Laurie becoming a Christian?"

Joe couldn't believe it. "First I lose my sister to God. Now I lose this girl to God. I wish God would mind his own business!"

Later that week, up at her parents' cabin, Laurie went to see Joe. He could not believe the transformation. "There was a sparkle in her face, an altogether different beauty about her."

The couple resumed their romance. But while Joe's addictions spiraled, Laurie's faith grew stronger.

"Joe, I cannot go back down to your level, but you can come up to mine," she encouraged him. He promised that he would try to give up drinking.

I'm going to kill them!

Joe's attempt to start fresh took an evil turn in 1986. Late one evening while high on drugs, the raging beast inside him reached the breaking point.

"The anger was absolutely terrible," he says. The years of being shamed in school and living in a dysfunctional family all seemed the fault of two people: his parents. He loaded a sawed-off shotgun and a .30 carbine rifle, then drove to his parents' 15-employee business. He thought his parents might be working. When he arrived, the office was dark. Leaving the guns in his truck, he went inside. Suddenly, he felt prompted to call Laurie 300 miles away.

Sherri, Laurie's sister, answered the phone, as Laurie wasn't home. Joe admitted that he was about to kill his parents. Laurie's mom, in Ely at the summer cabin, was on the call-waiting line. Sherri clicked over to her mom and told her to get someone over to the family business immediately.

While Sherri kept Joe on the line, her mother called Joe's brother-in-law, Randy, for help. Within minutes he was at the office, found the guns and unloaded them. Randy calmed Joe down and convinced Joe to go with him to Laurie's parents' cabin. Meanwhile, Sherri had contacted Laurie, saying her parents needed her up north.

At the cabin, Laurie's parents hugged Joe and reassured him of God's love. That night, Joe felt he had hit bottom.

"I was trying to run my own life and making a shambles of it," he says. "I knew I needed to do something."

The next morning Joe explained everything to Laurie and said he was ready to redirect his life. Laurie's parents offered Joe use of their home in Minneapolis while he got back on his feet. Joe thought about what he would have to give up—a good income, hunting and fishing with his buddies, and alcohol.

"That's what Satan does to you," he says. "He makes you think you're leaving something great behind." Still, Joe agreed to their offer.

A lot of growing to do

In Minneapolis, Joe mowed lawns. "It was 90 billion degrees out, and I was sweating like a pig," he says.

At one house, halfway through the job, the owner rattled a gin and tonic at him. "I had grass clippings all over my body, itched like crazy, and was dying of thirst," he says. He stared long and hard at the glass—and asked for water instead.

A week later, while looking for his last house of the day, Joe got lost. Pulling off the road, he prayed, "Lord, if you're the real deal, where is this road?" When he looked up and saw a street sign, he realized he was on the road he had been looking for.

Joe was impressed at the immediate answer to his prayer. But as much as he wanted love from this God, unresolved anger boiled within him.

"I went forward at a Christian rock concert, my heart coming out of my chest as I prayed the salvation prayer. But when some guy walked up behind me, grabbed me, and said, 'I love you,' I spun around and said, 'If you don't get away from me, I'll kill you.' I was still struggling. I thought, You weakling! There isn't one of you in here who'll challenge me. Where is your strong God?"

Joe had stopped his drinking, but his patience was wearing thin with the lawn business. In September 1986 he cried out, "God, if you are real, you'd better get me a new job by the end of the week. If you don't, I'm going back to Ely."

Friday morning as he was packing, the phone rang. A community college asked if he would be interested in a security job at a high school. Joe interviewed and was hired the same day.

Joe had another important thing to take care of. "I had to make amends with my parents. Mom hugged me and said, 'Joe, I love you!'" For 26 years, Joe had waited to hear those words. His father, too, welcomed him back.

A gentle giant

As much as Joe loved working security, he missed performing in front of a crowd. In 1993, Laurie, who was now his wife, mentioned that the Vikings were looking for a mascot.

Open to a new adventure, Joe auditioned and was picked for the job. Believing God gave him this opportunity, Joe prays for wisdom and new ideas to entertain the fans.

There has been emotional healing with family members, too. At his mother's funeral a year ago last October, his dad said to his children, "I have not been a good father, but from this day forward I will be the father I was meant to be."

Joe motivates a different crowd Monday through Friday as a paraprofessional at a high school in Hopkins, a suburb west of Minneapolis. "Kids tell me they don't believe in God. I tell them you don't have to believe you've got a brain, either, but you do," Joe says, smiling.

Joe is adamant that the students not use profanity around him. "As soon as I tell them they can't take God's name in vain, the kids ask me why. I've gotten to share my story with Muslim kids, Jewish kids, even biker gangs."

Both Joe and Laurie, who works with special needs kids at Gatewood Elementary School in Hopkins, see their role primarily as listeners.

"A lot of these kids have a poor relationship with one of their parents. I understand because I did, too," he says. The former renegade is now a channel of God's love to kids, spiritually challenging them. One rebel at a time.

A Christian Reader original article.

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