Hoya Staff Writer Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Georgetown athletics have undergone a drastic transformation in the past two years. Beginning with the firing of Head Men’s Basketball Coach Craig Esherick (CAS `78, LAW `82) in arch 2004 and the retirement of long-time Athletic Director Joseph Lang the following June, the athletic department has been in a seemingly constant state of flux. Since Eshrick’s departure from the Hilltop, 50 percent of Georgetown’s head coaching staff has changed. From men’s and women’s basketball to tennis and volleyball, coaching positions from big and small programs alike have seen significant turnover and additions. Of the 18 head coaches at Georgetown now, only nine of them were here in 2003. Add to that a new athletic director in Bernard Muir, and the Hoyas’ athletic department looks very little like the one that was here when the class of 2007 arrived. “When it comes to coaching changes, athletics is such an area that you have [high turnover],” Muir said. “That’s a normal transition.” What is less normal than the turnover is perhaps where the new coaches come from: outside the university. Georgetown has a long tradition of promotion-from-within – everyone from women’s lacrosse Head Coach Ricky Fried to sailing Head Coach ike Callahan (SFS `97) to Esherick has risen up from assistant to head coaching positions – so to find so many coaches without a Hoya pedigree is a departure from Hilltop custom. “I think we have a great staff in place,” Muir said, “blending the coaches that have been here and tradition as well as bringing in new people from different parts of the country with different experiences to a place like Georgetown and [they] really add to the fabric of this place. “There’s going to be opportunities to promote-from-within down the road, but each time [a coaching position opens up] I view it as an opportunity to really go out research and then come to the best decision possible as it relates to any staff hire,” Muir continued later. “We’re going to try and find the very best because we owe it to those students.” So far under Muir’s short tenure, five different head coaching positions have opened up. In October 2005, women’s golf Head Coach Leyland Keyser stepped down mid-season due to health issues. The next month, volleyball Head Coach Li Liu resigned, which was followed by the resignation of football Head Coach Bob Benson in December. In 2005, the coaching carousel continued to turn as tennis Head Coach Rich Bausch and men’s soccer Head Coach Keith Tabatznik stepped down in January and February respectively. Save for Keyser’s health issue, the athletic department declined to provide explanations for any of the resignations, leaving many to speculate that they may not have been entirely voluntary. Each of the coaches who resigned had overseen underachieving programs, and with a new athletic director, it seemed to many as though Muir was cleaning house. Benson’s departure, one that came with four years remaining on his contract, was particularly sudden. As Benson spoke to THE HOYA following the end of the season, there was no talk of resigning, just preparation for a new year. “We need to do a lot of things; we need to look at everything,” Benson said, two weeks before his resignation. “No point is too little, no point is too big.” But Muir said changes in the athletic department were not surprising. “When you have coaches that have coached for a long period of time and you have a new leadership in place it gives them a chance to reassess where they want to be,” he said. Muir said he sees each open position as “the perfect opportunity for [Georgetown] to really grow and improve and hopefully take our program to another level” and that he kept that in mind as he searched for “the best leadership that [he] could possibly find” to fill each of the five vacancies. Those five new hires are football Head Coach Kevin Kelly, women’s golf Head Coach Patricia Frohna-Post, men’s soccer Head Coach Brian Wiese, men’s and women’s tennis Head Coach Gordie Ernst and volleyball Head Coach Arlisa Hagan. “I think we hit a homerun in each instance with some of the people that we were able to bring to campus,” Muir said. Kelly comes to Georgetown from the Naval Academy where he helped transform the Midshipmen from a perennial loser to a team that made three straight bowl appearances from 2003-05. He also helped take Marshall University from Division I-AA to I-A, so working with a program in transition is nothing new for the disciplined coach. “With the coaching change, it was pretty hard just getting used to,” senior defensive back Derek Franks said of Benson’s departure and Kelly’s takeover of the program. “Since I’ve been here . something has always been changing but I think this time around it’s going to be a solid change. I do like the change. Before, Coach Benson set a good foundation, but right now it’s a new Georgetown era.” Frohna-Post comes to the women’s golf program with no coaching experience, but lots of professional knowledge. She most recently worked as a teaching professional at Lakewood Country Club in Rockville, Md., and has also worked as a club pro and instructor at country clubs in Virginia, Maryland and Florida while playing as a professional and on the Futures Tour. Wiese, like Muir, comes to the Hilltop from Big East rival Notre Dame. A long-time assistant to top collegiate coach Bobby Clark at Stanford and Notre Dame, Wiese is familiar with success. In his ten years as a coach under Clark, Wiese amassed an overall record of 136-48-25 and helped take both of his teams to the NCAA tournament in nine of those 10 seasons. “Despite our [2-4-0] record, I think [Wiese] organizes us a lot better,” senior co-captain and defender Tim Convey said. “We actually know our roles much better this year. . I think he’s great at calming everyone down and making us just concentrate.” Fellow senior co-captain and forward Ricky Schramm echoed Convey’s impressions of the new coach. “This is a really, really positive atmosphere,” Schramm said. “No one is afraid to go out there and play. Everyone’s very positive. We have the confidence to go out and play with anyone, because we have to, we play with the best in the country every year. . Our coaches, despite whatever happens, they’re very positive.” New men’s and women’s tennis Head Coach Ernst is already making his mark on the Georgetown program. Most recently the executive director of Vineyard Youth Tennis in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and formerly the head men’s tennis coach at the University of Pennsylvania and an assistant men’s coach at Northwestern University, Ernst has changed practices and attitudes at Georgetown in a brief time. “I think the whole team is really excited about Gordie,” senior women’s player Eileen Boyle said. “I think we all agree with his coaching style. He’s really into efficient short practices where we work really hard for the whole time. I think everybody’s really excited and ready to work really hard.” The tennis team doesn’t begin its season for another 10 days, so it remains to be seen how the new practice style will affect match play, but there is significant room for improvement on last year’s 4-11 women’s record and 4-16 men’s mark. “He’s a great coach,” junior men’s player Etienne Paris said of Ernst as well. “He knows what he’s doing and things have changed a lot. Practices are a lot more serious, a lot more productive, and I feel like this year’s going to be a good year. “We have a great team . and with our new coach I kind of feel like I’m back in high school on a real tennis team again. With Bausch it was kind of like club tennis, but Gordie’s a great guy, he’s really intense, we get a lot done in practice and he’s a very positive person. We’re all going to benefit a lot from Gordie.” Volleyball’s new Head Coach Hagan comes to Georgetown from the University of Florida where she spent the last four years, as an assistant, coaching a team that went to two Final Fours. A recruiting specialist, Hagan’s teams had 30-plus wins in each three of the last four seasons, which is more wins in one season than the Hoyas had in their last two seasons combined. “It’s really exciting,” junior outside hitter Katie Nulty told THE HOYA. “It feels like a new era here at Georgetown. . After past seasons, the attitude on the court’s different. I think everybody’s really finally having fun. . [The coaches] have brought so much knowledge and so much game experience to the court that we learn a lot every day and every single day in practice we are getting better.” The coaches too seemed happy with their new jobs and, more often, their new boss. “I was really impressed with was Bernard Muir and his vision,” Kelly said of his first impressions of Georgetown. “I knew what his background was all about and I knew some of the administrators at Notre Dame and . they spoke very, very highly of him and when I first met him, I knew in the first five minutes that I wanted to work with him and I know he is the type of guy that will get things done here at Georgetown.” Wiese, who knew Muir while still with the Fighting Irish, also spoke highly of the Hoyas’ 10th athletic director. “I have always held him in incredibly high regard as a person and as an administrator,” Wiese said. “For me, one of the things that as a coach, it is not the school necessarily – that’s half of it – but the other half is your athletic director. Because if you don’t have somebody that you think is going to push for you and work for you, someone that’s got the same vision as you have, it is going to be a frustrating experience. And with Bernard I feel completely comfortable that we’re on the same page and that he wants to make things go the same way I do.” Hagan, too, has been impressed with her new job and colleagues. “[Since arriving at Georgetown] I have been really impressed with the support I have received from the administration and from President DeGioia,” Hagan told THE HOYA. “The faculty has welcomed me as one of their own. …They have been really supportive of student-athletes in particular.” While the season is still very young, some may want to judge the new coaches and their success right away, looking at their records and assessing their accomplishments and failures now. Yet Muir sees success a different way. “I know people want to measure [success] in wins and losses, but to me, the real value for us . is going to be 20 years down the road from now, when those students are professionals or they’re giving back to their communities or they’re fathers or mothers, that’s when we’ll know,” he said. “That’s when we’ll know we hit a home run.”