Full Circle for Nieuwendyk?

[Trotsky]

[quote RatushnyFan]Why do you say that about Baby?[/quote]

Bâby is among the top two players in terms of leadership that we've seen under Schafer (the other being Brad Chartrand).  If he were to get some assistant coaching experience at the college level, I could see that as well.

25 years from now, hopefully.

[Robb]

[quote KeithK]The difference is that Harvard had been struggling with their previous coach who had created some PR problems for the program (the players grumbling, complaining).  They may have decided that they needed a good headline.  If Schafer were to announce his retirement tomorrow (perish the thought) I don't think Cornell is in a position where we need a splashy headline to sell the program.[/quote]
I guess I'm not so optimistic.  Quite frankly, I think Schafer IS the Cornell program these days.  Look at what has happened to the other ECAC powers during his tenure.  Only Schafer has managed to put together credible national threats during that time frame (possible exception of SLU in 01 or 00 or whenever they were last good).  When Schafer leaves, Cornell is definitely at risk for joining Clarkson and SLU in the ranks of the mediocre.  We will need all the headlines we can get to tide us over until the new coach proves that he is the next real deal.  Obviously, we need a coach with true talent - I guess all I'm really saying is that a coach with talent *and* headlines would be better than one with just talent. (duh)

[Trotsky]

[quote Robb]When Schafer leaves, Cornell is definitely at risk for joining Clarkson and SLU in the ranks of the mediocre.[/quote]

Enjoy the present.  In my four undergrad years, Cornell won 54 games.  A senior this year has been given 91 wins, with hopefully more to come.  This is The Second Golden Age -- revel in it.  There's nothing we can do about tomorrow.  Que sera sera.

[billhoward]

[quote Trotsky][quote RatushnyFan]Why do you say that about Baby?[/quote]

Bâby is among the top two players in terms of leadership that we've seen under Schafer (the other being Brad Chartrand).  If he were to get some assistant coaching experience at the college level, I could see that as well.

25 years from now, hopefully.[/quote]
Twice in the same year, famous Cornellians jumped into new head coaching positions without an apprenticeship at the assistant level, and it didn't work out: Ned Harkness going to the pros from that 29-0 year at Cornell, and Dick Betrand going from being a ~ 29-year-old team captain to Cornell's head coach.

To succeed you need to have coaching skill plus leadership that works at the level you're coaching at plus an understanding of the players and their mindsets. It helps if you're a famous name. It helps if you're an alum. Nieuwendyk has the famous name and Cornell link, he seems a decent-enough guy ... but would that translate into being a good teacher, a good leader, a good recruiter?

One possible issue: If Joe were in Ithaca and not the head coach, don't you think the head coach would hear murmurs every time he loses a game?

[Jacob 03]

[quote billhoward]
Twice in the same year, famous Cornellians jumped into new head coaching positions without an apprenticeship at the assistant level, and it didn't work out: Ned Harkness going to the pros from that 29-0 year at Cornell, and Dick Betrand going from being a ~ 29-year-old team captain to Cornell's head coach.
[/quote]

This is a bit hard on Bertrand, no?  In his first year the team lost a whopping five games.  By my count he ended up winning two regular season "titles," two conference tournaments, and took the team to the NCAAS four times.  I guess you could conclude that his first three years of success were residual Harkness efforts, but I doubt that everything good that happened to the team was Ned's doing and everything bad was Dick's.  Bertrand managed to last a decade, and brought the team back to the NCAAS in his final two seasons.  I think it worked out well enough.

[billhoward]

[quote Jacob 03][quote billhoward]
Twice in the same year, famous Cornellians jumped into new head coaching positions without an apprenticeship at the assistant level, and it didn't work out: Ned Harkness going to the pros from that 29-0 year at Cornell, and Dick Betrand going from being a ~ 29-year-old team captain to Cornell's head coach.
[/quote]
This is a bit hard on Bertrand, no?  In his first year the team lost a whopping five games. By my count he ended up winning two regular season "titles," two conference tournaments, and took the team to the NCAAS four times.  I guess you could conclude that his first three years of success were residual Harkness efforts, but I doubt that everything good that happened to the team was Ned's doing and everything bad was Dick's.  Bertrand managed to last a decade, and brought the team back to the NCAAS in his final two seasons.  I think it worked out well enough.[/quote]

Many people felt, in hindsight, that Dick Bertrand's leadership as an older player and team captain didn't translate into a good coaching career. Perhaps you can link that to his not having apprenticed as an assistant coach at Cornell or elsewhere. The great first couple seasons Dick Bertrand had were by skating players that Ned Harkness recruited and Dick Bertrand coached. It wasn't until 1975 that it was a Ned-free team and 1975-1982 isn't a glory period for Cornell hockey. Not to dump on a guy when he's down (he's still loyal to Cornell and active in alumni affairs in Michigan), but his second coaching stint at Ferris State didn't glisten, either, and ended with a mid-season resignation.

The great first couple seasons actually weren't so great in comparison to Ned's four runs into the NCAA final four. Of the five games Cornell lost in that 1971 season (22-5), two were in the ECAC playoffs and kept Cornell out of the NCAAs. Plus, at the time people probably noted that was as many games as Cornell had lost in all of the previous four years. The 1972 and 1973 teams made the NCAAs, losing once in the title game to the same BU team Cornell beat during the regular season (I'm conveniently ignoring that most people felt BU was the better team and BU also had beaten Cornell for the ECAC title the week before) and following it in 1973 with one of the all-time infamous Cornell chokes, blowing a 5-2 lead early in the third period and losing 6-5 in OT to Wisconsin. From there on, Cornell put up a bunch of 20-8 kinds of seasons and had only one ECAC championship (1980) and two NCAA appearances (1980 while going 16-15, 1981) before his disappearance from the Cornell scene. From there, 3-1/2 years at Ferris State, then coaching youth sports in Grand Rapids. Was that how Bertrand wanted his career to turn out? Maybe he got tossed into the job he wanted before he was ready.

More hindsight: Supposing Cornell paid Ned Harkness a bit more money and Ned was happy to continue coaching at Cornell (his family was here, his daughter attending Cornell) and Bertrand was an assistant for five years before taking over. Or if, having swiped Ned from RPI in the mid 1960s, Cornell did the same and took Len Ceglarski away from Clarkson instead of letting him go in 1972 to BC where Ceglarksi went to be the all-time winningest coach in college hockey.

All of this must be boring as hell to anyone who doesn't recall disco or platform shoes firsthand. (It's painful to have lived through it.) In shorter terms: College hoops, college football, college hockey all have examples of people who jumped into dream jobs without having prepped at that level. A couple excelled, many more didn't make it.