Women's lacrosse coaching search

[stuball888]

Jon this is as you said outside the raw materials (love that line, you should copyright it). As a non revenue sport yes it is worth the risk but history tells us most superstars in their sport rarely make great coaches or managers. Only time will tell.

[tedhofstra]

As I said before, I absolutely love this hire. However I also think it is very important that they bring on an experienced assistant coach(ideally one with previous head coaching experience) since Shannon will be so new at coaching. Anybody hearing anything on what assistants might come aboard?

[HofstraHockey]

The way I look at it, if it's a complete failure, who really cares? I'm just being honest here- not many people (including recruits for other sports) judge a school on it's women's lacrosse program the way that they would its men's basketball team. If they end up terrible after a few years, oh well, no major loss for the university. But if they end up really good, and she's the recruiter it seems like she could be, they could definitely feed off of that. Like everyone said, it's low risk, high reward.

[Jojogunne]

Coach Smith will be on WRHU tonight at 8:00.

[tedhofstra]

Coach Smith will be on WRHU tonight at 8:00.

I heard the interview and could tell how extremely determined and motivated she is. I'm so happy we got someone from outside the program who will hopefully give it a nice much-needed jolt.

[stuball888]

HH I think if it is a failure this will not bode well for Hathaway since it is his first hire. Also this is D-1 womens lax with Hofstrra in the hotbed for womens lax. It is VERY important for her and Hofstra to do well. Do well and we might see those recruits from Garden City and the like. Reason Hofstra has never broken into the top 10 is because we cant get the top players from Long Island to stay at home.

[tedhofstra]

HH I think if it is a failure this will not bode well for Hathaway since it is his first hire. Also this is D-1 womens lax with Hofstrra in the hotbed for womens lax. It is VERY important for her and Hofstra to do well. Do well and we might see those recruits from Garden City and the like. Reason Hofstra has never broken into the top 10 is because we cant get the top players from Long Island to stay at home.

I think asking Shannon to deliver top-flight Garden City players might be asking too much but I think it is very realistic that she can draw blue chip recruits from other Long Island schools, esp. her alma mater West Babylon.

[HofstraHockey]

Again, I know that you really like women's lacrosse for whatever reason (to me, it is the worst spectator sport ever. I'm sure it's fun to play, but it's brutal to watch). But if you think that Jeff Hathaway's career at Hofstra is going to be defined by who he picked as the women's lacrosse coach a few months into the job, he must really not be doing much else in his position. It's not important for her to do well- it's great if she does, but a failure won't have a true negative impact. Aside from those that follow women's lacrosse closely, nobody cares. Believe me. I don't think there's a non-athlete student on campus who could tell you the record of the women's lacrosse team the past 4 years. I don't think any of them could have told you who the coach was this past season. I DEFINITELY don't think that a recruit for other sports would even blink if the team went 0-fer on the season. Success can bring a positive spin- I know it does for N'Western. No success brings nothing more than just some scores on the ticker. Students aren't NOT coming to Hofstra because of the women's lacrosse team. I think the impact of being good is minimal, at best, honestly, and the impact of being bad is a wash.

[stuball888]

Then you can say that about all our womens sports including soccer, softball and basketball because as you know mens basketball is the only sport that matters according to you.

[HofstraHockey]

That is exactly true (except that men's baseketball is the only sport that matters). Hofstra softball had a great run, and it created a lot of good publicity. Articles in newspapers and TV features and SportsCenter and all that. Women's soccer this year did ok. Below where they normally are, so in their terms, a bad season. You don't see these same papers bashing them or calling for a coach's firing or questioning their recruiting like they would for some men's basketball teams or football teams. Call it sexist or just people not caring, it doesn't happen. And this is for most women's sports outside of legendary coaches and very, very strong tradition programs. Pat Summit types.

In the case of men's sports, at Hofstra specifically, lacrosse is one that gets some press whether they do well or poorly. That is a program that draws a lot of attention one way or the other. Football was also the case at Hofstra (and to some, still is). But tell me that people are forming opinions on the school based on the poor performance of the men's golf team over the past few years.