FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Nescacman]

Just finished the Dick Farley book. If there is a better advocate for Division III and NESCAC in this work, I would love to read it. Enjoyable and easy read. I got a signed copy, nice little surprise. SPOILER ALERT: stop here if you plan on reading or have not yet.

Quick takeaways:

RECORD: HC overall 114-19-3, started 5-5-1 (26% of all his career losses as HC), 6/19 to Trinity, went 128 games without back to back losses--equivalent to 16 seasons then, never lost a game in Maine, 29-4-1 in Little 3 games., every player that he recruited and played 4 years and graduated left with at least one perfect season, incredible....
RECRUITING: focused on multi-sport athletes (like himself and other coaches at school), competed a lot with Ivy & Patriot, if a prospect sent video he would watch at least 5 minutes (no HUDL/Twitter then!), would be brutally honest with recruits (something lacking today across all sports and divisions), would call Ivy coaches to see if they had any recruits not high on their list he should consider, Junior Nights at various hotels and gold clubs all over NE and as far west as Buffalo and south as Philly--was eliminated after no in person recruiting allowed (mentioned Middlebury did this as well).
COACHING TREE: pretty impressive list of former players and assistants at various levels from HS to NFL: Dicenzo, Whalen, Ludwig all at Wesleyan, James Perry at Brown, Dave Clawson at Wake Forest, Kevin Gilmartin at Salve Regina, Dave Caputi at Middlebury-- list goes on and on...
ROSTER SIZE: was not a fan of the 75 roster limit, felt it was done to help the more geographically removed Mane schools, this eliminated the freshmen team, coincidentally that has not appeared to have any impact on those schools (discussed before on the board about that being relaxed to 90ish since Covid).
OPPORTUNITIES TO LEAVE: loved coaching both track and football, interviewed at Bowdoin & Hamilton as assistant under Bob Odell and was not offered jobs--they were hesitatant to hire someone without HC experience (they still have not figured it out), Dartmouth and Princeton talked to him about assistant jobs--he did not want to give up coaching track and did not want to coach football year round, Dartmouth & Harvard came back and discussed HC jobs with him--had a search member at Dartmouth tell him Williams was a better gig as it was top 1 or 2 with Amherst in NESCAC while Dartmouth was at best 4th behind Harvard, Princeton & Yale (surprised him), 3 things he did not like about the Ivy jobs: year round focus on football and recruiting, fundraising for the program and pay level (another surprise), also was told if he wanted the Harvard job he would have to campaign for it and call in favors, etc. He had zero interest in that...staying worked out fine...

I am leaving a lot out as there were plenty of other golden nuggets in there. I had the pleasure of meeting him in 2002 while my alma mater Fordham had a then I-AA playoff game at Northeastern. The aforementioned Dave Clawson was Rams HC and Farley was there to watch. Coincidentally, I was there with my former roommate whose father Larry Glueck, was my HC at FU. He had coached at Penn under Bob Odell at Penn and was an assistant at Harvard for 13 years under Joe Restic (and received those calls about what kids Harvard could pass along to him) so he knew Farley very well. We watched whole game with him, it was a real treat, he was a character, very affable. In retrospect, a true highlight for me as I read the book.

Apologies for the long post, really enjoyed the book. I highly recommend it!!

Mole, agree, it was a great book...we were honored to also get our copy personally signed in person by none other than the coach himself...we have a trivia question for you, can you name Coach Farley's editor for the book???

[Charlie]

Bates coaching search winding down. The applicant pool was very impressive. Never quite realized how truly coveted a NESCAC HC position really is.
Several applicants would be well known and maybe surprising to those on this board. Expect an announcement soon. Think we will see a younger guy get the nod rather than a Cosgrove type.

Yes Lumber, we will all be quite surprised by UBates upcoming HCOF selection...word is it's definitely not Kelton or Flores...

Should be interesting who gets the job. speaking of Jobs what is going on with Amherst ?. They lost there recruiting Coordinator Banks who took HC at Loomis Chaffe and lost Waltrous last year to the Middlebury staff. Considering the problems that the school is having in other areas would not be surprised if this is a down year for Amherst football. I have not seen commitments by players on Twitter to Amherst a ton of offers but no commitments.

[lumbercat]

Bates coaching search winding down. The applicant pool was very impressive. Never quite realized how truly coveted a NESCAC HC position really is.
Several applicants would be well known and maybe surprising to those on this board. Expect an announcement soon. Think we will see a younger guy get the nod rather than a Cosgrove type.

Yes Lumber, we will all be quite surprised by UBates upcoming HCOF selection...word is it's definitely not Kelton or Flores...

There is a very good chance that you could be very closely surprised.

[The Mole]

Print Shop @ Williams and Dick Quinn ?

Bates coaching search winding down. The applicant pool was very impressive. Never quite realized how truly coveted a NESCAC HC position really is.
Several applicants would be well known and maybe surprising to those on this board. Expect an announcement soon. Think we will see a younger guy get the nod rather than a Cosgrove type.

Yes Lumber, we will all be quite surprised by UBates upcoming HCOF selection...word is it's definitely not Kelton or Flores...

[amh63]

A sort of "change of pace post".  The WSJ has a picture of the fireworks over the Birdcage stadium to announce the Winter Olympics in China. Amherst is in the process of building a new student center and dining hall.  The architect is the one that designed the Birdcage stadium.  My class has a reunion next year.  Hope to dine in the present dining hall....where I worked in for 4 years. 

[Nescacman]

Print Shop @ Williams and Dick Quinn ?

Bates coaching search winding down. The applicant pool was very impressive. Never quite realized how truly coveted a NESCAC HC position really is.
Several applicants would be well known and maybe surprising to those on this board. Expect an announcement soon. Think we will see a younger guy get the nod rather than a Cosgrove type.

Yes Lumber, we will all be quite surprised by UBates upcoming HCOF selection...word is it's definitely not Kelton or Flores...

Yes...we love Eleanor!

[Nescacman]

Bates coaching search winding down. The applicant pool was very impressive. Never quite realized how truly coveted a NESCAC HC position really is.
Several applicants would be well known and maybe surprising to those on this board. Expect an announcement soon. Think we will see a younger guy get the nod rather than a Cosgrove type.

Yes Lumber, we will all be quite surprised by UBates upcoming HCOF selection...word is it's definitely not Kelton or Flores...

There is a very good chance that you could be very closely surprised.

Lumber, we won't be surprised at all but we're sure others might be...all we will say is that we love the selection...great, out of the box pick and definitely an upgrade.

[lumbercat]

not out of the box at all.

[xPolarDadx]

Bowdoin OC Layer to Dayton.  Makes some sense as he's from that area, and they just had their first child.  O-Line coach Cochran (who has been with Layer and Hammer for years) is the new OC. 

[NEd3ALUM]

not out of the box at all.

Right, hiring an Ivy assistant as NESCAC HC is out of the box?

[Nescacman]

not out of the box at all.

Right, hiring an Ivy assistant as NESCAC HC is out of the box?

The new UBates HCOF is not an Ivy assistant....

Lumber, by out of the box, we meant based on age and experience....we hope for his sake he is given the resources to succeed....he definitely has the knowledge and know how and has been around enough winning but UBates will be a challenge...

[Charlie]

Bowdoin OC Layer to Dayton.  Makes some sense as he's from that area, and they just had their first child.  O-Line coach Cochran (who has been with Layer and Hammer for years) is the new OC.

I also wonder if loosing two of your top recruits did not sway his decision. There top recruit out of Foxboro de- commited and is going to Bentley. There other top recruit is going to Ivy League.

Trinity seems to be landing all the big names and with a QB who has two years left with eligibility wow could be seeing back to back championships. They stacked up at WR and landed an Under Armour defenseive end that recorded 64 sacks in High School career.

I also heard that Williams picked up big TE from Springfield Central and looks like Williams will be content on pounding the rock with an inexperienced QB at the helm. They appear to be retruning a great deal of upperclassman on the defensive side. No news on what Wesleyan has been up to any news ?

[lumbercat]

not out of the box at all.

Right, hiring an Ivy assistant as NESCAC HC is out of the box?

The new UBates HCOF is not an Ivy assistant....

Lumber, by out of the box, we meant based on age and experience....we hope for his sake he is given the resources to succeed....he definitely has the knowledge and know how and has been around enough winning but UBates will be a challenge...

I can't comment on this yet but the hiring of anyone with NESCAC exposure is not out of the box to me.

[Nescacman]

not out of the box at all.

Right, hiring an Ivy assistant as NESCAC HC is out of the box?

The new UBates HCOF is not an Ivy assistant....

Lumber, by out of the box, we meant based on age and experience....we hope for his sake he is given the resources to succeed....he definitely has the knowledge and know how and has been around enough winning but UBates will be a challenge...

I can't comment on this yet but the hiring of anyone with NESCAC exposure is not out of the box to me.

We can't comment either (we know you get it) but we expect to have some good discussions going forward with you...

[lumbercat]

who is "we" ?