I think that Harvard's arrogance will cost them (much to my delight). They hire a guy for the following reasons: a. He is an alum b. He has been a successful player c. He is well known. But he has never coached a game in his life. Does this make any sense? These guys are so into themselves that they think they can only be successful if they are coached by one of their own (regardless of their lack of qualifications). Donato is a great player, but playing and coaching are clearly not the same. I can't wait to see this blow up in Sucks University's face.
p.s. We are freaking loaded this year. Let's go RED!!!
I wouldn't be suprised if he turnws out a good coach, no saying i'm a sucks fan, but his brother is the coach at Salisbury Prep School, where they have a pretty good Hockey team. I think a lot of coaching is done on instinct, and some by experience
I think with Cleary helping out they are hoping to train a coach on the job who will be with the program for a long time. This is a ballsy move. Donato is sure to be a good recruiter ("I went from Harvard to the NHL" is not a bad sales pitch for a Harvard coach) and if he has any coaching chops Harvard will make out very well.
Donato was considered a coach-in-waiting back when he played at Harvard. He and his family are well-regarded and fondly remembered in the New England area, from high school, Harvard, the Olympics and the B's. Harvard's successful seasons from the mid-80's on principally came from recruiting, not coaching. And in any case, Tomassoni was doing most of the coaching, even when Cleary was officially the head coach.
So I have to believe Harvard thinks Donato will boost recruiting in the Northeast, he'll learn the administrative side from Cleary and others (while they do most of that work early on) and he'll be able to handle the on-ice coaching and player relationship stuff himself, with typical help from his assistants.
It's hardly arrogant to think that having an alum as head coach is important. The balance between athletics and academics is very important here and an alum will likely deal with these issues more readily than a guy who played at North Dakota or Maine might. And I doubt that they're just grabbing at any NHL alum here. There's probably at least some reason to believe that Donato would make a good coach (CUlater's comments back this up).
If they do hire Donato it is certainly not a guarantee of success - it could blow up in Harvard's face. But from the outside it sounds like it could be a good gamble.
BTW - As Cornell fans we should be hoping that this does work out well for Harvard. Rivalries are better when both teams are good. I'd love to see Harvard consistently finishing second in the ECAC and make the NCAA's after losing the final in Albany....
how much coaching experience did Brian McCutcheon (well known alum, terrific player) have before he took the head job at cornell? That didnt turn out too well as I recall.
McCutcheon had a lot of experience, having been the head man at Elmira for six seasons, where he was the NYS coach of the year and led the team to the top ranking in NCAA Division III. And it actually worked out very well, for the first five seasons, until the University admissions offices changed their approach for reviewing athletes.
Dick Bertrand hadn't done much coaching. He hadn't even done that much playing to give him time to think about coaching.
Personally, I thought the most impressive thing about Bertrand was his sports coat! ::rolleyes::
[Q]RichS Wrote:
Personally, I thought the most impressive thing about Bertrand was his sports coat! [/q]
Bertrand's teams did win two championships in his twelve seasons during the pre-split ECAC era. Discretion prevents me from listing some of the schools that didn't achieve that level of success over all 23 pre-split years.
Oh come now Al...calm down. The comment on the sports coats was a joke...as you know He was well known around the ECAC for those jackets.
Oh,... and discretion? Are you turning over a new leaf?
:-D
[Q]RichS Wrote:
Oh come now Al...calm down. The comment on the sports coats was a joke...as you know He was well known around the ECAC for those jackets.
[/q]
The jackets, I've since learned, were not his, but were provided for him to wear by Irv Lewis, a men's clothing store in Ithaca at the time. Yes, they were indeed memorable, and Dick was easy to spot in a crowd. (Sorry, Rich.)
Bertrand, like all of us, had his flaws and foibles. But he had more success filling the shoes of a legend than do most (see, for example, the successors to Wooden, Lombardi, Dean Smith, Murray Armstrong, and on and on). Compounding this seemingly inherent difficulty was the peaking of the BU program under Jack Kelley and then Jack Parker throughout the 1970s-- five ECAC and three NCAA championships in eight years by some of the finest college hockey teams I've ever seen. Considering that he went from tri-captain to coach literally overnight, at a time when there were no assistant coaches to lean on (note the "crutches" planned by Harvard for Ted Donato), I think Dick turned in a pretty darn good performance in his twelve-year tenure.
All this talk about recruiting.....Harvard does not need much help in this department. They had more NHL draftees than any team in the ECAC last year....they have plenty of talent. But they underacheived. This is the result of either bad coaching (Xs and Os) or inability to motivate (can also be blamed on the coaching staff). Donato may be able to sustain Harvard's success in recruiting of late but his ability to address the real needs here is uncertain.
[Q]Red Man Wrote:
All this talk about recruiting.....Harvard does not need much help in this department. They had more NHL draftees than any team in the ECAC last year....they have plenty of talent. But they underacheived. [/q]
Let's not forget that they are the reigning ECAC champions. Those NHL draftees played well when they needed to.
[Q]Avash '05 Wrote:
[Q2]Red Man Wrote:
All this talk about recruiting.....Harvard does not need much help in this department. They had more NHL draftees than any team in the ECAC last year....they have plenty of talent. But they underacheived. [/Q]
Let's not forget that they are the reigning ECAC champions. Those NHL draftees played well when they needed to.[/q]
Two of the last three, and an OT loss in the third to a Final Four team.