Re: NEW MEN'S LACROSSE COACH -- CROSSPORTS: Holy Cross Crusaders Sports Message Board

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Date Posted: 19:07:48 06/22/04 Tue
Author: PROTON
Subject: Re: NEW MEN'S LACROSSE COACH
In reply to: NTKHC64 's message, "NEW MEN'S LACROSSE COACH" on 18:12:12 06/22/04 Tue

Excellent hire. Hopefully the admissions office is on board too.

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[> [> Re: NEW MEN'S LACROSSE COACH -- RecentGrad, 21:25:18 06/22/04 Tue

I don't think the teams problems have much to do with admissions. How about hiring a SINGLE assistant coach? Having reasonable travel arrangements? (Last year the team left Worcester at 2am in order to drive to Manchester, NH for a flight to BWI to play Navy at noon.) Coach Pascal is a great hire, he is a good coach and a good person.

The PL sent 3 teams to the 16 team NCAA tournament and Navy lost in the championship game. With a little financial support from the AD, HC can be a Top 20 team in 3 years. No doubt about it.

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[> [> [> Re: NEW MEN'S LACROSSE COACH -- Observer, 01:34:11 06/23/04 Wed

RecentGrad,

Admissions is a roadblock for every coach in the HC Athletic Dept. If a kid is a good enough student to get in, he or she is also getting into an Ivy or a NESCAC. Holy Cross or Harvard, Yale or Dartmouth? Holy Cross or Middlebury, Amherst or Williams? - you tell me where you would go taking all things into consideration? Was HC YOUR 1st choice? Be honest? HC is a Div. 3 college in Div. 1 uniforms. Let's face it, Holy Cross is a fall back school for many kids these days. There is a relative time warp up there on MT. St. James in which everybody thinks it it 1943 and people are beating down the front gate to get in. WAKE UP and smell the bark mulch!

My sources tell me that the Navy arrangements were made by the Athletic Dept., not the coaching staff. They could not get out of Providence due to school vacations and bookings. Plus the fact the PL scheduled them to play Lafayette Friday afternoon. Don't forget how the Football team traveled this past fall - it was no different in terms of a tight travel schedlue which did not give the kids much of a fighting chance on gameday.

Coach Pascal will be good for the program, impressive career so far. Unfortunately, without a big assist from Admissions (never going to happen) and FA he's doomed to the same fate of the others that went before him.

If you believe HC can be a Top 20 team in 3 years, you really are not a fan of the game or probably never played at a high level. At best, with the present commitment from the college, they might win a game or two in the PL (Lafayette to my knowledge is the only PL team HC has ever beaten in 14 years of competition). I offer to you that the program is closer to being downgraded to Club Status than cracking even the top 30 in Division 1. To think HC can compete with Navy, Army, Bucknell, Colgate and Lehigh is not realistic. HC is not a destination for lacrosse players and never will be due to the neglect of the Athletic Dept and College administration. To suggest that the program can be on par with Maryland, Rutgers, UMass, Georgetown, Penn. St., Ohio St. Notre Dame, Loyola, Syracuse, Virginia, Princeton UNC, ect. is way off base and nothing but pie in the sky. This program belongs in the MAAC with Siena, Providence, Manhattan and Marist if it remains a Varsity sport much longer.

If I'm the AD, I look at the futility of the program over the past 14 years as a member of the PL and immediately drop the roster of 35 to help the Title 9 issue and pool the money saved for Hockey because they are going to need every cent if they get to where the want to go - ECAC.
Do you really believe the administration is about to commit what is necessary to elevate Men's Lacrosse in the PL? WRONG! Lacrosse is not a priority, accept it and live with it. Financial support does not come from Regan (in fact, no support comes from this immoral, self-centered, arrogant blight on Holy Cross), rather it comes from the Trustees who have many other issues in front of them at the moment.

Godspeed to Coach Pascal - may he be a man with excessive patience and wonderful eyesight because he is going to see things he never could have imagined during his days at Middlebury, Harvard and Williams. Perhaps the most disfunctional Athletic Dept. (administration) ever assembled under one, soon be be new, roof.

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[> [> [> [> Re: NEW MEN'S LACROSSE COACH -- HCFAN, 06:50:02 06/23/04 Wed

I agree, we are at the bottom as long as Regan remains in the AD position, it's time for new direction. Why can't the administration see this?

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[> [> [> [> To Observer -- RecentGrad, 09:13:15 06/23/04 Wed

Observer: With all due respect (because I did enjoy your post), there are several factual and logical problems contained in your post. First off, you say "If a student is good enough to get in, he or she is also getting into an Ivy or NESCAC. HC or Harvard, Yale or Dartmouth, Middlebury, Williams, etc." This is just not the case. I played four years of lacrosse at HC. Senior year of high school I took official recruiting visits to Yale, Williams, Amherst, HC and Colgate. I didn't get into Yale and didn't like Amherst or Williams. My choice was between Colgate and HC and it was a no brainer. I agree that HC "is a fallback school for many students these days". Many of my classmates (and teammates) did not get into an Ivy and chose HC over a NESCAC school.

While I was at HC we had many recruits whom did not "get in" to HC. But we didn't lose the majorit of them to the Ivies or NESCAC. We lost them to Providence, Manhattan, Fairfield and Lafayette. I don't have a problem with that at all. Some of those are better lacrosse schools but they are not on par academically. Of course there are anecdotal examples of good students not getting in to HC for whatever reason but I can tell you flat out that Admissions has not significantly hurt the lacrosse team. I believe you'll have to look to Dick Regan and the Athletic Department if you want to assign blame.

I completely agree that "the travel arrangments were made by the AD not the coaching staff" (paraphrase). Completely unacceptable as far as I'm concerned.

You also post "If you belive HC can be a Top 20 team in 3 years, you really are not a fan of the game or probably never played at a high level." I don't even know where to start with this. I have played on and coached state championship high school lacrose teams. Above, I posted that I played at HC and I believe I have seen 200+ college lacrosse games in my life. And I completely stand by the statement that HC can be in the Top 20 in 3 years. The only PL teams NOT to be ranked in the Top 20 at some point in the last four years are Lafayette and HC. The PL schools are similar academically. We recruit more or less the same student-athletes. (95% of recruits/players I've met have had at least one other official visit to a PL school.) You can go 4-3 in the league and be ranked. Why do you believe HC is incapable of this?

You go on to list several of the top programs in the country and say that "to suggest this [HC] program can be on par with [these other programs] is pie in the sky." If we could compete with those programs (almost all of whom were in the NCAA tournament this past year) that would be great. But we don't even have to set our sights that high. Navy is the only PL team that can compete with those schools. How about going 5-2 or 4-3 in league play, beating one or two Ivies in non-league games and making the NCAA tournament. Totally realistic and should be a 3-5 year goal of the program. To suggest that we should play in the MAAC with Siena, Marist and Manhattan is insane. Why would we voluntarily downgrade (both academically and athletically) our conference affiliation?

Now to the part that we both agree upon. The Athetic Department is dysfunctional. Regan has to go. Money is part of the problem (HC has the smallest lacrosse budget in the PL) but it is not the only (or biggest) problem. In my time at HC I saw lacrosse players shoveling a snow-covered field before a game and driving themselves to several away games (versus UMass and University of Hartford). Way to run a Division I program in one of the most competitive conferences in the country. Dick Regan is a clown.

I'm out.

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[> [> [> HC LAX ASSIST Coach -- 2003 Grad, 18:41:42 06/23/04 Wed

Correct me if i am wrong but with regard to HC not having one ass. coach (as was pointed out by "recent grad" who was a player on the team, it looks as though there really is one:

http://www.holycross.edu/departments/athletics/website/lacrosse-m/Mlaxassistantbios.html

Can anyone confirm?

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[> [> [> [> Re: HC LAX ASSIST Coach -- PROTON, 19:09:48 06/23/04 Wed

He left. He was only part time.

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[> [> Dogger -- greg.neufeld, 01:20:13 06/24/04 Thu

Does anyone actually think that Dick Reagan is going to do something positive for this program? They could have Bill Tierney coaching the team, but when you can't even afford to pay for balls for practice, you have a little problem. AD probably just took this guy because he and was willing to keep his mouth shut and accept the little support that he will be given. The AD has absolutely no interest in improving this program, and I feel bad for Coach Pascal that he is going to have to put up with stuff that he is going to have to endure for however long he is at HC.

HC needs to realize that our lacrosse team is in one of the best leagues in the nation right now. We had 3-4 top 25 teams this year, including 1 team in the National Championship game. It would not be that hard for the school to bring in a lot of money and a lot of great recruits, both athletes and students, if they just put a little bit of effort into it. However, this is not going to happen with Dick Reagan in charge. The man is a complete moron. Oh and by the way, did anyone happen to see who St. John's just got as their new head coach. Cmon, St. Johns..... now that is a move in a positive direction.

Greg Neufeld

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[> [> [> Re: Dogger -- greg neufeld yes, again, 01:22:21 06/24/04 Thu

let me hear what you have to say.
Im not trying to be a jerk, I am just so very frustrated by this school and its athletic department. I worked my ass off for them for four years, and didnt get the least bit of respect. They just dont care, and its not going to change yet. I think we need a lot more pissed off people to make it happen. Mike McCaffrey was fired as head coach because he tried to challenge the athletic program in order to build the HC lax team to a competitive level. If coach Pascal has any hopes of doing this he is going to encounter the same problems. Its easy to be happy about this new coach and a new start, but the reality is that this is not going to solve anything.

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[> [> [> [> Re: Nothing Farther From the Truth -- NTKHC64, 09:09:45 06/24/04 Thu

"Mike McCaffrey was fired as head coach because he tried to challenge the athletic program in order to build the HC lax team to a competitive level."

My understanding and this is confirmed by administration and two parents of team members is that just the opposite is the case. Coach McCaffrey's termination was brought about by significant deficiencies in recruiting and other aspects of coaching.

If "They just dont care" then why was there any change made?
Wouldn't they just let the status quo prevail?

Under Regan, we've had new coaches appointed in football, men's basketball, and women's soccer. The qualifications of all are well known and Coach Willard has turned around a program that had fallen off in performance tremendously after the departure of Coach Blaney.

So let us know how Coach McCaffrey challenged the athletic program. While you are at it, perhaps you can explain what hard work you did for four years that earned you no respect.

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[> [> [> [> [> Re: Nothing Farther From the Truth -- greg.neufeld, 13:24:37 06/24/04 Thu

Well, your "understanding" is incorrect. I know Coach McCaffrey very well and i know what he went through in his years at HC. Deficiency in recruting? What does that mean. The man had no shot. How was he suppossed to recruit when he had nothing to offer, and absolutely no help from the administration. Honestly, who would actually want to play for Holy Cross?
"Why was any change made?" if they just dont care... Because they were sick of listening to coach McCaffrey arguing for some help with the team. They want someone who is going to sit there and accept that they are not important in the eyes of the Athletic Department or the Administration.
Yes, of course Dick made changes with the football and basketball teams, and yes coach Willard has done an excellent job. That is not what I am arguing here, he has no respect for the lacrosse team, and he has no desire to put some real effort into making it better.
Did you play on the team? Did you have to put up with Dick Regan's crap while "working your ass off" for a team and a sport and a school that you loved?
Im not even arguing that they Should put more effort into lacrosse, my point is that I wouldnt be so excited by this new coaching move, and i wouldnt by Dick's bullshit about moving in a new direction. The only direction he wants this team to move is into the ground.

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[> [> [> [> [> Re: Nothing Farther From the Truth -- Lax Sympathizer, 16:05:46 07/01/04 Thu

I find it comical that NTKHC64 can champion the quality of Dick Regan's coaching hires during his tenure. Look no further than the baseball team as proof that "non-revenue" sports (as if any of HC's sports provide the school w/revenue) are simply overlooked under his administration. First, Mr. Regan hired Paul Pearl to replace Coach Whalen...as if coaching a hockey program that was in transition to Division I was not enough on the man's plate (read: a convenient way to save money). Pearl did as best he could given the circumstances. After it had become clear (even to Regan) that it was ridiculous for Pearl to coach two Division I programs, Regan hired 68 year old assistant coach Fran O'Brien. Pearl's teams had just made the playoffs 2 of the last 3 years, and Regan responds by giving the head job to a man that he would no doubt have to replace within the next few years (as it wound up, O'Brien stayed for 3 forgettable seasons). Was there ever a search for a new coach? An interview process? Did Regan even realize that he passed on an excellent assistant coach with stellar credentials and a good rapport with the players in Steve Englert? I'd assume not. I'm glad to see that Craig Najarian now has the job, but he, like the new lacrosse coach, face an uphill battle regarding budgets, recruiting, etc. There is no reason that every sport at HC should not be able to compete WITHIN the Patriot League. Dick Regan should be held accountable.

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