FB: Liberty League

[Caz Bombers]

Ice Bear says **** the portal. Ice says btw, meet John Poppe, the new Union College Head Football  coach: https://unionathletics.com/

[Jonny Utah]

Ice Bear says **** the portal. Ice says btw, meet John Poppe, the new Union College Head Football  coach: https://unionathletics.com/

Oh wow awesome.  Very enthusiastic tough guy (tough in the good way).  I've watched a bunch of Harvard practices and games and Poppe is great.

[UfanBill]

Ice Bear says **** the portal. Ice says btw, meet John Poppe, the new Union College Head Football  coach: https://unionathletics.com/

OK, I doze off for awhile and Icebear beats me to it. The new football coach at Union College is John Poppe!!! Poppe comes to Union from Harvard where he was a defensive backs/special teams coach. He's a 2007 graduate of Williams. It seems academic excellence and integrity were the roots Union wanted in their football coach. I hope those roots grow into many W's on the gridiron. Welcome to the Dutchmen coach.   

I have to add that it's not insignificant that Poppe spent 3 years prior to Harvard at Columbia where he was on former Union coach Al Bagnoli's staff along with former Dutchmen coach John Audino. More great roots.

[unionpalooza]

Ice Bear says **** the portal. Ice says btw, meet John Poppe, the new Union College Head Football  coach: https://unionathletics.com/

Oh wow awesome.  Very enthusiastic tough guy (tough in the good way).  I've watched a bunch of Harvard practices and games and Poppe is great.

This seems to be the uniform view of pretty much everyone who's encountered him.  I'm super stoked - I think he is 100% the right guy to help Union take the next step back to its 80/90s glory. 

[Bartman]

Ice Bear says **** the portal. Ice says btw, meet John Poppe, the new Union College Head Football  coach: https://unionathletics.com/

OK, I doze off for awhile and Icebear beats me to it. The new football coach at Union College is John Poppe!!! Poppe comes to Union from Harvard where he was a defensive backs/special teams coach. He's a 2007 graduate of Williams. It seems academic excellence and integrity were the roots Union wanted in their football coach. I hope those roots grow into many W's on the gridiron. Welcome to the Dutchmen coach.   

I have to add that it's not insignificant that Poppe spent 3 years prior to Harvard at Columbia where he was on former Union coach Al Bagnoli's staff along with former Dutchmen coach John Audino. More great roots.

I can hear it now........ Poppe's Cannon.....damn cannon.......SILENCE THE CANNON!....Seriously, Welcome to the Liberty League  Coach Poppe

[Jonny Utah]

Dante Bruschi (son of Teddy Bruschi) has announced that he will be a Bomber next year.  Solid LB from Mass. 

[IC798891]

Second, though - committing to a team ought to mean something.  A college invests in you, coaches invest in you, your teammates invest in you - and sure, if its a bad fit or you find a better educational opportunity or whatever, you have to do the right thing for yourself.  But I see all these kids hopping on Twitter to announce their "commitment" to a school, and that no longer really means anything at all.  It just means they're committing a year, and then they may bounce if something shinier comes along.  One of the great lessons of D3 athletics - one that really comes in useful all one's life - is what it means to commit to a group of people, and to owe something to them, and them to you.  It's not the end of the world, but the transfer portal does seem to muddy that lesson.

Union's new head coach:

King's College (1 year)
Springfield College (2 years)
Holy Cross (1 year)
Harvard (4 years)
Columbia (3 years)
Harvard again (5 years)
Union

Talk to me more about commitments and owing something to people who invested in you

[IC798891]

Ice Bear says **** the portal. Ice says btw, meet John Poppe, the new Union College Head Football  coach: https://unionathletics.com/

But...Poppe came from somewhere else?

[Bartman]

Just read that IC will be losing both the DC and OC to FCS programs. Has this been confirmed ?

[Ice Bear]

Second, though - committing to a team ought to mean something.  A college invests in you, coaches invest in you, your teammates invest in you - and sure, if its a bad fit or you find a better educational opportunity or whatever, you have to do the right thing for yourself.  But I see all these kids hopping on Twitter to announce their "commitment" to a school, and that no longer really means anything at all.  It just means they're committing a year, and then they may bounce if something shinier comes along.  One of the great lessons of D3 athletics - one that really comes in useful all one's life - is what it means to commit to a group of people, and to owe something to them, and them to you.  It's not the end of the world, but the transfer portal does seem to muddy that lesson.

Union's new head coach:

King's College (1 year)
Springfield College (2 years)
Holy Cross (1 year)
Harvard (4 years)
Columbia (3 years)
Harvard again (5 years)
Union

Talk to me more about commitments and owing something to people who invested in you

Ice Bear says IHHO there is a difference between a coach, who is an adult in a position of authority and a student athlete, who is...a student athlete in a position to learn and grow as a student, athlete, and a person, hence the reason they are students. Ice asks are loyalty, honesty, commitment, and fortitude not traits you'd like to see in young men, students, who are not yet professionals and/or adults? Ice asks are we going to hold young people to any standards any more to teach personal responsibility and commitment? This is the angle Ice looks at in regards to the portal. Ice says plus, from a fan's perspective, one thing he always enjoyed about college sports was watching players/teams develop at a school over a period of time. Ice says that's one thing that he always enjoyed about college as opposed to professional sports.

Ice says IC let's just agree to disagree on this one. Ice won't ever budge on this, and he rarely, if ever, takes a position where he digs his feet in. Ice sees what you are saying and respects it. He just doesn't agree with it.

[IC798891]

are loyalty, honesty, commitment, and fortitude not traits you'd like to see in young men, students, who are not yet professionals and/or adults?

Sure.

What does deciding to go to a different college and playing football elsewhere have to do with any of that?

Enrolling at a college and playing football is not any different than enrolling at a college and working at the radio station, or theatre department, or the staff of a communications department, or anything else. None of you care about that stuff one bit.

[unionpalooza]

are loyalty, honesty, commitment, and fortitude not traits you'd like to see in young men, students, who are not yet professionals and/or adults?

Sure.

What does deciding to go to a different college and playing football elsewhere have to do with any of that?

Enrolling at a college and playing football is not any different than enrolling at a college and working at the radio station, or theatre department, or the staff of a communications department, or anything else. None of you care about that stuff one bit.

Of course they're different; one of those is a team, and the others are not.  When was the last time you saw a HS senior put up a "Committed to the Ithaca Communications Department" graphic on Twitter? Or a senior delay graduation for a semester so he can spend one last fall DJing a radio show? I'm not sure your view of D3 college FB as just another activity a kid may decide to do with his time when in college is precisely consistent with how most players experience it. 

[Jonny Utah]

I don't really see the "commitment" angle because of what IC said, but there may be the issue of Union football coaches getting favors from the admissions dept. to let athletes in (or any other school that does this).  I don't know how far that goes or if another kid may lose out in that spot but that could be a potential problem.    The admissions office could also see this as a "WTF football coaches?  We had plenty of kids looking for a spot here at Union and the kid we gave a spot for is going to Mt. Union or Sacred Heart?"  And that's where the school part comes in.  We are seeing college football programs (in this case Union) being places where kids go to get "seen" and then go somewhere else.  That's really not what we envision d3 football to be is it? 

In the end times are changing so we just have to adapt.  It's frustrating for Union fans I'm sure to see this happen but what comes around goes around.  As for the twitter announcements I don't like those for football either.  It's kinda out of control to an extent.

[IC798891]

Just read that IC will be losing both the DC and OC to FCS programs. Has this been confirmed ?

source?

[Bartman]

Just read that IC will be losing both the DC and OC to FCS programs. Has this been confirmed ?

source?

I have to check with my son, who got it from a college football blog as a rumor, however, it was very specific with coaches going to UPenn and Stony Brook. I'll recheck.