Hockey Coach Search Has Not Started, But The Rumors Fly

Immediately after men's hockey Head Coach Ronn Tomassoni resigned last Friday the rumor mill cranked into high gear in projecting a replacement.

Today all potential candidates remain just rumors because, well, Athletic Director William J. Cleary Jr. '56 has other sports vacancies to fill.

He spent Monday conducting interviews for a new men's squash coach.

Harvard has not officially begun its search for a new coach. If Cleary has a list of names inside his head on potential candidates, he has not officially informed them.

"I think this will rise to the surface quickly as a priority," said Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations John Veneziano. "But we've taken no steps so far."

The process, once underway, will be time-consuming but fairly straightforward.

Like any job search, Harvard will begin by advertising the vacancy in appropriate publications. The Athletic Department will then form a selection committee to narrow the applicants and give Cleary a formal recommendation.

As athletic director, the final decision rests with Cleary, who coached the team for 19 years before ascending to his present position in 1990.

"Historically, we don't make fast decisions," Veneziano said. "We go at a deliberate pace and Billy [Cleary] has final say."

Cleary will look for more in a candidate than just a strong hockey mind. Most of the selection criteria centers around character.

Most coaches at Harvard have exceptionally long tenures. This new coach will be just the fourth men's hockey coach in the past half century.

Likewise, football has only had three top men in the last 50 years, as has men's basketball.

"People come here and want to stay," Veneziano said. "You look at our hires, a large amount of our coaches have long tenures."

The caliber of the man plays a large factor in this. Despite having five straight non-winning seasons, Tomassoni was excellent in this department and competed in the spirit that Cleary wants to inculcate.

"[Tomassoni] really emphasized the whole Harvard experience," said Assistant Coach Jerry Pawloski '88. "He knew students were not here just to play hockey, but to get an education that included being involved...and not just hiding under a rock."

Despite not having officially begun the search process, the rumor mill has so far produced several intriguing candidates for the position.

In pandering to Cleary's reputation for preferring men from the "Harvard hockey family," most of the names come from alumni including U.S. Women's National Team Head Coach Ben Smith '68, Yale Head Coach Tim Taylor '63, Union Head Coach Kevin Sneddon '92 and Pawloski.

Current assistant coach and B.U. alum Mark Bavis also is on the long list.

Moreover, Boston-area ABC affiliate WCVB broadcasted lasted Friday that Cleary would pursue Princeton head man Don "Toot" Cahoon. The station also claimed he was heading up to Cambridge this week for an interview.

Veneziano specifically denied that Harvard had contacted Cahoon.

"Our goal is to find the most qualified candidate," Veneziano said. "There are lots of criteria. Billy will not limit himself."

All the candidates on the list appear to fit the criteria, but the specifics have not been publicly disclosed.

With his Nagano gold medal around his neck, Smith would command instant respect. Ironically, he had his best season in the college ranks--heading Northeastern--the same year as Tomassoni had his best year.

Lake Superior State eliminated both the Crimson and the Huskies in overtime in the NCAA tournament.

The only knock against Smith is that Northeastern, like Harvard, underwent considerable decline as a program after its peak in 1993.

Smith's interest in the job remains uncertain.

"It's my old school so I'm interested," he said. "But I've got a wonderful job at USA Hockey."

Taylor would bring a sterling reputation as a coach who always motivates his teams to overachieve. Taylor demonstrated that in 1997-98 winning the ECAC without the most talent in the conference.

If the Harvard program has tailed off a bit recently, Cahoon has the track record in revitalization. A man known for his straight-forward style, he built Princeton into one of the top programs in the conference.

Still, it remains in doubt if either Taylor or Cahoon wants to come to Harvard. Neither of them returned the Crimson's phone calls.

Only Sneddon and Pawloski indicated a desire to take the job if Cleary offered it.

"Harvard is like a home to me," Sneddon said. "I really structured my value system here and I'd listen to anything [Cleary] said. Right now, I'm the coach at Union."

Sneddon would bring to Harvard one of the league's brightest young coaching minds and certainly would rate very high in any character evaluation.

If Pawloski takes the helm, he would be in the exact same position Tomassoni was when he took over--the top assistant to the outgoing head coach.

Pawloski has worked on Tomassoni's staff since 1991 and is currently the chief recruiter. A fiery man behind the bench with strong affection for the school, Pawloski would also fit within the Harvard tradition.

Since the resignation, he has assumed the duties of keeping the Crimson ship in shape until a successor is named.

"All we do right now is cast out the old drift nets and see what talent is out there," Pawloski said. "The talk is divided between myself and [Bavis] and everything is fine."

Of course, this all remains just speculation, and though Cleary has earned a reputation for preferring an in-house hiring, he has proven that he can go outside the usual route.

Frank Sullivan, for example, was plucked from Bentley when Cleary gave him the men's basketball job.

Either way more names are sure to come up, both familiar and not. The search really has not begun in earnest and some real information may surface in the next couple of weeks.

"I have no idea where the candidate will come from," Veneziano said. "We are going through a bunch of searches, but this one will heat up quickly."