Best COACH In Your Program's History?

[faircornell]

Ned Harkness

35 wins, one loss !!!

Sheesh !

In 1965, tragedy struck when two Big Red assistant lacrosse coaches were killed when their plane crashed on the way home from a recruiting trip. Harkness was called upon to assist head lacrosse coach Bob Cullen, and the next year, after Cullen stepped down, Harkness was made the new head coach of Big Red lacrosse at the request of his players. Over his three years leading the lacrosse team, he posted a 35-1 record and won a pair of Ivy League titles that were sandwiched around a runner-up finish.

Harkness would be considered RPI’s greatest lax coach, too. Started their program, took that college team to the London Olympics (exhibition sport) as the US representative and tied the British as the two best teams, and won a Wingate with RPI in the early 50’s.

Then he went on to his Cornell lax success.

Wasn’t a bad hockey coach, either, and btw basically ran the show leading up to and during the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. Then ran the Winter Olympics training facility there until it was moved to CO. He ran Lake Placid before George Leveille! Lol

Two NCAA Ice Hockey Champions at Cornell. He went on to coach the Detroit Red Wlngs and Union College before moving to Lake Placid. Also, lacrosse and ice hockey championships at RPI.

[Wheels]

Hard to answer this question for Maryland because Jack Faber and Al Heagy co-coached for 31 seasons with an 81% win percentage and 7 USILA titles.

Bud Beardmore had 10 season in which he won 2 NCAA titles, 4 runners up, and 3 Final 4s. That's an amazing run of 9 out of 10 seasons.

Tillman has had a similar run with 2 NCAA titles, 5 runners up, 2 Final 4s, and NCAA appearances in all 12 seasons.

How do you differentiate between all of that? Tillman is about to pass Dick Edell's 171 program wins, but the Faber-Heagy combo has 225 wins.

[Farfromgeneva]

Cornell has had several great coaches, many of whom are still active. I've listed them by the number of wins for coaches over.500:

Richie Moran: 257-121 (.680)
Jeff Tambroni: 109-39 (.736)
Jim Smith: 75-56-2 (.571)
Ben DeLuca: 37-11 (.771)
Ned Harkness: 35-1 (.972)
Matt Kerwick: 32-26 (.552)
Pete Milliman: 28-10 (.736)
Connor Buczek: 25-9 (.7325)
Dave Pietramala23-17 (.576)

Aside from Coach Moran, I'd rate Coaches Harkness and Tambroni as true "greats" at Cornell. I'd rank Coaches DeLuca, Milliman and Buczek as possible greats with added time. Coach Pietramala was obviously great as a player and coach at JHU.

I was going to throw Kerwicks hat in the ring but figured you’d already be on it!

[10stone5]

Hard to answer this question for Maryland because Jack Faber and Al Heagy co-coached for 31 seasons with an 81% win percentage and 7 USILA titles.

Bud Beardmore had 10 season in which he won 2 NCAA titles, 4 runners up, and 3 Final 4s. That's an amazing run of 9 out of 10 seasons.

Tillman has had a similar run with 2 NCAA titles, 5 runners up, 2 Final 4s, and NCAA appearances in all 12 seasons.

How do you differentiate between all of that? Tillman is about to pass Dick Edell's 171 program wins, but the Faber-Heagy combo has 225 wins.

I see some comparables,

that 1970s era to current times, the Tillman to Beardmore comparison is a solid one, maybe Tiffany to Moran is another although Moran had two straight unbeaten seasons and a 3rd title,

‘course there is no Henry Ciccarone comparable these days.

[OCanada]

+1

[OCanada]

Petro started the rebuild of the Cornell lax program

And when he was hired, he promised he wouldn't jump to JHU if an opening arose. An opening arose & he jumped.

Define jump? He was there for three years. Righted the program and left it in better shape than when he arrived. How long did PM stay as head coach? Or the previous coach?
Do you think jump extends to a life time? 10 years? How was it defined in writing? Richie did not seem to have a problem with it or if he did he didn’t mention it to me when i talked with him in 2002

[FMUBart]

All I can add is Petro was very kind to Hobart during his Cornell days…0-3🥹

[faircornell]

Petro started the rebuild of the Cornell lax program

And when he was hired, he promised he wouldn't jump to JHU if an opening arose. An opening arose & he jumped.

Define jump? He was there for three years. Righted the program and left it in better shape than when he arrived. How long did PM stay as head coach? Or the previous coach?
Do you think jump extends to a life time? 10 years? How was it defined in writing? Richie did not seem to have a problem with it or if he did he didn’t mention it to me when i talked with him in 2002

It was an unusual time. Coach Moran had been promoted to Associate AD. The alumni were focused on raising the Moran Coaching Endowment, and (aside from fundraising) there was not a lot of communication to alums.

I'm pretty sure that Coach Moran was under an NDA with respect to his arrangement.

I do think that Coach P got started on what Jeff Tambroni completed as a turnaround. I also think that with a more supportive AD in the first place that there could have been a turnaround without a coaching change. I credit Andy Noel with elevating Coach Moran to Emeritus status as a reflection of his many contributions to Cornell.

[enterprise]

Petro started the rebuild of the Cornell lax program

And when he was hired, he promised he wouldn't jump to JHU if an opening arose. An opening arose & he jumped.

Define jump? He was there for three years. Righted the program and left it in better shape than when he arrived. How long did PM stay as head coach? Or the previous coach?
Do you think jump extends to a life time? 10 years? How was it defined in writing? Richie did not seem to have a problem with it or if he did he didn’t mention it to me when i talked with him in 2002

It was an unusual time. Coach Moran had been promoted to Associate AD. The alumni were focused on raising the Moran Coaching Endowment, and (aside from fundraising) there was not a lot of communication to alums.

I'm pretty sure that Coach Moran was under an NDA with respect to his arrangement.

I do think that Coach P got started on what Jeff Tambroni completed as a turnaround. I also think that with a more supportive AD in the first place that there could have been a turnaround without a coaching change. I credit Andy Noel with elevating Coach Moran to Emeritus status as a reflection of his many contributions to Cornell.

I absolutely do not fault Petro for leaving when he did. He had an opportunity to leave in his first year or so and he didn't go because he had made a commitment to Cornell. After 3 years when the option was available, who can possibly blame him for moving to coach his alma mater? It was his dream job.

[faircornell]

Petro started the rebuild of the Cornell lax program

And when he was hired, he promised he wouldn't jump to JHU if an opening arose. An opening arose & he jumped.

Define jump? He was there for three years. Righted the program and left it in better shape than when he arrived. How long did PM stay as head coach? Or the previous coach?
Do you think jump extends to a life time? 10 years? How was it defined in writing? Richie did not seem to have a problem with it or if he did he didn’t mention it to me when i talked with him in 2002

It was an unusual time. Coach Moran had been promoted to Associate AD. The alumni were focused on raising the Moran Coaching Endowment, and (aside from fundraising) there was not a lot of communication to alums.

I'm pretty sure that Coach Moran was under an NDA with respect to his arrangement.

I do think that Coach P got started on what Jeff Tambroni completed as a turnaround. I also think that with a more supportive AD in the first place that there could have been a turnaround without a coaching change. I credit Andy Noel with elevating Coach Moran to Emeritus status as a reflection of his many contributions to Cornell.

I absolutely do not fault Petro for leaving when he did. He had an opportunity to leave in his first year or so and he didn't go because he had made a commitment to Cornell. After 3 years when the option was available, who can possibly blame him for moving to coach his alma mater? It was his dream job.

And, to be realistic, it's not like the Administration oozed job security during those years. It was pretty much every person for themselves.

[bearlaxfan]

Starsia at Brown. More long-term success than Lars, probably higher-end teams than Stevenson. I admit I was around at the time but not paying much attention. Brown's '94 FF team was coached by Lasagna, but it was Dom's holdovers.
Starsia had Bruno primed to lead the Ivy league as Cornell stumbled, but BT at Princeton had something to say about THAT!

[Farfromgeneva]

Starsia at Brown. More long-term success than Lars, probably higher-end teams than Stevenson. I admit I was around at the time but not paying much attention. Brown's '94 FF team was coached by Lasagna, but it was Dom's holdovers.
Starsia had Bruno primed to lead the Ivy league as Cornell stumbled, but BT at Princeton had something to say about THAT!

Lasagna/Nelson was a brutal stretch from what I heard (a lot from a captain on the 02 team who was a friend)

[sinman6]

Easy answer. Bill Lawson. That said, I don’t know much about the history of Lafayette lacrosse in the pre-Lawson era (which goes back to 1926, so, presumably, there were some quality coaches mixed in there, but I’ve never heard of ‘em).

[10stone5]

Easy answer. Bill Lawson. That said, I don’t know much about the history of Lafayette lacrosse in the pre-Lawson era (which goes back to 1926, so, presumably, there were some quality coaches mixed in there, but I’ve never heard of ‘em).

Whitney “Zip” Boucher
good good player under Lawson,

daughter played for top ranked Terps,

https://umterps.com/sports/womens-lacro ... ucher/4630

[1766]

Tom Hayes. He did more for lacrosse than most people realize.

[Chitown]

Is no one going to nominate Robert Scott of Johns Hopkins? After all, how.many lacrosse coaches have a larger than life Bronze statue of themselves in the sports stadium? Scott is the only JHU coach in its 135 year history so honored. I think I'll go with the Hopkins gang in its vote.

[old salt]

I was going to post this elsewhere,

those 1970s coaches were outstanding, Ciccarone at Hopkins, Beardmore at Maryland, Moran at Cornell, Simmons Jr was starting to build that Syracuse dynamo.

Interesting that two succumbed to the non-stop pressure, in my view, where you almost had to be perfect to win a title during that decade - with Ciccarone and Beardmore moving on from coaching.

In that group, you'd have to include Bilderback at Navy & Ace Adams at Army & UVA.

[TopShelf585]

Babe Krause & Jerry Schmidt were tremendous but Dave Urick- hands down best coach.
10 National Championships in 10 years as the Head Coach- the next two championships Bart won were still his teams just coached by someone else.

[ColumbiaBlueBlack]

In that group, you'd have to include Bilderback at Navy & Ace Adams at Army & UVA.

Nah, Bilderback once told me that he was a mediocre coach who had only one play, "Give The Ball To Jimmy," and the only thing he could do on defense was teach football players to "chop down."

[Gobigred]

Ned Harkness

35 wins, one loss !!!

Sheesh !

In 1965, tragedy struck when two Big Red assistant lacrosse coaches were killed when their plane crashed on the way home from a recruiting trip. Harkness was called upon to assist head lacrosse coach Bob Cullen, and the next year, after Cullen stepped down, Harkness was made the new head coach of Big Red lacrosse at the request of his players. Over his three years leading the lacrosse team, he posted a 35-1 record and won a pair of Ivy League titles that were sandwiched around a runner-up finish.

Harkness would be considered RPI’s greatest lax coach, too. Started their program, took that college team to the London Olympics (exhibition sport) as the US representative and tied the British as the two best teams, and won a Wingate with RPI in the early 50’s.

Then he went on to his Cornell lax success.

Wasn’t a bad hockey coach, either, and btw basically ran the show leading up to and during the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. Then ran the Winter Olympics training facility there until it was moved to CO. He ran Lake Placid before George Leveille! Lol

Two NCAA Ice Hockey Champions at Cornell. He went on to coach the Detroit Red Wlngs and Union College before moving to Lake Placid. Also, lacrosse and ice hockey championships at RPI.

In his final seven seasons at Cornell, three in lacrosse and four in hockey, Ned's teams won 145 games, lost 6 and tied 1.