Re: Brown - Oops! They did it again.
You say this applies to everyone, but you exclude coaches. Twenty years was enough for Digit to be entitled, since none of you would dear point a finger at digit. I understand 20 years is almost a 1/4 of a person's lifetime, but so isn't 1 year a 1/4 of someone's hockey carear. So if players can be cut for performing poorly, why can't Digit, neither should be entitled to anything. And the whole "their record's your only actual reason", it's d-1 hockey, what other reasons are there?
Nobody here ever said Digit couldn't be cut, but we are looking for reasons beyond the obvious (w/l record, personality on the bench). So far, we've had nothing.
Those who focus entirely on the w/l record seem to have a very superficial understanding of Ivy League Athletics. Although nominally Division I, Ivy League schools athletics departments operate in many ways more like Division III schools. Obviously, lack of athletic scholarships comes to mind here, but there are other ways as well. If you read the NCAA guides, you will find that Division I schools are supposed to be more focused on providing entertainment to the student body (thus the requirements for larger playing venues) while Division III athletics are supposed to focus more on the personal development of the student athlete. Ivy League schools have the broadest array of NCAA sports of any league, despite being smaller in student population on average than most. And most of these sports attract very few spectators. Clearly, the emphasis on larger participation indicates that winning isn't everything (no Vince Lombardi here).
If you look at the Academic Index (AI) requirements in the Ivy League, this is another indicator that there are other considerations for a program beyond wins and losses. Most people are not aware of all 3 different requirements of the AI. Most are familiar with the individual athlete requirements. Some are aware of the school requirement for an average AI score across all athletes. However, most are not familiar with the inner workings of the team AI requirements. These are set by the institutions themselves to give guidance to coaches, so they know if a set of recruited athletes will be admitted. Each school sets each team's goals separately. Harvard, for example is known to have low team AI score averages for its helmet sports and higher for other sports, while IIRC Penn seems to emphasize basketball. I have no knowledge of where Brown allows lower AI scores, but I'd be willing to bet it is not in womens hockey.
And while Ivy ADs set these AI targets, they also evaluate coaches with the understanding of where their AI stacks up against their Ivy League competitors (this stuff is published and shared within the league).
And I'm sure there are other standards that are used in evaluating coaches, in the Ivy League. I know community relations is important at some institutions and Digit does a lot for girls hockey in RI. Schools everywhere are very loathe to dismiss coaches who have a large level of personal support in the community. Look at how long Joe Paterno was able to field football teams at Penn State worse than Brown's hockey team. Oh, and BTW, they've come back to be very competitive in the past couple of years. So while Digit may be down, this doesn't mean that she has forgotten how to build a winner.
Ultimately, what I'm trying to say here is that there is far more to Brown's AD's job than looking at Digit's w/l record in evaluating her performance. Those Johnny-Come-Lately parents and other nay-sayers seem to lack this perspective on what makes a good womens hockey coach at Brown and only display their shallow, short-sighted ignorance and petty win-at-all-costs mentality.
