Athletes from the Class of 2018 are not the only new faces in the Big Green sports scene this year. Six of Dartmouth’s 34 varsity teams have new head coaches, including fall sports women’s cross country, women’s soccer and women’s and men’s heavyweight crew.
This marks a difference from last year. Heading into 2013-14, the Big Green hired only two new coaches: for the men’s soccer and women’s basketball teams. Dartmouth coaches tend to have lengthy tenures, on average spending more than 10 years at the College. And nearly a third of its teams are anchored by coaches who have led the Big Green for more than two decades.
But this summer has seen considerable turnover.
The men’s lacrosse team lost all three of its coaches in June, and Rachel Hanson, who led the softball team to nationals this year, departed for Stanford University along with assistant coach Dorian Shaw. Former Lehigh University assistant Brendan Callahan will replace 10-year veteran Andy Towers as men’s lacrosse head coach and Amherst College coach Shannon Doepking will lead softball.
Under Towers and assistant coaches Michael Bocklet and Tim McIntee, the men’s lacrosse team finished 2-10 overall last season, 0-6 in the Ivy League. Pat Flynn ’13, a two-time captain, said earlier this summer that he understood Towers’s decision to leave: “The win-losses didn’t reflect the type of energy he put into the program.”
Callahan was previously an assistant coach at Lehigh University where last season the team finished with a 13-5 record and made it to the Patriot League championship game, but lost against Loyola University.
Hanson won the Ivy League Championship Series with Dartmouth this past spring, capping off a sparkling four-year run that saw the team become an Ivy League powerhouse.
Doepking’s Amherst team compiled a 21-11 record (6-6 NESCAC) last season. Before Amherst, Doepking served as an assistant coach at Stony Brook University, Fairleigh Dickinson University and Brentwood Academy.
The women’s cross country team will also see change. Courtney Jaworski was hired in May to replace Mark Coogan at the helm of a team fresh off an Ivy League title. Coogan’s tenure was marked by success, largely thanks to performances by now-professional runner Abbey D’Agostino ’14.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Jaworski moved to the Oregon Track Club Elite, Nike’s premier Olympic development distance and middle-distance team. He then coached at Smith College and the University of Puget Sound before moving to Manhattanville College, where he has coached for the past year.
When he was hired, Dana Giordano ’16 remarked on his education at Penn: “I think that’s great to have a coach that really understands the balance between academics and athletics because that’s why a lot of us went to Dartmouth.”
Ron Rainey, the new the women’s soccer head coach, brings Big Ten experience to Dartmouth as he inherits a team that went 8-6-3 last year.
He comes to Dartmouth after eight seasons at the University of Iowa, where he led the Hawkeyes to their first-ever NCAA tournament berth.
“I really think there are some neat things here in regards to the student athlete experience,” he said, noting administrative support and the DP2 program as “cutting edge” initiatives.
Rainey said he monitored players’ workout from afar this summer, allowing them to recharge and talking often about the World Cup.
Heading into the season, Rainey is focused on learning his players’ capabilities, including those of nine freshmen.
“We’re going to try and have good, competitive, short practices so we keep people healthy and we start trying to get better each day,” he said.
The women’s crew team will open its season under the direction of Linda Muri who comes to Hanover from Harvard University, where she was an assistant coach of the lightweight squad.
As an accomplished coach who has led both collegiate and international teams, Muri herself had a distinguished career, representing the U.S. nine times on the national team and winning three world championships, according to a press release from Dartmouth Athletics.
Former men’s heavyweight crew coach Topher Bordeau coached at Dartmouth for nine years, spending eight as head coach, before his contract was not renewed this summer.
Wyatt Allen, who will fill this role, has found past success on and off the water. Allen won gold at the 2004 Olympics and bronze in 2008. Since then, he has coached in assistant positions at multiple schools with powerhouse rowing programs, spending a year at the University of Washington before coaching for five years at the University of California at Berkeley.
“I think I’ve learned a lot about not only program management and leadership, but I’ve also been exposed to the level of training and commitment and the boat speed that’s necessary to be competitive with the top collegiate programs,” he said.
Allen plans to follow an “athlete-centric” philosophy, using his experience to understand what athletes need, ranging from equipment to dedicated coaches and explanations of what the team is doing and why. Additionally, Allen mentioned that he wanted to focus on internal competition with the rowers pushing each other daily to improve.
The new crew coaches will have to hit the ground running as both teams rely on walk-on populations to fill their respective teams and will need to begin recruiting freshmen as soon as they get on campus.
Muri and Callahan could not be reached for comment by press time.
