Athletes seek voices in coach selection

Sarah Palermo Sports Editor

Two hours of practice a day, or more. Five-hour bus trips to St. Lawrence. Weeklong trips over school breaks. Student-athletes spend a lot of time together, but they also spend all that time with their coach. The chemistry between players and coaching staff plays a significant role in how successful a season will be, but how much of a role do student-athletes have in selecting these influential individuals?

In the past year, the Athletic Department has performed several searches to fill vacant positions. On Dec. 16, John Martin was announced as the new head coach of the baseball team, after serving as the interim head coach for the fall season. He is the third head coach of the team in the past three years.
When vacancies arise, the Athletic Department posts information on the NCAA website and in other national resources for coaches, and then holds interviews with candidates. The players are given a chance to meet the finalists, and ask them questions.

Vassar’s women’s soccer program also interviewed candidates for the Head Coach position for their 2005 fall season. Caitlin Forsyth ’08 said that team members did not receive any information from the department about the candidates prior to the interviews. She felt that this left the athletes unable to ask appropriate questions about experience or past coaching.
Members of the men’s baseball team did their own research on the candidates using the Internet, but searches can provide unreliable information or information about a different person with the same name as one of the candidates.

After the interview process, the student-athletes send their opinions of the candidates to Athletic Director Sharon Beverly in the form of a ranked list, with a brief explanation of why each candidate received his or her ranking.

However, it is unclear to many student-athletes just how valuable or influential these rankings are when the selection committee meets to choose from the candidates. Heather Jaffe ’06 said that the women’s soccer team was told that because the team members’ individual reviews contradicted each other, they were mostly disregarded. Beverly was not reachable for comment on the final weight of the student-athletes’ reviews of candidates. No members of the team or of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) sit on the committee.

The student-athletes’ opinions may also be outweighed by concerns in the administration. The women’s soccer coach, Sarah Dwyer-Shick, was expected to fulfill a role in the Athletic Department related to advertising promotion. The team went on to improve their conference performance over last year, but fell to a 5-9-1 total season record.

“Everyone wants to have a good season, so we gave it a shot,” said Jaffe of the team’s chemistry with Dwyer-Shick. “She was just a bad coach.”
Problems arose partly because of Dwyer-Shick’s lack of collegiate coaching experience. Her previous position had been with a club soccer team for girls 12 years old and younger.

The men’s lacrosse team is much more enthusiastic about their spring season under new Head Coach Joe Proud. As a collegiate lacrosse coach since 1997, Proud was “the most qualified candidate,” according to Vito Cataldo ’07.

Proud’s experience is serving the team well. “Everything is amazing with our program. We’ve really come together as a team,” said Cataldo. “He inspires good things in us.”

This is, of course, the ultimate goal of the search for any coach: a team that is dedicated and willing to work hard for a successful season. While Cataldo and other members of the men’s lacrosse team, as well as the members of the baseball team, are happy with the results of their coaching searches, they also felt disillusioned with the process, and offered suggestions for improvement.
“Definitely putting some members of the team on the committee,” said Cataldo. “
We know most what we need from the coach.”

Forsyth said that after their experience with the search process, the women’s soccer team requested more information about the candidates for next year.

When asked how important he felt the student evaluations were in the process, Coach Martin replied, “The only reason we’re here is for the students. I don’t know if they have the ultimate say in the decision, but it is very heavily weighed.”