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* ORIGINALLY From [log in to unmask] Wed Jan 21 10:13:02 1998
* Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:08:33 -0700
* From: "Victor M. Vazquez Jr." <[log in to unmask]>
* Subject: Denver Post Article ...
* To: [log in to unmask]
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* charlie shub University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
* [log in to unmask] -or- [log in to unmask] -or- [log in to unmask]
* (719) 262-3492 (fax) 262-3369 http://www.cs.uccs.edu/~cdash
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Serratore at home at AFA
By Adrian Dater
Denver Post Sports Writer
Jan. 21 - COLORADO SPRINGS - As he sat last summer in the rented Manitoba house of former Colorado Avalanche player Mike Keane, Frank Serratore mulled which route to take in the latest fork of what never was a silver-spoon life.
Option A was an offer to become an assistant coach with the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins. Serratore was the best man at Kevin Constantine's wedding, and Constantine had just been hired as head coach and wanted his friend to join him. A six-figure salary and entrance in to the big time of hockey awaited if Serratore said yes.
Option B was this: an offer to become head coach of Air Force, a moribund college hockey program that had won 12 out of 68 games the previous two years. It was a program that prohibited its coach from recruiting players from Canada and Europe, which is kind of like telling a chef to win first prize in a chili cookoff without using beans or spices.
Oh, and another condition for your American-only hockey recruits, should you take the job: Make sure they're in the top 10 percent of their class academically and want to be officers in the military when they're done playing.
"Other than that, it's a walk in the park,'' Serratore said.
Pretty easy choice, right? Those who have known Serratore since his days as coach at the University of Denver knew it would be. There wasn't much doubt he would do what he did: choose Option B and take the job with the Falcons.
For two-thirds the money he would have made had he gone to the Penguins, Serratore took over a Division I team that couldn't even compete with Division III teams the last two seasons. Some of his many friends in the hockey world had wondered if he'd lost his mind. He wouldn't win 10 games, they said.
"Well, it's halfway through the season and we've won 10 games already,'' Serratore said, his voice pointedly rising a bit amid the photo-laden walls of his office inside the Air Force Cadet Fieldhouse. "I love it. You know why? Because people say it can't be done. I love that. Tell me it can't be done, you know?''
And then Serratore will show you he can. He's been proving them wrong all his life, ever since he grew up a poor kid in the blue-collar iron ranges of northern Minnesota. While others said he would never escape the dingy mines of his hometown of Coleraine, Minn., Serratore parlayed a degree in physical education from Bemidji State University in 1982 into the headcoaching job at DU at age 32.
Since then, though, he's faced obstacles that make the days in Coleraine seem like a piece of cake. The biggest of which was his firing at DU in 1994, an event that probably always will haunt him. It was the first time anybody had ever told him he was a failure, that his 18-hour work days weren't good enough.
"When I left there, my confidence was a little bit shaken,'' Serratore said. "I knew we were on the right track, and I knew it was going to come, but that was the first time I had ever been fired. I took it hard, because I put a lot into that program.''
Serratore quickly got back on his feet, landing a job as coach and general manager of the Minnesota Moose of the International Hockey League a month later. But a good deal of his soul was still at DU. He had to endure the frustration of watching his first recruiting class - the class he would have coached had DU let him stay for the final year of a five-year contract - go on to the Final 8 of the NCAA Tournament under his successor, George Gwozdecky.
He stayed with the Moose for three years, spending the last year in Winnipeg at Keane's house, after the franchise moved from St. Paul. Serratore liked the expanded horizons he received while coaching pro players and negotiating their contracts. But there was something missing.
He yearned for the eager faces of the college kids, who hungered for the knowledge Serratore knew he could give them.
"Being a college hockey coach was what I always wanted to be,'' he said. "It's what I prepared myself for my whole life. I love working with the kids. As a contrast to pro hockey, I say, "Hey, guys, we're going to 1-on-1 forechecking for eight minutes. Then we're going to block shots.' They're like, "OK, coach.' You say that to some pros and they're looking at you like, "Hey, I don't block shots.'
"I had a blast in pro hockey. It's all hockey, all the time, and I worked with NHL G.M.s. And right now I have a much broader perspective in hockey. But sometimes in your heart you feel this is where you belong.''
But Air Force? The team hadn't had a winning season in eight years. And because of the severe handicaps in recruiting good players, it was seen among Division I coaches more as a death sentence than a hockey program.
Still, Serratore became interested after talking with one of his best friends, Colorado College coach Don Lucia. Lucia told him the job was open, that Chuck Delich's contract wasn't renewed after 12 seasons. Serratore knew he would face one of the biggest challenges of his life at the Academy. But he knew if anybody could do it, he could.
He interviewed for the job and was offered a three-year contract to coach, "with a handshake on a five-year deal.''
Serratore's always close-cropped look fit in well at a military school, but even he wondered at first how he would blend in among all the officers in suits. Serratore has hardly ever been a formal guy.
"No, I'm one of the boys, there's no question,'' he said. "I thought it would be more militaristic, but it's not. Down here in the athletic department, there's a real good atmosphere. The best deal about this whole thing has been the quality of the people. And those kids work hard up on the hill, and down here, this is their outlet. They want to learn; they're tired of the losing. It's been a lot of fun, let me tell you.''
Serratore has taken his tireless work ethic and newfound worldly hockey sense and already started to turn things around. The Falcons' record is 10-11-0. Cynics might scoff at the schedule, which includes many Divisions II and III teams, but Lucia and CC don't.
Serratore's team nearly beat the Division I, nationally ranked Tigers Jan. 6 before losing a tough 2-1 game.
"Donny told me after the game, and we don't B.S. each other, "We haven't been hit like that all year,' '' Serratore said. "That's what we're going to do. We're going to hit and work our butts off and be a pain to play against. I'm not saying we're going to be in the NCAA tourney and become one of the elite teams of Division I. But we can become a program that wins the games we're supposed to win, win a lot of the games that are supposed to be questionable for us, and when we play the big boys, give them a run for their money like we did to CC.
"We're going to have some long nights before it's all said and done, because we're not very deep. But in 15 years of coaching, I've never had a team that's played this close to their potential as this one.''
Attendance is up at Air Force games this year. The team is led by senior center Justin Kiefer, who has 13 goals and 29 points in 19 games, and Scott Bradley's nine goals and 23 points.
"Frank was a real find for us,'' assistant athletic director Jim Bowman said. "They're a fun team to watch, and he brings such energy and enthusiasm to everything he does.''
Serratore brought all that to DU, too, which is why his firing still puzzles many, Serratore included.
Serratore took over a horrible team in 1990-91, and his Pioneers teams won just 15 of 74 games his first two seasons. But he started to turn things around in 1992-93, going 19-16-2.
The next season, however, injuries hit the team hard. DU went 15-20-3 largely because of that, but things looked rosy for the 1994-95 season. Serratore's first recruiting class would be seniors, and the other two classes he recruited were filled with talented players. Plus, DU games were playing to big crowds (93 percent capacity) on campus.
But he was fired shortly after his team was eliminated from the WCHA playoffs in 1994, with one year left on his contract. There was great confusion about the mechanics of the dismissal. Publicly, the blame was put on athletic director Jack McDonald, but Serratore knows differently.
It was ultimately chancellor Daniel L. Ritchie's decision, but Serratore still doesn't know exactly why he was fired. Some around the university say it was because he didn't spend enough time consulting with some of the school's proud hockey alumni. He didn't sell the school enough, others said, and he recruited too many European players and not enough western Canadians.
Serratore doesn't like to spend too much time bad-mouthing Ritchie, knowing it would be perceived as "sour grapes.'' But he remains bitter about one thing.
"The thing I have a hard time ever forgiving Dan Ritchie for is, he didn't allow me to finish the job,'' Serratore said. "I wanted to have my four recruiting classes - then you can judge me. I never got to see my first recruiting class graduate as seniors. And I don't think that was right. Dan Ritchie and I are cut from completely opposite cloths, but the one thing I thought we had in common was our work ethic. But I guess I was wrong. I guess when one somebody quits on you, it's all over.''
Ritchie declined to comment, but said at the time of the firing that he didn't have time to "micromanage the athletic department.''
Serratore feels otherwise.
McDonald "offered me a contract extension three weeks before I got fired,'' Serratore said. "Why would a guy do that, and then fire you three weeks later on a Sunday? Jack is not a hard-line guy. He's one of the boys. The last thing he does on a Sunday is fire his hockey coach. His biggest decision is, is he going to take his jog at 10 o'clock or 12:30?''
Ironically, McDonald was fired shortly afterward. McDonald wasn't well-liked by well-heeled, influential alumni and friends of Serratore such as Jeff McMorris - brother of Rockies owner Jerry McMorris - and became caught in the crossfire of blame over the Serratore firing.
"I felt betrayed, but, you know, I'm very proud of the job we did at DU,'' Serratore said. "Everybody in college hockey knows we left them in a fabulous situation. (Gwozdecky) did a good job coaching that team, but there was personnel there.''
Going into the weekend, DU was 4-16-0, and there are rumblings Gwozdecky's job may not be safe entering the final year of his contract.
Next season, Air Force plays DU. Get your seats now.
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