Big Dance 2022 - Let's Go!

[PaulNewman]

And oddly enough a couple of weeks ago I was thinking about Keene and how to my knowledge they are one of only two D3 teams named the Owls. 

Now the great thing about this board is that Sager or FW within the next half-hour will list four other D3s that are Owls lol.

Keene State
Kenyon
UMPI
Rowan
Westfield State

That's the five D3 schools nicknamed Owls.

Sorry that I didn't meet the deadline, but I just logged in.

I knew it!  Hahahahahahahahahahaha.....as my kids would say.

[PaulNewman]

Ideal places to grow an outstanding and sustainably outstanding soccer program is a really interesting one.  I know SC finds this interesting and believes that many, many schools could grow solid to very good programs with the right mix of ingredients.  Some schools obviously are easy to identify as providing a great opportunity in this regard....and two that come to mind immediately especially in recent years are W&L and Denison...both with huge attractiveness and money.  It's actually maybe more surprising that these schools weren't consistently stronger for years before the last half-decade or so.  I especially wonder about W&L pre-Singleton because it seems that Coach P was a great coach and very beloved.  I had a classmate at Davidson (talking class of '81) who talked about almost going to W&L because of Coach P.  We've debated to what extent high academics is a recruiting plus or too limiting in terms of a recruitment pool, but without going deep down that road let it suffice to say that high end academics and highly selective admissions have not prevented great success at Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Bowdoin, Midd, Hopkins, Tufts, etc, etc. 

I think many of us believe an outstanding coach who can envision a place being more than a placeholder while working one's way up for a "better" job makes a huge difference.  I'll use Emerson as a hypothetical since I don't actually know the details.  But it seems possible Harkin (came from Tufts and left Emerson to be an asst with Shapiro again at Harvard) maybe didn't view Emerson as a place where it might be possible to build a competitive program.  And it's way too early to conclude based on this past year's success whether Emerson has the resources to take that kind of step.  But my thesis anyway is that a coach has to first see potential to build something (like at Denison where I think Bianco saw Denison as a destination job where there was a very good chance with the right vision and management to build something really good).  The coach needs to stay for a while or at least have a pipeline that continues what one started, but once a school starts having some success, a better reputation for soccer gets planted, and as progress continues a smart coach figures out what the school has going for it in general to promote and highlight for recruits....and maybe eventually getting to a point where the overall recruiting pool thinks of that school as a very interesting and attractive place to consider.

[jknezek]

Ideal places to grow an outstanding and sustainably outstanding soccer program is a really interesting one.  I know SC finds this interesting and believes that many, many schools could grow solid to very good programs with the right mix of ingredients.  Some schools obviously are easy to identify as providing a great opportunity in this regard....and two that come to mind immediately especially in recent years are W&L and Denison...both with huge attractiveness and money.  It's actually maybe more surprising that these schools weren't consistently stronger for years before the last half-decade or so.  I especially wonder about W&L pre-Singleton because it seems that Coach P was a great coach and very beloved.  I had a classmate at Davidson (talking class of '81) who talked about almost going to W&L because of Coach P.  We've debated to what extent high academics is a recruiting plus or too limiting in terms of a recruitment pool, but without going deep down that road let it suffice to say that high end academics and highly selective admissions have not prevented great success at Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Bowdoin, Midd, Hopkins, Tufts, etc, etc. 

I think many of us believe an outstanding coach who can envision a place being more than a placeholder while working one's way up for a "better" job makes a huge difference.  I'll use Emerson as a hypothetical since I don't actually know the details.  But it seems possible Harkin (came from Tufts and left Emerson to be an asst with Shapiro again at Harvard) maybe didn't view Emerson as a place where it might be possible to build a competitive program.  And it's way too early to conclude based on this past year's success whether Emerson has the resources to take that kind of step.  But my thesis anyway is that a coach has to first see potential to build something (like at Denison where I think Bianco saw Denison as a destination job where there was a very good chance with the right vision and management to build something really good).  The coach needs to stay for a while or at least have a pipeline that continues what one started, but once a school starts having some success, a better reputation for soccer gets planted, and as progress continues a smart coach figures out what the school has going for it in general to promote and highlight for recruits....and maybe eventually getting to a point where the overall recruiting pool thinks of that school as a very interesting and attractive place to consider.

Coach P started at W&L in 1976. He was one of the longest tenured coaches when I was there in the mid 90s, and he stayed through the 2013 season. He was from a different generation at W&L, when athletics, with the exception of Men's Lax, were an offering to attract students, but athletic success was more "are you competitive in the conference because that's all we need." He took over a team that was not very good and turned it into a team that was competitive. In his first 10 seasons, he was over .500 only 3 times. Over the next 28 seasons, he was only under .500 only 6x. Finished with a 313-242-56 (.558) record.

It's also important to remember that W&L's facilities were... not good until a mid 90s plan was put in the place that started with building an indoor tennis center and upgrading locker rooms at the football field and then ballooned into essentially replacing or rebuilding EVERYTHING over 25 years. That program has finally slowed down after the completion of the new swimming/diving center and gutting and rebuilding of the indoor sports facility. But during many of Coach P's years, W&L's soccer facilities (and other sports) were subpar at best.

[Hopkins92]

What's funny about the facilities thing... We played at W&L somewhere in the '88-'91 timeframe, and I've mentioned it before, that was the nicest grass field I'd ever played on. Was that just a weird outlier? I don't even remember going into a locker room, now that I think about it...

[Caz Bombers]

And oddly enough a couple of weeks ago I was thinking about Keene and how to my knowledge they are one of only two D3 teams named the Owls. 

Now the great thing about this board is that Sager or FW within the next half-hour will list four other D3s that are Owls lol.

Keene State
Kenyon
UMPI
Rowan
Westfield State

That's the five D3 schools nicknamed Owls.

Sorry that I didn't meet the deadline, but I just logged in.

I knew it!  Hahahahahahahahahahaha.....as my kids would say.

Rowan is the Profs. The logo is an owl, but that's not the nickname.

[Bucket]

Ideal places to grow an outstanding and sustainably outstanding soccer program is a really interesting one.  I know SC finds this interesting and believes that many, many schools could grow solid to very good programs with the right mix of ingredients.  Some schools obviously are easy to identify as providing a great opportunity in this regard....and two that come to mind immediately especially in recent years are W&L and Denison...both with huge attractiveness and money.  It's actually maybe more surprising that these schools weren't consistently stronger for years before the last half-decade or so.  I especially wonder about W&L pre-Singleton because it seems that Coach P was a great coach and very beloved.  I had a classmate at Davidson (talking class of '81) who talked about almost going to W&L because of Coach P.  We've debated to what extent high academics is a recruiting plus or too limiting in terms of a recruitment pool, but without going deep down that road let it suffice to say that high end academics and highly selective admissions have not prevented great success at Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Bowdoin, Midd, Hopkins, Tufts, etc, etc. 

I think many of us believe an outstanding coach who can envision a place being more than a placeholder while working one's way up for a "better" job makes a huge difference.  I'll use Emerson as a hypothetical since I don't actually know the details.  But it seems possible Harkin (came from Tufts and left Emerson to be an asst with Shapiro again at Harvard) maybe didn't view Emerson as a place where it might be possible to build a competitive program.  And it's way too early to conclude based on this past year's success whether Emerson has the resources to take that kind of step.  But my thesis anyway is that a coach has to first see potential to build something (like at Denison where I think Bianco saw Denison as a destination job where there was a very good chance with the right vision and management to build something really good).  The coach needs to stay for a while or at least have a pipeline that continues what one started, but once a school starts having some success, a better reputation for soccer gets planted, and as progress continues a smart coach figures out what the school has going for it in general to promote and highlight for recruits....and maybe eventually getting to a point where the overall recruiting pool thinks of that school as a very interesting and attractive place to consider.

Coach P started at W&L in 1976. He was one of the longest tenured coaches when I was there in the mid 90s, and he stayed through the 2013 season. He was from a different generation at W&L, when athletics, with the exception of Men's Lax, were an offering to attract students, but athletic success was more "are you competitive in the conference because that's all we need." He took over a team that was not very good and turned it into a team that was competitive. In his first 10 seasons, he was over .500 only 3 times. Over the next 28 seasons, he was only under .500 only 6x. Finished with a 313-242-56 (.558) record.

It's also important to remember that W&L's facilities were... not good until a mid 90s plan was put in the place that started with building an indoor tennis center and upgrading locker rooms at the football field and then ballooned into essentially replacing or rebuilding EVERYTHING over 25 years. That program has finally slowed down after the completion of the new swimming/diving center and gutting and rebuilding of the indoor sports facility. But during many of Coach P's years, W&L's soccer facilities (and other sports) were subpar at best.

I was at W&L—with my soccer playing buddies—from '89 to '93. Best buddy is still in the record books, tho no longer the record holder, for career assists.

However I've known Rolf since he arrived in '76; my dad was a journalism prof and I was a townie. Rolf started the youth soccer program in Lex, and most memorable moment as a kid was when he brought Pele to town.

Fond memories!

[PaulNewman]

I knew Rowan was the Profs...but I also knew there was something with Rowan and owls....is the idea that Profs and owls are both "wise"?

[PaulNewman]

I'm surprised that at least a few of the SAA schools aren't consistently better.

[Gregory Sager]

And oddly enough a couple of weeks ago I was thinking about Keene and how to my knowledge they are one of only two D3 teams named the Owls. 

Now the great thing about this board is that Sager or FW within the next half-hour will list four other D3s that are Owls lol.

Keene State
Kenyon
UMPI
Rowan
Westfield State

That's the five D3 schools nicknamed Owls.

Sorry that I didn't meet the deadline, but I just logged in.

I knew it!  Hahahahahahahahahahaha.....as my kids would say.

Rowan is the Profs. The logo is an owl, but that's not the nickname.

Yeah, you're right. Forgot about that. My bad.

That could start a whole new thread: Schools whose mascot is different than the nickname.

[LetteroftheLaw]

Ideal places to grow an outstanding and sustainably outstanding soccer program is a really interesting one.  I know SC finds this interesting and believes that many, many schools could grow solid to very good programs with the right mix of ingredients.  Some schools obviously are easy to identify as providing a great opportunity in this regard....and two that come to mind immediately especially in recent years are W&L and Denison...both with huge attractiveness and money.  It's actually maybe more surprising that these schools weren't consistently stronger for years before the last half-decade or so.  I especially wonder about W&L pre-Singleton because it seems that Coach P was a great coach and very beloved.  I had a classmate at Davidson (talking class of '81) who talked about almost going to W&L because of Coach P.  We've debated to what extent high academics is a recruiting plus or too limiting in terms of a recruitment pool, but without going deep down that road let it suffice to say that high end academics and highly selective admissions have not prevented great success at Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Bowdoin, Midd, Hopkins, Tufts, etc, etc. 

I think many of us believe an outstanding coach who can envision a place being more than a placeholder while working one's way up for a "better" job makes a huge difference.  I'll use Emerson as a hypothetical since I don't actually know the details.  But it seems possible Harkin (came from Tufts and left Emerson to be an asst with Shapiro again at Harvard) maybe didn't view Emerson as a place where it might be possible to build a competitive program.  And it's way too early to conclude based on this past year's success whether Emerson has the resources to take that kind of step.  But my thesis anyway is that a coach has to first see potential to build something (like at Denison where I think Bianco saw Denison as a destination job where there was a very good chance with the right vision and management to build something really good).  The coach needs to stay for a while or at least have a pipeline that continues what one started, but once a school starts having some success, a better reputation for soccer gets planted, and as progress continues a smart coach figures out what the school has going for it in general to promote and highlight for recruits....and maybe eventually getting to a point where the overall recruiting pool thinks of that school as a very interesting and attractive place to consider.

This is a really interesting topic to me. I will use the example of Catholic since I'm most familiar with the program. The head coach Travis Beauchamp has been there for 16 years and has taken the program from a nobody to a perennial Landmark favorite and can almost be considered a regular in the ncaa tournament. As an alum, I've wondered what needs to happen to take the next step as a program and start making deep runs into the tournament. For Catholic, they're located in a major city (DC) with direct access to the metro system on campus so location is obviously attractive for college athletes and the DMV produces a lot of good talent. They also got a brand new soccer stadium within the last few years and new locker rooms, all since I've left. The things they don't have going for them are cost of tuition and academic reputation. While not bad academically, it doesn't compare to the schools mentioned by PN and yet is equally as expensive, so all kids interested in Catholic and are good students end up playing at the better academic schools. Unfortunately good players that would like to come to Catholic either can't get in or can't afford to go to school there, a problem many schools struggle with. What has kept Catholic competitive is that they offer a few majors that other smaller d3 schools don't offer (biomedical engineering, architecture, nursing etc) and so good athletes that want to major in those subjects will play there and they also have gotten a couple talented transfers who were from the area or knew current players which attracted them to the program. It's definitely a challenge and one that I know many programs face since they are in the same situation.

[Hopkins92]

And oddly enough a couple of weeks ago I was thinking about Keene and how to my knowledge they are one of only two D3 teams named the Owls. 

Now the great thing about this board is that Sager or FW within the next half-hour will list four other D3s that are Owls lol.

Keene State
Kenyon
UMPI
Rowan
Westfield State

That's the five D3 schools nicknamed Owls.

Sorry that I didn't meet the deadline, but I just logged in.

I knew it!  Hahahahahahahahahahaha.....as my kids would say.

Rowan is the Profs. The logo is an owl, but that's not the nickname.

Yeah, you're right. Forgot about that. My bad.

That could start a whole new thread: Schools whose mascot is different than the nickname.

One of my running gags with my Hopkins friends is pretending to be confused by both Haverford and Swarthmore's mascots/nicknames.

[Another Mom]

I am loving this W&L history:-)

A couple of things: there are even more W&L supporters on the board -- @futbolislife is one, and I think there are others who just lurk.

You may know that Coach Singleton is, in addition to being a soccer coach, a professor of psychology.  Without doublechecking, I believe he teaches a course in sports psychology.

Teams that should be better: Emory and Skidmore.

[PaulNewman]

LOTL, I don't want to get us too far afield from the thread topic, but some of your points I've been thinking about with the idea that some of my biases on this topic may be off (and maybe way off). 

But first, typing LOTL for some reason made me think of LGOTB (lastguyoffthebench).  Used to be a mainstay here and iirc he was mostly absent last season but re-emerged a bit at tournament time.  I've also asked about Ommadawn several times, and while there could be a 100 different reasons for drop-offs, one does hope all are OK as we approach a full three years of Covid.

Anyway, I realize Catholic isn't exactly peers with Trinity (CT), Union, Skidmore, etc...but I used to think having somewhat looser admissions should be a big advantage and now I'm questioning whether that's true.  Maybe kids who would be difference makers at such schools are able to access schools considered a half-tier above or a peer school like SLU that already has an entrenched tradition of soccer excellence with frequent NCAA appearances.  Ursinus and to some degree Muhlenberg I think face similar challenges to a Catholic (without having the big plus Catholic does have in terms of being in middle of DC).  Like how is the Ursinus coach supposed to get a kid who also gets recruited by Gettysburg, Dickinson, F&M, etc?  Probably 19 times out of 20 Ursinus won't get that kid, and when they do get one, it's probably related to a kid with some need who is offered 20-30K in merit money.

[Ejay]

Ideal places to grow an outstanding and sustainably outstanding soccer program is a really interesting one.  I know SC finds this interesting and believes that many, many schools could grow solid to very good programs with the right mix of ingredients.  Some schools obviously are easy to identify as providing a great opportunity in this regard....and two that come to mind immediately especially in recent years are W&L and Denison...both with huge attractiveness and money.  It's actually maybe more surprising that these schools weren't consistently stronger for years before the last half-decade or so.  I especially wonder about W&L pre-Singleton because it seems that Coach P was a great coach and very beloved.  I had a classmate at Davidson (talking class of '81) who talked about almost going to W&L because of Coach P.  We've debated to what extent high academics is a recruiting plus or too limiting in terms of a recruitment pool, but without going deep down that road let it suffice to say that high end academics and highly selective admissions have not prevented great success at Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Bowdoin, Midd, Hopkins, Tufts, etc, etc. 

I think many of us believe an outstanding coach who can envision a place being more than a placeholder while working one's way up for a "better" job makes a huge difference.  I'll use Emerson as a hypothetical since I don't actually know the details.  But it seems possible Harkin (came from Tufts and left Emerson to be an asst with Shapiro again at Harvard) maybe didn't view Emerson as a place where it might be possible to build a competitive program.  And it's way too early to conclude based on this past year's success whether Emerson has the resources to take that kind of step.  But my thesis anyway is that a coach has to first see potential to build something (like at Denison where I think Bianco saw Denison as a destination job where there was a very good chance with the right vision and management to build something really good).  The coach needs to stay for a while or at least have a pipeline that continues what one started, but once a school starts having some success, a better reputation for soccer gets planted, and as progress continues a smart coach figures out what the school has going for it in general to promote and highlight for recruits....and maybe eventually getting to a point where the overall recruiting pool thinks of that school as a very interesting and attractive place to consider.

This is a really interesting topic to me. I will use the example of Catholic since I'm most familiar with the program. The head coach Travis Beauchamp has been there for 16 years and has taken the program from a nobody to a perennial Landmark favorite and can almost be considered a regular in the ncaa tournament. As an alum, I've wondered what needs to happen to take the next step as a program and start making deep runs into the tournament. For Catholic, they're located in a major city (DC) with direct access to the metro system on campus so location is obviously attractive for college athletes and the DMV produces a lot of good talent. They also got a brand new soccer stadium within the last few years and new locker rooms, all since I've left. The things they don't have going for them are cost of tuition and academic reputation. While not bad academically, it doesn't compare to the schools mentioned by PN and yet is equally as expensive, so all kids interested in Catholic and are good students end up playing at the better academic schools. Unfortunately good players that would like to come to Catholic either can't get in or can't afford to go to school there, a problem many schools struggle with. What has kept Catholic competitive is that they offer a few majors that other smaller d3 schools don't offer (biomedical engineering, architecture, nursing etc) and so good athletes that want to major in those subjects will play there and they also have gotten a couple talented transfers who were from the area or knew current players which attracted them to the program. It's definitely a challenge and one that I know many programs face since they are in the same situation.

Great point about tuition/reputation.  Another issue I see is the field. Yes, Carlini is a nice new complex, but it's a mile from campus and literarily next to a dump.  Scranton has the same issue - great new complex but 1.5 miles from campus. That was a major turn-off when my kid was looking at schools.

[LetteroftheLaw]

Ideal places to grow an outstanding and sustainably outstanding soccer program is a really interesting one.  I know SC finds this interesting and believes that many, many schools could grow solid to very good programs with the right mix of ingredients.  Some schools obviously are easy to identify as providing a great opportunity in this regard....and two that come to mind immediately especially in recent years are W&L and Denison...both with huge attractiveness and money.  It's actually maybe more surprising that these schools weren't consistently stronger for years before the last half-decade or so.  I especially wonder about W&L pre-Singleton because it seems that Coach P was a great coach and very beloved.  I had a classmate at Davidson (talking class of '81) who talked about almost going to W&L because of Coach P.  We've debated to what extent high academics is a recruiting plus or too limiting in terms of a recruitment pool, but without going deep down that road let it suffice to say that high end academics and highly selective admissions have not prevented great success at Williams, Amherst, Chicago, Bowdoin, Midd, Hopkins, Tufts, etc, etc. 

I think many of us believe an outstanding coach who can envision a place being more than a placeholder while working one's way up for a "better" job makes a huge difference.  I'll use Emerson as a hypothetical since I don't actually know the details.  But it seems possible Harkin (came from Tufts and left Emerson to be an asst with Shapiro again at Harvard) maybe didn't view Emerson as a place where it might be possible to build a competitive program.  And it's way too early to conclude based on this past year's success whether Emerson has the resources to take that kind of step.  But my thesis anyway is that a coach has to first see potential to build something (like at Denison where I think Bianco saw Denison as a destination job where there was a very good chance with the right vision and management to build something really good).  The coach needs to stay for a while or at least have a pipeline that continues what one started, but once a school starts having some success, a better reputation for soccer gets planted, and as progress continues a smart coach figures out what the school has going for it in general to promote and highlight for recruits....and maybe eventually getting to a point where the overall recruiting pool thinks of that school as a very interesting and attractive place to consider.

This is a really interesting topic to me. I will use the example of Catholic since I'm most familiar with the program. The head coach Travis Beauchamp has been there for 16 years and has taken the program from a nobody to a perennial Landmark favorite and can almost be considered a regular in the ncaa tournament. As an alum, I've wondered what needs to happen to take the next step as a program and start making deep runs into the tournament. For Catholic, they're located in a major city (DC) with direct access to the metro system on campus so location is obviously attractive for college athletes and the DMV produces a lot of good talent. They also got a brand new soccer stadium within the last few years and new locker rooms, all since I've left. The things they don't have going for them are cost of tuition and academic reputation. While not bad academically, it doesn't compare to the schools mentioned by PN and yet is equally as expensive, so all kids interested in Catholic and are good students end up playing at the better academic schools. Unfortunately good players that would like to come to Catholic either can't get in or can't afford to go to school there, a problem many schools struggle with. What has kept Catholic competitive is that they offer a few majors that other smaller d3 schools don't offer (biomedical engineering, architecture, nursing etc) and so good athletes that want to major in those subjects will play there and they also have gotten a couple talented transfers who were from the area or knew current players which attracted them to the program. It's definitely a challenge and one that I know many programs face since they are in the same situation.

Great point about tuition/reputation.  Another issue I see is the field. Yes, Carlini is a nice new complex, but it's a mile from campus and literarily next to a dump.  Scranton has the same issue - great new complex but 1.5 miles from campus. That was a major turn-off when my kid was looking at schools.

Haha this is true, I don't think I've ever considered the possibility of having a remote field being a game changer for recruiting but might be the case.
Nothing like the fresh smell of the dump at 5:45am in august as you were stretching for the first fitness test of preseason....