As Joe said, Harkness left Cornell for the Red Wings which I think was his
dream job as he modeled RPI's uniforms after Detroit's and then did the same
at Cornell.

As to leaving Union, basically, the Union administration wanted to keep
Union hockey as a D-III program and also didn't like the caliber of student
that Harkness was recruiting.  Harkness's goal was always to become D-I.
After Harkness left, most of his players left also, and Union completed that
season with a lot of walk-ons.  

Although Union did, of course, later become D-I, they do still regard a .400
winning percentage as a successful season. :-D  

I add that he left RPI for Cornell because he was having trouble attracting
a sufficiently number of talented players to RPI's limited selection of
fields of study.

Ralph Baer, RPI

------------------------------

> Date:    Sun, 13 Nov 2005 20:33:39 -0500
> From:    Richard Henry <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Hockey History
> 
> While studying USIU sports history (my older son's club coach is the 
> soccer coach at USIU) I wandered into some college hockey history pages 
> (yes, USIU used to play DI hockey), and found the records of Ned Harkness,

> former coach of RPI, Cornell, and Union.  What I couldn't find were the 
> reasons Harkness left maybe the best DI college hockey program at Cornell 
> to move to DIII Union, or why he left Union in the middle of the 77-78 
> season.  Does anyone have any memories of those days?