Schafer a candidate for Notre Dame vacancy?

Bertrand's resignation was very likely of the "strongly encouraged" variety. According to some friends of mine who were close to the team at the time, there was significant discontent with him from the team members. One person actually told me the sentiment on the team was "Dick Bertrand...before he dicks you."

Also, while they were only a year or two away from the ECAC championship, that championship team had a 0.500 record, was the #8 seed in the tourney, and rode a hot goalie (Darren Eliot) to upsets of the top 3 seeds (BU, Providence and Dartmouth).

I don't think anyone close to the team was upset with his leaving. Some suggested he had to take a job at a nowhere, no-name school like Ferris, because nothing else was available to him (but that's just a rumor).

[Q]Jeff Hopkins '82 Wrote: Bertrand's resignation was very likely of the "strongly encouraged" variety. According to some friends of mine who were close to the team at the time, there was significant discontent with him from the team members. One person actually told me the sentiment on the team was "Dick Bertrand...before he dicks you." Also, while they were only a year or two away from the ECAC championship, that championship team had a 0.500 record, was the #8 seed in the tourney, and rode a hot goalie (Darren Eliot) to upsets of the top 3 seeds (BU, Providence and Dartmouth).
I don't think anyone close to the team was upset with his leaving. Some suggested he had to take a job at a nowhere, no-name school like Ferris, because nothing else was available to him (but that's just a rumor).[/q]Whatever chemistry made Bertrand a great father figure as a over-age team captain (as a senior he was 29 years old, having already been a Toronto police officer before Cornell) did not translate into a youthful coach who could relate to his players. Had he beaten Wisconsin in his second or third year (up 5-2 a minute into the last period of the NCAA semis) it might have been a different story. But it didn't happen and there was grousing as early as 1972 or 1973. The class of 1974 (the one Ned started to recruit) was not strong, and it went downhill from there. The Bertrand experience may be Exhibit A why you want a young, bright coach but one who's been an assistant for a bunch of years. Bertrand could have done that at Cornell 1970-75 under Ned (had Harkness stayed) and then he could have stepped into some head coaching job and had a brilliant career. Sad downward spiral for a guy who was quite personable so long as you weren't playing under him.

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

Bertrand could have done that at Cornell 1970-75 under Ned (had Harkness stayed) and then he could have stepped into some head coaching job and had a brilliant career. [/q]
Assistant coaches--at least paid ones--were like hen's teeth back then. Cornell didn't hire its first until Jay Riley in 1976.

Al, I'm recalling people such as Mike Waldvogel in lacrosse in the mid and perhaps early 1970s. And of course there were always football assistants but that's different. (Basketball coaches, too.) But now that you mention it, I don't recall Cornell assistant hockey coaches in the early 1970s. So despite that I'm wrong on the facts (that Bertrand could have been a Cornell assistant for a couple years before edging into the top job), I still believe that Dick Bertrand's career might have been a more successful one - for him, for Cornell, for players - if he hadn't been catapulted into the coach's position directly from his senior year of college.

And Ned's career might have been different in the pros - it couldn't have turned out much worse - if he hadn't ascended into the top job at Detroit right from Cornell. But do you see him being willing to be the No. 2 or No. 3 for a pro team for at least 3 years? Why, heck, he would have stayed at Cornell. But what are the odds his salary at Cornell then, even with an inflation escalator applied, would fall into the equivalent of $100,000 - $200,000 in year 2005 dollars?

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

So despite that I'm wrong on the facts (that Bertrand could have been a Cornell assistant for a couple years before edging into the top job), I still believe that Dick Bertrand's career might have been a more successful one - for him, for Cornell, for players - if he hadn't been catapulted into the coach's position directly from his senior year of college. [/q]
Didn't intend to say you were "wrong," Bill. I think you're absolutely right about Bertrand benefiting from some seasoning. I was just making the point that something we take for granted now (assistant coaches) is a relatively recent phenomenon ("recent" by my standard, at least )

[Q]But what are the odds his salary at Cornell then, even with an inflation escalator applied, would fall into the equivalent of $100,000 - $200,000 in year 2005 dollars? [/q]
I don't know what Ned was paid at Cornell but suspect by today's standards it wasn't much. Don't think there were summer hockey schools back then, but I don't know that for a fact.

I suspect what he was paid at Detroit was nothing compared with today's NHL coaches, either. Gordie Howe made something like $25,000 back in that era--along with a couple of Red Wings jackets. Seems to me only when another player (Bobby Baun?) convinced Howe to stand up to the Wings owner did the NHL players get some leverage to upshift the salary scale.

[Q]Al DeFlorio Wrote:
Seems to me only when another player (Bobby Baun?) convinced Howe to stand up to the Wings owner did the NHL players get some leverage to upshift the salary scale.[/q]

Ted Lindsey: [www.detnews.com]

Re coaching salaries back in Harkness' era, didn't Harkness get a huge increase (percentage) to come to Cornell from RPI ... and it was still not very much. One wonders if that was the lingering effect of sports being seen as the pasttime of the already comfortable (Ivy League WASPs in the F. Scott Fitzgerald mold) and by not paying well, it ever so slightly kept sports that way.

Regarding player salaries in general, was it Dick Allen who was quoted in SI as saying, "We got screwed by the owners for 100 years. Now the shoe's on the other foot and the owners have 97 years to go." That said, it would have been fitting and incredibly noble had the players in *every* sport, as they ratcheted up their salaries, made sure that some amount of the new and improved largesse, say 10%, was distributed into medical and pension funds for retired players. That would have had incredible PR value.

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

That said, it would have been fitting and incredibly noble had the players in *every* sport, as they ratcheted up their salaries, made sure that some amount of the new and improved largesse, say 10%, was distributed into medical and pension funds for retired players. That would have had incredible PR value. [/q]
Right. I recently watched a TV blurb (ESPN?) about George Mikan, an NBA superstar when I was a kid (and, yes, there was even TV then ), showing a very weak Mikan on regular dialysis while receiving a pittance for a pension. They interviewed a representative of the players association who said something about there being some legal reason why the "old-timers" pensions couldn't be increased.

[Q]Al DeFlorio Wrote:
Right. I recently watched a TV blurb (ESPN?) about George Mikan, an NBA superstar when I was a kid (and, yes, there was even TV then ), showing a very weak Mikan on regular dialysis while receiving a pittance for a pension. They interviewed a representative of the players association who said something about there being some legal reason why the "old-timers" pensions couldn't be increased.[/q]

There's no legal reason I can think of why individual players can't pay individual old-timers' medical bills, though - or collectively start a foundation for paying individual old-timers' medical bills.

Beeeej

[Q]Beeeej Wrote:
There's no legal reason I can think of why individual players can't pay individual old-timers' medical bills, though - or collectively start a foundation for paying individual old-timers' medical bills.

Beeeej[/q]
Couldn't agree more, Beeeej. Where there's a will there's a way. Even if it takes a good lawyer to make it happen.

[Q]Trotsky Wrote:

Al DeFlorio Wrote:
Seems to me only when another player (Bobby Baun?) convinced Howe to stand up to the Wings owner did the NHL players get some leverage to upshift the salary scale.[/Q]
Ted Lindsey:
[/q]
Well, Lindsay did lead the charge against the owners, but that wasn't what I was referring to.

This subject was a major theme on one of those biography things they show on ESPN Classic about Gordie Howe. Seems to me it was someone who was traded to the Wings (Baun came over from the Leafs, I think) who approached Howe--perhaps, because he hadn't played with Howe, he felt more comfortable approaching him and speaking out--and basically told Howe he was getting ripped off by Wings ownership, was being held up by owners as an example of why the others shouldn't be paid more [Look, the great Gordie Howe--Mr. Hockey--only makes so much. How could we possible pay you more than that?], and, as a result, all the players in the league were getting screwed. Not until Howe joined the crusade were the players successful--or so the TV biography said.

 

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Al DeFlorio '65