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Coaching Change at USM
- Thread starter dinocoach
- Start date
Re: Coaching Change at USM
The Press Herald
http://www.pressherald.com/2014/12/31/usm-mens-hockey-coach-jeff-beaney-resigns/
The Press Herald
http://www.pressherald.com/2014/12/31/usm-mens-hockey-coach-jeff-beaney-resigns/
hockeyfan77
Registered User
Re: Coaching Change at USM
Been waiting for this to pop up...Well Beaney is fine, well I guess as could be be under the circumstances, but USM will NEVER have a winning hockey program until the whole university commits to it....I am a pretty well respected poster on this site, so please no cheap shots and guessing what happened...I am pretty freaking devastated to tell you the truth...
Been waiting for this to pop up...Well Beaney is fine, well I guess as could be be under the circumstances, but USM will NEVER have a winning hockey program until the whole university commits to it....I am a pretty well respected poster on this site, so please no cheap shots and guessing what happened...I am pretty freaking devastated to tell you the truth...
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Been waiting for this to pop up...Well Beaney is fine, well I guess as could be be under the circumstances, but USM will NEVER have a winning hockey program until the whole university commits to it....I am a pretty well respected poster on this site, so please no cheap shots and guessing what happened...I am pretty freaking devastated to tell you the truth...
My best to Coach Beaney ... he was always a class act in our dealings when he played Norwich ... wish him all the best.
Hockeyfirst
New member
My best to Coach Beaney ... he was always a class act in our dealings when he played Norwich ... wish him all the best.
Ridiculous to fire someone in the middle of a season for losing record. Hard on players to adjust to someone new now.
Re: Coaching Change at USM
This is what happens when you have an academic who has likely never participated in sports in charge of a University.
http://bangordailynews.com/link/politics-dictated-coaching-change-at-usm/?ref=regionstate
Ridiculous to fire someone in the middle of a season for losing record. Hard on players to adjust to someone new now.
This is what happens when you have an academic who has likely never participated in sports in charge of a University.
http://bangordailynews.com/link/politics-dictated-coaching-change-at-usm/?ref=regionstate
Re: Coaching Change at USM
I find this to be disgusting to treat a long time employee who has shaped the lives of young men for this university. I do not have a dog in this fight, however Division III athletics is more about providing a quality education while having the experience of participating in collegiate athletics. I question the motivation behind this "retirement". The Coach should have been able to at least finish out the season.
What exactly did this accomplish for the university other than giving them a "black eye"?
I find this to be disgusting to treat a long time employee who has shaped the lives of young men for this university. I do not have a dog in this fight, however Division III athletics is more about providing a quality education while having the experience of participating in collegiate athletics. I question the motivation behind this "retirement". The Coach should have been able to at least finish out the season.
What exactly did this accomplish for the university other than giving them a "black eye"?
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hockeyfan77
Registered User
Re: Coaching Change at USM
Agree 100% with everything you just said! I couldn't have said it better myself!
I find this to be disgusting to treat a long time employee who has shaped the lives of young men for this university. I do not have a dog in this fight, however Division III athletics is more about providing a quality education while having the experience of participating in collegiate athletics. I question the motivation behind this "retirement". The Coach should have been able to at least finish out the season.
What exactly did the accomplish for the university other than giving them a "black eye"?
Agree 100% with everything you just said! I couldn't have said it better myself!
Re: Coaching Change at USM
I think its pretty clear from the article I posted that this isn't about winning or losing. Someone, in all likelihood a parent, sent an anonymous letter to the President which I'm sure contained some kind of accusation or whining or fabrication based on little Johnny wasn't playing or whatever the case may be.
Either this went to the AD first and the AD decided it was ridiculous and without merit, or it went over the AD's head and straight to the President...in either case it tells you everything you need to know about this President's supposed leadership to rush to this decision without doing any kind of factfinding.
To a certain point this decision is against the basic philosophy of Division 3 athletics.
I think its pretty clear from the article I posted that this isn't about winning or losing. Someone, in all likelihood a parent, sent an anonymous letter to the President which I'm sure contained some kind of accusation or whining or fabrication based on little Johnny wasn't playing or whatever the case may be.
Either this went to the AD first and the AD decided it was ridiculous and without merit, or it went over the AD's head and straight to the President...in either case it tells you everything you need to know about this President's supposed leadership to rush to this decision without doing any kind of factfinding.
hockeyfan77
Registered User
Re: Coaching Change at USM
Everybody around here knows who sent the letter... or it went over the AD's head and straight to the President this is correct
I think its pretty clear from the article I posted that this isn't about winning or losing. Someone, in all likelihood a parent, sent an anonymous letter to the President which I'm sure contained some kind of accusation or whining or fabrication based on little Johnny wasn't playing or whatever the case may be.
Either this went to the AD first and the AD decided it was ridiculous and without merit, or it went over the AD's head and straight to the President...in either case it tells you everything you need to know about this President's supposed leadership to rush to this decision without doing any kind of factfinding.
Everybody around here knows who sent the letter... or it went over the AD's head and straight to the President this is correct
Re: Coaching Change at USM
Whenever parents and players influence administrators over the AD's head to fire a coach it's a travesty, but it does reflect how society today has become so backwards with trying to please the customer to such a ridiculous degree. The reality is the customer is NOT always right and that applies to college athletics as well. The entitlement issues in our society are causing more long-term harm than good. We are no longer teaching today's youth that they have to go out and work hard to earn their lot in life with no guarantees of success. Sadly, this generation is growing up feeling that they are owed something just for showing up. They expect immediate success to be handed to them on a silver platter and it's just so backwards. It used to be that kids were afraid of their teachers potentially giving them poor grades if they didn't do the work properly and by the due date. Now the teachers in society have learned the hard way that they need to be afraid of ruffling little Johnny's feathers because he/his parents might complain to administration or they might write a bad review on some website or on an anonymous assessment. It's so absurdly twisted it's really not funny at all. How can teachers, professors, and coaches do their jobs the right way when their "customers" have learned how to get their way by going over their heads until they get someone to listen to them. It's a terrible situation and I feel for all coaches like Mr. Beaney who have suffered this terrible fate while doing their jobs properly and I wish him and them all the best. They are better off not working for bosses with no backbones that are afraid to stand up to whining parents. Those administrators are the ones that don't deserve to keep their jobs.
Whenever parents and players influence administrators over the AD's head to fire a coach it's a travesty, but it does reflect how society today has become so backwards with trying to please the customer to such a ridiculous degree. The reality is the customer is NOT always right and that applies to college athletics as well. The entitlement issues in our society are causing more long-term harm than good. We are no longer teaching today's youth that they have to go out and work hard to earn their lot in life with no guarantees of success. Sadly, this generation is growing up feeling that they are owed something just for showing up. They expect immediate success to be handed to them on a silver platter and it's just so backwards. It used to be that kids were afraid of their teachers potentially giving them poor grades if they didn't do the work properly and by the due date. Now the teachers in society have learned the hard way that they need to be afraid of ruffling little Johnny's feathers because he/his parents might complain to administration or they might write a bad review on some website or on an anonymous assessment. It's so absurdly twisted it's really not funny at all. How can teachers, professors, and coaches do their jobs the right way when their "customers" have learned how to get their way by going over their heads until they get someone to listen to them. It's a terrible situation and I feel for all coaches like Mr. Beaney who have suffered this terrible fate while doing their jobs properly and I wish him and them all the best. They are better off not working for bosses with no backbones that are afraid to stand up to whining parents. Those administrators are the ones that don't deserve to keep their jobs.
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Hockeyfirst
New member
Whenever parents and players influence administrators over the AD's head to fire a coach it's a travesty, but it does reflect how society today has become so backwards with trying to please the customer to such a ridiculous degree. The reality is the customer is NOT always right and that applies to college athletics as well. The entitlement issues in our society are causing more long-term harm than good. We are no longer teaching today's youth that they have to go out and work hard to earn their lot in life with no guarantees of success. Sadly, this generation is growing up feeling that they are owed something just for showing up. They expect immediate success to be handed to them on a silver platter and it's just so backwards. It used to be that kids were afraid of their teachers potentially giving them poor grades if they didn't do the work properly and by the due date. Now the teachers in society have learned the hard way that they need to be afraid of ruffling little Johnny's feathers because he/his parents might complain to administration or they might write a bad review on some website or on an anonymous assessment. It's so absurdly twisted it's really not funny at all. How can teachers, professors, and coaches do their jobs the right way when their "customers" have learned how to get their way by going over their heads until they get someone to listen to them. It's a terrible situation and I feel for all coaches like Mr. Beaney who have suffered this terrible fate while doing their jobs properly and I wish him and them all the best. They are better off not working for bosses with no backbones that are afraid to stand up to whining parents. Those administrators are the ones that don't deserve to keep their jobs.
Only way any letter could be justified, if it involved the safety of players.
Re: Coaching Change at USM
After many years of upstanding service, I don't think so. I love it when coaches have established themselves somewhere and all of a sudden they are out of a job. It's not as though the coaches suddenly change who they are and how they operate. It's the sign of the times we live in. One bad apple (unhappy player/parent) can truly spoil the barrel. In so many cases these days coaches lose their jobs because of low quality kids who are only going to be around for 4 years, if they last that long in the program.
Only way any letter could be justified, if it involved the safety of players.
After many years of upstanding service, I don't think so. I love it when coaches have established themselves somewhere and all of a sudden they are out of a job. It's not as though the coaches suddenly change who they are and how they operate. It's the sign of the times we live in. One bad apple (unhappy player/parent) can truly spoil the barrel. In so many cases these days coaches lose their jobs because of low quality kids who are only going to be around for 4 years, if they last that long in the program.
Only way any letter could be justified, if it involved the safety of players.
Id argue that even in that case it should go directly to the AD first.
Re: Coaching Change at USM
I would love to take a peek at the Employee Handbook. I understand Coaches are employees at will so to speak but I can't imagine there isn't some appeal process. Then again, perhaps Coach Beaney decided it was simpler to walk away with his retirement. I still stand by my original thought, this whole thing stinks.
I would love to take a peek at the Employee Handbook. I understand Coaches are employees at will so to speak but I can't imagine there isn't some appeal process. Then again, perhaps Coach Beaney decided it was simpler to walk away with his retirement. I still stand by my original thought, this whole thing stinks.
Old Rook NU'66
Registered User
Re: Coaching Change at USM
First let me say that to dump any employee during the holidays stinks. Regardless of who they are—hockey coach or otherwise.
But I am also not going to depend on, defend or condemn anything connected with any anonymous letter as the principle reason Beaney was asked to step down. There are just too many “he said…she said” elements in that mysterious equation which makes the evidentiary value of an anonymous letter about as valid as its lack of signature.
But I do know this.
1.) The University of Southern Maine is a university with a hockey team—not the other way around. That is what I love about DIII sports. But in USM’s case it is also university with some serious financial problems. How serious?
Twenty four days before Christmas, USM President David Flanagan announced 14 staff layoffs as the latest part of a plan to close a $16 million University budget gap for the coming fiscal year. That is real money folks. The staff positions — eight of which were within the school’s administration — represented another significant wave of job cuts in a process that has already included the elimination of 51 faculty positions and five programs since this past fall. That is a 15% cut in faculty.
Coach Beaney would have had to have been blind not to seen that simply because he has been part of the USM community for the past 30 years. What’s more his long tenure never “entitled him” —and I use that phrase only because someone in an earlier post spoke of our entitlement society—to assume he was somehow bullet proof from the kinds of cuts going on at USM.
The Beaney article in Bangor paper voices the complaint that Flanagan never visited the team. Fine, that maybe true… but the sport’s writer fails to add that Beaney’s dismissal is just one of 64 other USM staff casualties that have occurred in the last four months. What did Stalin once say, “One death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistics.”
In other words, surely there is personal sorrow connected to Beaney’s firing which we all sympathize with. But hey, there is also individual sorrow and pain connected to every one of those other 64 USM staffers who have also lost their jobs as well—more than a dozen before the holidays. President Flanagan’s responsibility is to keep USM financial afloat—not to keep the hockey team, fans or even some sports writer—- writing in a vacuum—happy.
But just maybe this did have more to do with Beaney’s performance than USM’s financial situation.
(2.) Okay, so how many fans, who post here on USCHOL on a regular basis, would feel satisfied if their favorite DIII hockey program had not had a winning season in seven years—and was off to a 1 and 9 start this season?
Wouldn’t they be howling for the coach’s head if their team posted that kind of performance? Are folks really suggesting that they would care less about their team’s won loss performance and more about character building quality of the program? Not likely…even in DIII. Just read what is written about Bill Beaney (Jeff’s brother) and Middlebury’s hockey coach. That man has 8 NCCAA titles and too many post season playoff games to count. Yet fans want his head because Middlebury has had some rough sledding these past few years. That is the real world.
All this sympathy for Jeff is understandable—and if Puck Voice says he is a good guy—I am sure he is. But we also live in a world where coaches are measured by victories and loses, full rinks and hopefully programs that pay for themselves and not character building, player/coach loyalty or any of that other warm fuzzy suff.
Don't mistake what I am saying. I do feel sorry for Beaney--but as a Mainer--- I am also trying to understand the whole story not just a hockey story as it relates to one of our fine Maine universities.
First let me say that to dump any employee during the holidays stinks. Regardless of who they are—hockey coach or otherwise.
But I am also not going to depend on, defend or condemn anything connected with any anonymous letter as the principle reason Beaney was asked to step down. There are just too many “he said…she said” elements in that mysterious equation which makes the evidentiary value of an anonymous letter about as valid as its lack of signature.
But I do know this.
1.) The University of Southern Maine is a university with a hockey team—not the other way around. That is what I love about DIII sports. But in USM’s case it is also university with some serious financial problems. How serious?
Twenty four days before Christmas, USM President David Flanagan announced 14 staff layoffs as the latest part of a plan to close a $16 million University budget gap for the coming fiscal year. That is real money folks. The staff positions — eight of which were within the school’s administration — represented another significant wave of job cuts in a process that has already included the elimination of 51 faculty positions and five programs since this past fall. That is a 15% cut in faculty.
Coach Beaney would have had to have been blind not to seen that simply because he has been part of the USM community for the past 30 years. What’s more his long tenure never “entitled him” —and I use that phrase only because someone in an earlier post spoke of our entitlement society—to assume he was somehow bullet proof from the kinds of cuts going on at USM.
The Beaney article in Bangor paper voices the complaint that Flanagan never visited the team. Fine, that maybe true… but the sport’s writer fails to add that Beaney’s dismissal is just one of 64 other USM staff casualties that have occurred in the last four months. What did Stalin once say, “One death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistics.”
In other words, surely there is personal sorrow connected to Beaney’s firing which we all sympathize with. But hey, there is also individual sorrow and pain connected to every one of those other 64 USM staffers who have also lost their jobs as well—more than a dozen before the holidays. President Flanagan’s responsibility is to keep USM financial afloat—not to keep the hockey team, fans or even some sports writer—- writing in a vacuum—happy.
But just maybe this did have more to do with Beaney’s performance than USM’s financial situation.
(2.) Okay, so how many fans, who post here on USCHOL on a regular basis, would feel satisfied if their favorite DIII hockey program had not had a winning season in seven years—and was off to a 1 and 9 start this season?
Wouldn’t they be howling for the coach’s head if their team posted that kind of performance? Are folks really suggesting that they would care less about their team’s won loss performance and more about character building quality of the program? Not likely…even in DIII. Just read what is written about Bill Beaney (Jeff’s brother) and Middlebury’s hockey coach. That man has 8 NCCAA titles and too many post season playoff games to count. Yet fans want his head because Middlebury has had some rough sledding these past few years. That is the real world.
All this sympathy for Jeff is understandable—and if Puck Voice says he is a good guy—I am sure he is. But we also live in a world where coaches are measured by victories and loses, full rinks and hopefully programs that pay for themselves and not character building, player/coach loyalty or any of that other warm fuzzy suff.
Don't mistake what I am saying. I do feel sorry for Beaney--but as a Mainer--- I am also trying to understand the whole story not just a hockey story as it relates to one of our fine Maine universities.
Re: Coaching Change at USM
I don't know enough about the details of the dismissal of Jeff Beaney at USM to make any kind of comment as to the whys and wherefores of that, but I do know that USM is in very dire economic straits and even with the cuts made, the prospect is bleak. Enrollment continues to fall and as the operating costs remain high, there is little prospect for that trend reversing. We are going to see this death spiral play out at other colleges (public and private) that are unable to keep enrollments up while continuing to ask a hefty fee for tuition while at the same time cutting back on faculty, staff, facilities, and programs. It's not a pretty picture and will affect every phase of operation at the distressed institutions.
I don't know enough about the details of the dismissal of Jeff Beaney at USM to make any kind of comment as to the whys and wherefores of that, but I do know that USM is in very dire economic straits and even with the cuts made, the prospect is bleak. Enrollment continues to fall and as the operating costs remain high, there is little prospect for that trend reversing. We are going to see this death spiral play out at other colleges (public and private) that are unable to keep enrollments up while continuing to ask a hefty fee for tuition while at the same time cutting back on faculty, staff, facilities, and programs. It's not a pretty picture and will affect every phase of operation at the distressed institutions.
Re: Coaching Change at USM
I think this and the Beaney issue are two very separate ones that are not really intertwined at all.
I don't know enough about the details of the dismissal of Jeff Beaney at USM to make any kind of comment as to the whys and wherefores of that, but I do know that USM is in very dire economic straits and even with the cuts made, the prospect is bleak. Enrollment continues to fall and as the operating costs remain high, there is little prospect for that trend reversing. We are going to see this death spiral play out at other colleges (public and private) that are unable to keep enrollments up while continuing to ask a hefty fee for tuition while at the same time cutting back on faculty, staff, facilities, and programs. It's not a pretty picture and will affect every phase of operation at the distressed institutions.
I think this and the Beaney issue are two very separate ones that are not really intertwined at all.