With Jerry York and Scott Paluch now at BC,look for quite a few of the
new recruits to come from Ontario and possibly from Culver Military Academy.
 
Holzinger for Hobey Baker!!
 
 
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Rick A McAdoo wrote:
 
> I can't resist tossing a few more notes on this subject (as a fan only;
> I can't claim any inside information.)
>
> Geoff Howell summarized several points about the BC program in his
> message of 21 Feb 1995 regarding the coaching changes, the scholarship
> and recruiting problems, and the increased recruiting pressures on a
> smaller US talent pool.  (See that message for details.)
>
> The delay in hiring a new coach certainly hurt the program, and indicated
> the lack of confidence the administration had in hiring long time
> assistant Cedorchuk.  AD Chet Gladchuk was seen as wanting to hire a
> "big-time" coach for the program, and when that wasn't accomplished the
> perception was that he "settled" for Cedorchuk.  I don't know if there is
> any truth to the perception, but it did not help subsequent recruiting
> efforts.  One should also note that the Olympic years took several good
> players from BC just as they were losing their other top-notch talent
> to graduation anyway; Bill Guerin, Ian Moran, Todd Hall (who didn't make
> the US team and got caught in the scholarship fiasco, as was previously
> noted.)  BC has gone several years with only 3 or 4 seniors as a result;
> a marked lack of leadership and experience.  Combined with the
> recruiting/scholarship/coaching problems, it has helped bring down the
> talent level greatly.  In all honesty, though, the program had been right
> at the top for many years running, and with the loss of the Emma/Heinze/
> McInnis/LaGrand group a drop-off was expected.  The turmoil of the
> coaching change at the same time added to that.
>
> BC is only now starting to recruit outside the New England/US talent pool,
> and it will take some time to build the reputation, the contacts, etc.
> Greg Taylor was a nice find, and if the team was winning it would help open
> up more recruiting in Canada, but it is a slow process.  With UMass-Amherst
> joining the hunt for talent it spreads things even thinner.  (Gee, more BC
> players who left and went there, too -- Manganaro, O'Connell.)  Maybe the
> better Canadian and American players are going to major juniors rather than
> colleges now (after colleges seemed to be getting more of the talent for
> a while -- see the discussion on Hobey candidates and the "decline" of
> college play.)
>
> I have heard many different numbers regarding how many scholarships BC has
> to offer in the next year or two, ranging from 0 to 2 to 4 to 5 to 7 ...
> The athletic department has not released any definitive data on this, and
> no one has offered any reliable source of info, so I have to take all of
> it with a grain of salt.  If they have few scholarships, I hope they can
> use them wisely.  The implication in Geoff's numbers is that over half
> the juniors and seniors on this year's team are walk-ons rather than
> scholarship players.  It seems unlikely.  But I am confused about something
> here; how many scholarships do Div I teams get?  I thought it was around
> 18, or maybe a little less in recent NCAA cutbacks.  Most teams dress 21
> players and have anywhere from 25 to 30+ on their rosters.  Does this mean
> that many of the players on any roster are non-scholarship?  Or do teams
> split them into half-scholarships to spread them more?  Are there any
> Div I experts out there who deal with this on a daily basis who could
> enlighten me?  It would be appreciated.
>
> My own feeling on this is that no school could have weathered the number
> of changes and the combination of timings that made it tough for BC.  Part
> of that was the school's own fault, of course, but there isn't much they
> can do about that now.  Jerry York has come into this situation knowing
> that it will take several years to recover (my estimate is 4 years - about
> 1998.)  If he can mold the program the way he wants, and is capable of again
> leading a team to the national championship, then BC should recover given
> the alumni pool, the tradition, the facilities, etc.  But the jury is out
> on the coach, the department, the AD, and the team.  They will have to
> prove over several years that they are honorable, intelligent, talented,
> hard-working, honest, etc.  In short, they will have to re-earn people's
> trust -- a sad state of affairs for a Jesuit school, but that's the way
> it is in big-time Division I sports.
>
> BC has announced two recruits for next year, Deerfield Academy's Marty
> Reasoner (who was in SI's Faces in the Crowd last week, I think) and Andy
> Powers from nearby Arlington, MA, who has been playing in the US Juniors
> somewhere.
>
> P.S. Just as I was posting this I saw Mike Machnik's post of the
> newspaper article about BC suspending 10 players for visiting a popular
> but off-limits bar.  Just what the Eagles need, right?  The two
> losses to Merrimack probably had the team in a bad mood anyway,
> and this may or may not improve relations between the coach and the
> players; it all depends on if there is an underlying problem there.  But
> the players were recruited to play for other coaches, not Jerry York.
> Hmmmmm.....  It could get interesting.
> ---------------                              ----------------------
> Rick McAdoo                                  [log in to unmask]
> BC will return!                              GO EAGLES!
>