Re: Severe Ronaldstorm Warning: the Michigan Tech 2010-11 Season Thread, Part the Sec
I'm not looking for the best coaches, only the right ones.
Our athletic director must have a very interesting job. Our sports at the Division II level have great coaches and success (football is pretty solid. men's basketball is generally pretty good, and they seem to be building back up well after two down years. women's basketball is by far the most successful program on campus). We do pretty well with Tech people coaching Tech programs at that level.
But we apparently something happens when you move up to Division I and to the sport that is supposed to be the jewel of the University. Is there something wrong with the way the program is run? I still think being a hard academic school in the middle of nowhere is a hard sell when competing against these other schools. Hell, even Marquette (NMU) has more to offer and an easier degree path, and they have had success there.
It is quite simple actually. You can't win when you have a culture of losing.
I say:
1) purge the program of any and all malcontents, which it seems like is happening. Give every player the option of walking away, and work with only the guys that truly want to be on this team. If any of the guys walk away at that point, they wouldn't have done anything to help the team anyway.
2) The entire coaching staff should sit down with the freshman class and lay it out for them. "We are not a good hockey team right now, but you have the ability to change that. You have 3 and a half years to turn this around." As a group, the coaches and freshmen class should map out where they want to be throughout that class's 4 years at Tech. Start small, and work their way up, by the end of this year, goals should be: Make championship game of GLI, win Carnival and finish with double digit wins. Also challenge that entire freshman class to win carnival MVP, get them motivated. By the end of next year, challenge the same kids to get to the final 5. After year 3, host a playoff series. For their senior year, make the NCAA's. Map all of this out for that class right now, so they all know what they are working towards, so that they don't get ahead of themselves and so they have a common source of motivation.
3) The leader of this freshmen group should have an "A" next year, maybe 2 of them get "A's". Give them leadership roles on the team, like it or not, Baker and Olson aren't pulling Tech out of this hole, they don't have enough time. Hand the team over to this group, that up until this point, appears very capable.
My hope is by doing this, you end up with a class that doesn't say "**** it, we suck" and give up 2 months into their Junior year. We all know that the Freshmen class is the future of this team, one way or another (and I'll add, no matter who the coach is), why not give them the keys right away and see what they can do and make it clear to them that this is going to be a 4 year process. The program needs to find something to start building on, and this is the only way I can think of to make that happen.
