Re: RPI Engineers 2017-2018
As for your first sentence, to be fair, RPI launched a DIII program knowing that it would eventually go to DI, and since women's hockey was relatively new at the time, Bill Cahill was the logical choice to get the team established, and was doing just that. Fridgen was well-established and as it turned out, would spend the next ten seasons as the men's coach. In Burke's case, the sudden death of Cahill (with two and a half weeks left before the season) sort of left RPI in a lurch, so they really had nowhere else to turn. They haven't really HAD to take their time with the women's team. Agreed that the timing of Burke's release was terrible given the circumstances, but as I said before, it's easier to hire an interim than a brand new coach at this point.
Given the source of our last two women's coaches (assistants from the men's program), I wonder if Brian Vines has lined a position for the coming year. He certainly has more experience than either of our women's team assistants. Perhaps he'd make a good interim coach while retaining the current assistants in their present roles to provide experience on the women's side.
As for this entire process, it's insane. "Interim coach" is a title that should only be used if you have to make an in-season appointment due to a major issue. Burke had just come into alignment with the new dynamics of recruitment which seems to have evolved from the men's side. Increasingly players are committing two and even three years out. Having a 9 month interim is a formula for losing all of the current recruits while putting the new, mid--2018 version in the unenviable position of starting from scratch with few freshman (at least when you terminate at the end of the year you generally keep most of the freshman if, for no other reason, than it's too late to make alternate plans) and no pipeline. Can you imagine even trying to recruit players for the next nine months? What can you tell them about the future of the program?
As for your first sentence, to be fair, RPI launched a DIII program knowing that it would eventually go to DI, and since women's hockey was relatively new at the time, Bill Cahill was the logical choice to get the team established, and was doing just that. Fridgen was well-established and as it turned out, would spend the next ten seasons as the men's coach. In Burke's case, the sudden death of Cahill (with two and a half weeks left before the season) sort of left RPI in a lurch, so they really had nowhere else to turn. They haven't really HAD to take their time with the women's team. Agreed that the timing of Burke's release was terrible given the circumstances, but as I said before, it's easier to hire an interim than a brand new coach at this point.