This email has been sent to you by Deron Treadwell ([log in to unmask]).
Comments from Sender:
This story can be found online at:
http://www.pressherald.com/sports/college/hockey/040412soll.shtml
==============================================================================
Monday, April 12, 2004
COLUMN: Steve Solloway
Program's class starts at the top
Copyright 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Black Bear Hockey
Associated Press One had a shutout, another allowed just a power-play goal. And when it was over Saturday night, Jimmy Howard of Maine, right, congratulated Denver's goalie, Adam Berkhoel.
Black Bear Hockey
BLACK BEAR HOCKEY
Get complete coverage in the UMaine Black Bears section, where you'll find news, brackets, a message board and more.
Too bad Maine couldn't push the puck past Denver goaltender Adam Berkhoel two or three times Saturday night. Those goals would have sealed the deal for Tim Whitehead.
One more win in the last game of the season would have done for Whitehead what he refuses to do for himself.
Beating Denver and winning the national championship should have stamped this self-effacing individual as the right man to coach Maine hockey.
Not that his future is in danger. Make no mistake. Whitehead didn't need to convince the powers-that-be at the university. They're sold on the man.
Sometime soon there will be an announcement that Whitehead will be Maine's hockey coach next year and for several more years. He didn't need to win the national championship to earn that.
What he needed, in beating Denver, was to send the message to those who need to hear that this hockey team is no longer Shawn Walsh's team.
That Tim Whitehead is no longer the head caretaker of the state's favorite team, but its head coach.
Walsh's legacy will endure. It's now time to give Whitehead the opportunity to forge his own.
I say this because Whitehead won't. If there's an ounce of self-promotion in Whitehead, I haven't seen it in three years. He's that type that believes his record speaks for itself. Nowadays that makes him unique.
Patrick Nero recognizes what has been done. "Since Tim took the job, I can count the weeks on one hand that we haven't been ranked in the top 10. What does that say?"
Nero is the newcomer who left the fast track at Miami last year to take the athletic director's job at Maine. He understands unrealistic expectations and the need to sell your soul to meet them.
Nero compares Whitehead to Larry Coker, the Miami football coach who followed Butch Davis, who followed Dennis Erickson, who followed Jimmy Johnson and Howard Schnellenberger.
Whitehead and Coker are similar, says Nero. Both are quiet men who don't feel the need to cultivate the media or others to promote their successes and ensure their jobs even if the sharks start circling.
No, Maine isn't Miami. There's no big-time here. Nero laughed as he sat in his hotel suite near Boston's Back Bay neighborhood Saturday, hours before the championship game.
He won't order room service because it's too expensive. Bags of food and drink from a local supermarket were stacked in the hallway outside his door.
"Sometimes the pregame meal for our players are the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Jeanne (Goss) makes in the hockey office," said Nero. "That's who we are."
Thirteen of the hockey players earned grade-point averages of 3.0 or better, said Nero. And all of them attended a breakfast honoring academic achievement the morning after a late-night game.
"I've seen a few student-athletes in my office for disciplinary reasons. Not one of them was a hockey player. They're told they're held to a higher standard because they are on this team."
Nero's point? That Maine can have its cake and eat it, too. It can play for the national championship in Division I hockey and still call their players student-athletes without lying.
Nero has sat with Whitehead and his staff and the team. "There are 25 different voices on that team and I was amazed at the level of respect they had for each other, freshmen and seniors."
That may be why no excuses were heard after Maine lost Saturday. Why no finger-pointing was seen. Why, individually, they held themselves accountable for not bringing the championship back to Maine.
Which made this loss, most of all, so hard to take.
As college hockey fans, this is what you should want in your team. Besides the winning, this is also why you keep going to Alfond Arena and why you'll pay to go on the road with them.
It all starts at the top with one man, just as it did when Shawn Walsh was that man.
Today and tomorrow, that man is Tim Whitehead.
Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at: [log in to unmask]
|
