In an interview with The Dartmouth, Bates said he is looking forward to working with the Princeton team and returning to the Ivy League.
"I was not recruited to Princeton coming out of high school, so I didn't know a lot about the school from a lacrosse standpoint," he said. "It's a new place and one I've learned a lot about in the last few weeks."
Bates said that he believes the rivalries he experienced while playing at the College will most likely return in coaching at Princeton.
"It's easy to get a quick distaste again for [Harvard University] and all the other Ivies," he said. "For Princeton, I've got a little warmer spot in my heart now because they're signing my paycheck."
Bates played attack and midfield during his time at Dartmouth, earning All-Ivy League and All-New England awards in 1989 and 1990. His years at Dartmouth taught him a lot about character and work ethic, both on and off the field, Bates said.
"My experience at Dartmouth, I think, will serve me well in terms of understanding the balance you need and the high sort of intensity of the demands on a student athlete at Ivy League institutions," he said.
Bates added that the relationships he formed at the College have influenced how he coaches.
"The people you're exposed to up there you can't help but be shaped by just how they approach whatever they do in their lives," he said. "There's a standard of excellence. Whether it's a teacher, guidance counselor, someone in business, all those things help contribute to who I am as a person, and that inevitably influences who you are as a coach."
Bates said that "coaching is coaching" and said he will work to include a sense of community and culture with the team at Princeton, as he did at Drexel.
Bates said he is excited for the Dartmouth-Princeton game and the chance to work with Dartmouth's new head lacrosse coach Andy Towers.
"He has so much knowledge and passion, and I'm certainly rooting for him and the whole program," Bates said. "It will be interesting because at Drexel, we never played Dartmouth. To be the Princeton head coach and play Dartmouth will be interesting to say the least."
Bates described his time at Drexel as a "labor of love," noting that he built the team into one that is regularly vying for the playoffs in the Colonial Athletic Association. "I've been there for 10 years as head coach and five more as an assistant and take great pride in a lot of people's efforts to build that program into one that is nationally recognized and respected," Bates said. "The school itself has come so far. I have mixed emotions about leaving because I put so much of myself into that school and that program."
One of Bates' highest accomplishments came in 2007, when the team defeated top-seeded University of Virginia by a score of 11-10 the first time a Drexel athletic team defeated the number-one team in the nation, according to the Drexel University athletics web site. The team defeated two other nationally ranked teams and finished seventeenth in the nation that season.
Bates was a psychology major and a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity in his time at Dartmouth, he said. After graduating, he played lacrosse professionally with the Major Indoor Lacrosse League, the Philadelphia Wings and the Charlotte Cobras, according to the Drexel athletics web site.
