Campaign for Jane: Part II of II

Read "Campaign for Jane: Part I of II" here.

The most telling move of all by the athletic department is the hiring of Anna Nagro as the softball coach, which has yet to be announced officially. (There must be a haggling over the terms of her contract – perhaps whether she’s allowed to park in the front row at the ARCC, or if she would be relegated to the lesser lot adjacent to the baseball field instead – because this blog reported her impending hire July 21.)

Regardless of whatever trivial matters are postponing her introduction as the next softball coach, her selection offers a myriad of reasons why Karger, by equal hiring standards, would be more qualified for the women’s lacrosse position than Nagro is for the softball position 10 times over.

This is not to say, again, that I do not support Nagro; I support Mount softball as much as any other sport at my alma mater. With respect to the new coach, though, let the comparisons begin.

Karger, I presume, turns 24, or perhaps even 25, this year, as she was one year ahead of me and I turned 23 last May. Nagro, I am sure, turns 25 next month. The age factor is a wash.

So, too, is their playing experience as both were prominent players in their respective sports at their own programs – Nagro being a former catcher at St. Bonaventure.

The differences, though, lie in coaching experience and relations to the Mount.

Speculation on Burke's staff / Burrell semi-update / Mount marriages

As far as I can tell, Mount basketball head coach Robert Burke is close to officially naming the rest of his staff. What we already  know is that Matt Henry, the former director of basketball operations at Georgetown, is on staff and has already been at work in the office. We also know that Sam Atupem is on staff in some form for the time being. On the camp brochures littered around the ARCC earlier this month, Atupem was listed as the contact person for sign-ups.


That leaves two positions remaining, which may have already been filled. It is possible that Burke already has his men and just has not taken the time to announce them, but allow me to speculate anyway.


There are two important items to consider and both point to June 1 as an important date. June 1, for one, is the date at which all of the staff from the Milan Brown era will no longer be on payroll at the Mount. Despite being formally announced as assistants as Holy Cross, not everyone from Brown's staff - Brion Dunlap, Kevin Robinson Jr. and Dan Engelstad - are off the books in Emmitsburg yet.


The second important tie to June 1, and one that has been mentioned here before, is the fact that it is the date when summer classes begin for undergraduate classes at Mount St. Mary's, and the date that Burke stated in his introductory press conference that he hoped to have named at least some of his staff to begin getting acclimated with the players. With Henry and Atupem already in place, he may have satisfied that goal in his mind and be in no rush to fill the final two positions. But I would still think that Burke is taking a "sooner the better" approach and will name his assistants very soon.


As recently as last week interviews were still being conducted to fill the final two spots. Additionally, some of the candidates, if not all, had been given game film from past Mount St. Mary's games and asked to scout both the Mount and the opponent for that game, then to send the scout back to Burke.


Now comes perhaps the most interesting information regarding the salary of these assistants. I will preface this information by saying that we do not know which two positions the remaining candidates are competing for (i.e. first assistant, second assistant, third assistant) because those positions may no longer exist at the Mount. What I mean is that the assistants may not be tiered - the three assistants under Burke could all be on the same level salary-wise.


There was either a clause in Burke's contract or a bit of finagling in the aftermath that granted him a pool of money - rumored to be a sum of $145,000 - $160,000 - that he will be allowed to split up as he chooses - in this case evenly - among his staff. The benefit I see to this is that he can offer three positions with respectable pay and have a relatively deeper staff as opposed to going strong for a proven first assistant, recruiting an up-and-comer for second and hoping to get lucky with a third (you know, in case a recent Duke point guard applies. Or something like that.)


Last I heard, which was before the holiday weekend, there were at least four candidates still fighting for the final two spots. Greg Paulus, of course, was still in the running. So was Duane Simpkins, an early-1990s player at Maryland and now three years into his head coaching job at St. Alban's High School in Washington D.C. A third nominee is Ahmad Dorsett, who is an assistant at Bowie State. And the final candidate of which I have knowledge is Harold Juluke, an assistant at Tulane.


Obviously I'm rooting for Paulus, but I don't know much about the remaining three candidates other than what I can find on the Internet. The only person who has been personally vouched for to me is Dorsett. I like the thoroughness that the process is undergoing and expect to see an announcement in the near future. If I hear anything I'll be sure to post it here.


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I'm even less confident in our ability to retain Justin Burrell than I was before. In addition to the hear-say that has been passed along, there is this:


Burrell was granted a partial release from the Mount weeks ago. Essentially this means that he can re-open his recruiting under the standard rules for every other school in the nation, except for the Mount. Because of the partial, and not full, release, Burke and his staff can still contact Burrell as much as they want as if he is still signed with the team, but he's not.


Considering the Mount has full access to the one-time top-priority recruit turned prized-signee turned more-urgent-than-ever-top-priority-recruit and he still hasn't re-committed to the Mount is troubling. If he isn't announced to be back with the Mount soon (as in two weeks ago) I would expect a school in a conference that is a level above the NEC's tier (AKA the bottom tier) to scoop him up with a late scholarship opening. And if he does not get any offers he likes in the near future he could just as easily enroll in prep school and potentially boost his stock even higher next year.


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Congrats to two Mount alumni on their recent marriages. Former Mount basketball player and current William & Mary assistant Jamion Christian was recently married in Hawaii while former Mount golfer turned head coach of the same team, Kevin Farrell, was married on campus Saturday and is spending his honeymoon in Puerto Rico this week.

Five reasons not to ax the Mount golf programs

I was saddened to hear from an administrator and multiple non-golf coaches in the Mount athletic department this week that the men's and women's golf programs may be on the chopping block after the 2010 - 2011 season. As a five-year member (sophomore redshirt) of the men's golf team I was both hurt and baffled at why this would even be a consideration.


I don't know how much scholarship money the women's team receives but it's probably comparable to the barely-more-than one full scholarship that is doled up among the men's players. Combine that with the coaches salaries of somewhere around $12,500 each, and the school would be saving around $100,000 - $110,000, not including each team's (minute) budget.


One hundred Gs is not that much for a longstanding private institution such as the Mount. On top of that, there are many benefits that far outweigh the money that could be saved by axing the programs. Here are five of them:


1. Business purposes


Rest assured that if the golf teams were axed, Quail Valley would disassociate itself from the Mount. (More on that to come.) The golf course is a great place to do business and develop relationships. Many Mount coaches and employees enjoy spending time on the links and to take away the opportunity to do so at Quail Valley would be detrimental to one of the Mount's greatest avenues to get to know each other, as well as potential clients/donors/and alumni.


Just ask Tom Gosselin (women's soccer coach) and Rob Ryerson (men's soccer coach), who had their annual soccer scramble at the course last week. They may still be welcome in the future, but perhaps not with open arms.


2. Coaches like it


Coach Jim Phelan played golf, so does coach Milan Brown, and just this week coach Robert Burke told me he likes to play when he has the chance. Not to mention all the other head coaches and assistants that can be seen at Quail on occasion.


The ownership duo of brothers Colyn and Scott Keller charge a marginal price, if any, for Mount coaches and employees to tee it up no matter what time of day or day of the week they show up. We know that none of the coaches are getting paid very much for the NCAA Division I level (not even Burke), so the last thing they want to do is pay full price for a round of golf. Consider that money already being saved.


3. Both teams play and practice for free


As long as I was apart of the team, and all the time before I arrived in which Quail Valley was the team's official course, the Kellers have never charged the players or the school for the use of the facilities. Whether it's 6 a.m. or primetime on the weekends, if we as players wanted to use the driving range, practice green or play on the course (granted there was space) we were welcome to do so. If you think that's a common occurrence you don't understand college golf. Unless a school has its own course, which usually only applies to BCS schools, it has to pony up a few thousand dollars so that its team can get on the course, and that still does not grant them free reign in most cases. (Consider this money saved as well.)


Take, for example, fellow NEC member Long Island. Playing with one of their players, Rocky Co, in our home spring tournament held at Quail Valley, he was shocked to hear about all the access we have to the course. He told me that his team gets to play a course maybe twice a week and it has to wake up at 4 a.m. in order to beat the traffic on the way there. So relatively speaking, things could be worse.


Did I mention that LIU is the only fully-funded golf team in the conference and by far the most wealthy?


4. The Kellers are connected


Colyn may not have been the most organized coach (we had him for one year when I was a senior) and Scott (who is now the women's coach) wasn't a DI player like his brother, but they make up for those shortcomings in all the other areas. In addition to being the ones who allow our teams to have free reign of their course, they also give us a good reputation.


As childhood residents of Frederick and grandchildren to former New York Yankee Charlie Keller - they know some people around here. To upset them by cutting the golf team and essentially all ties to the course that has given so much to the school would not be wise.


5. Not taking up any space on campus


Last but certainly not least is the fact that neither golf team has any facilities whatsoever on campus. In case you're not familiar with Quail Valley Golf Club, it's in Littlestown, Pa. That's about 20 minutes from our Emmitsburg campus and well out of the way of the school. So why cut the one program that costs the school the least and takes up zero space in the same state as the school it represents? I have no idea either.


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Am I biased? Of course I am. I spent five years with this program and it was the reason I came to the Mount. Not for the program itself (my first coach, who was there for three years before Colyn, and now Kevin Farrell, was a joke) but because it was the program that gave me the best opportunity to get playing time and receive a significant scholarship.


To take that away from me and all the other past players who cared would be a mistake for the reasons above. But even more than that, it would make me even less likely to support a school that can so easily discard the part of it that brought me to Emmitsburg.


If you'd like to show support or lend a hand, e-mail Scott Keller at skeller@msmary.edu. He doesn't know I put his e-mail out there, so take the time to explain yourself.


If you'd like to play Quail Valley call 717-359-8453 to book a tee time.