Poll Open Thread: Coach under most pressure?

This post is to be used as an open thread for the most recent poll in the upper-right portion of the page. There are three choices, and they should be assessed in a vacuum. In other words, don't hold the fact that basketball is the top sport at the school against Burke, but analyze the other elements that directly affect the pressure on his tenure in specific. Same for Munday and Nagro.

Again, which of the Mount's three new coaches is under the most pressure to perform in their first seasons?

Robert Burke - Men's Basketball. Highest-paid coach in school history, strong resume as an assistant as a member of the staff at offensive juggernaut Siena, Big East power Georgetown, and most recently, respected Patriot League contender American. Burke is replacing the man, Milan Brown, who, by all accounts, was the most liked as well as the most successful at the Mount in the last five years. No sport won multiple NEC (or MAAC) titles in the last half-decade, but Brown was fortunate enough to win one. He is the only sport to notch an NCAA victory in that same window, albeit in a play-in game. As big-shoes-to-fill goes, Burke takes the cake.

Anna Nagro - Softball. She's only 24 years old (turning 25 in September). There's not much more to say there. Coming from D'Youville College in New York, Nagro has not been involved with an NCAA Division I program since her playing days at St. Bonaventure. While she may be a great coach, and we should all hope that she is, she replaces men's golf coach Kevin Farrell as the youngest at the school, is probably the youngest coach of any sport in the conference, and I bet she's one of the 25 youngest head coaches in any Division I sport in the country. Oh, and some of the softball players from last years team (returning and graduated players alike) ran the last coach, Larry Alvis, out in a revolt of sorts. This after they didn't sniff the playoffs (they've only made it once in the last five years.) Meet your team, Anna!

Lindsey Munday - Women's Lacrosse. See yesterday's post for my overblown rant on the main idea here - she comes to us from Northwestern. Not only was she the top assistant at arguably the greatest NCAA program in any sport of the last decade (she wasn't a coach for the entire decade) but she also played there. Twice she was a Tewaarton (think Heisman for lacrosse) semifinalist as a player. After Sonia LaMonica snagged the Towson job, which Munday also vied for, the Mount snagged Munday. Even with the third coach in as many seasons taking over the program, we may be better off with Munday than we ever could have been with LaMonica. I'm also hearing that she is well-compensated with an intricate, multi-year contract to boot. None of that, though, equals the pressure placed on her by President Thomas H. Powell, who laid this quotation down in the press release: "I am confident this dynamic coach will take us to the next level and bring home a national championship." If Munday does that, I'll be the first to buy her dinner and a drink at Ott's. Look at the bright side: At least Powell didn't say how soon he expects that national title. (Again, I like the ambition in the quotation, it's just a real pressure-cooker.)

Without further ado, please, comment to your heart's content.

BelAir.Patch.com launching

For anyone who is from or cares about Bel Air, Md., I have good news. The BelAir.Patch.com site for which I'm the editor will be launching next week between Sept. 7 - 10. When the final date is set I'll let you know.  If you have no association with Bel Air, or don't care what I do for a living, then I'm sorry you wasted your time reading this post.


For a semi-preview, check out one of our other 115+ sites at Patch.com.


Also check out my extreme fried food experience at the state fair on the Timonium.Patch.com site.


You can follow Bel Air Patch on Twitter @BelAirPatch and Like on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BelAirPatch.

Schedule update - Savannah State game moved to Emmitsburg

Savannah State has confirmed what a poster asked recently - the Nov. 20 game will now be played in Emmitsburg. This is a nice break so that we don't play our first four, and eight of the first 10, on the road. Here is the updated schedule:


Nov. 13 @ Dayton*
Nov. 15 @ Cincinnati*
Nov. 20 Savanannah State*
Nov. 22 @ Niagara
Nov. 27 Florida A&M*
Nov. 29 Navy
Dec. 2 @ Sacred Heart
Dec. 4 @ Quinnipiac
Dec. 7 @ Penn St.
Dec. 11 @ Loyola (Md.)
Dec. 18 @ Albany
Dec. 20 American
Dec. 29 @ Vermont
Jan. 2 @ Virginia Tech
Jan. 6 St. Francis (Pa.)
Jan. 8 Robert Morris
Jan. 13 @ St. Francis (N.Y.)
Jan. 15 @ Long Island
Jan. 20 Sacred Heart
Jan. 22 Quinnipiac
Jan. 27 @ Central Connecticut State
Jan. 29 @ Bryant
Feb. 3 Monmouth
Feb. 5 Fairleigh Dickinson
Feb. 9 @ Wagner
Feb. 12 Wagner
Feb. 17 Long Island
Feb. 19 St. Francis (N.Y.)
Feb. 24 @ St. Francis (Pa.)
Feb. 26 @ Robert Morris
*Unnamed tournament


Unrelated sidenote: If you go to Jameer Nelson's Twitter page, you'll see that there is a Mount logo under the people he follows, thanks to Mount assistant coach Mike Farelly, who played with Nelson at St. Jospeh's.

Cleveland's official arrival confirms James not playing for Mount

I do not have any confirmed specifics for the reasoning, but Jeff James will not be coming to the Mount to join the men's basketball team this year. I suspected as much with the arrival of Evan Cleveland, (which was reported her first on Aug. 22) but could not say so for sure.


With the men's basketball roster updated at MountAthletics.com, sans James, it is official. This means that none of the recruits signed by Milan Brown remained with the program after Brown left for Holy Cross. Donte Morales is headed to UNC-Wilmington, Justin Burrell is headed to prep school, then Holy Cross, and James is headed God knows where.


This is actually kind of cool because now Burke will have to wait one less year to say that he has all of his own players. Excluding redshirt freshman David Golladay, everyone in the class of 2014 on will have been recruited by Burke for as long as he remains with the team.


Cleveland joins Julian Norfleet and Josh Castellanos as the other two members of Burke's inaugural recruiting class.

Powell predicts national championship for women's lacrosse? Fine with me

I should have read the the entire press release (below in full) before I wrote the last post, because I would have seen what President Thomas H. Powell said about the women's lacrosse program's future under Lindsey Munday:


"We're excited to welcome Coach Lindsey Munday to the Mount," said President Dr. Thomas Powell.  "She brings a national presence along with great talent and experience and exemplifies the formation of character we try and instill in our athletes. I am confident this dynamic coach will take us to the next level and bring home a national championship."


My first reaction to this was, "A national championship at the Mount? Powell is one crazy son of a gun, and has no idea what he's talking about."


Then I thought, you know what? I have been complaining all this time about us setting our standards too low and hiring people for cheap. I don't know what we hired Lindsey Munday for, but damn, it has to be worth it.


So I have zero criticism for Powell's quote. Props to the president for dreaming big. Who cares if our only team national championship came in the 60's in basketball's "College Division"?

It's a Munday Monday! Mount's best hire - ever??

(New YouTube link of Munday courtesy of Mount Athletics at bottom.)

I don't know anything about Lindsey Munday. I'll be the first to admit I've never even heard of her. But the announcement of her hiring as the next women's lacrosse coach is arguably the best hire by prior credentials in Mount St. Mary's history, which is incredible considering Munday has never been a head coach.

Munday was the first assistant at Northwestern, which has been the NCAA dynasty of the last decade. Their dominance can be compared to that of the UCLA men's basketball team under John Wooden.

The Mount just hired the top assistant from the unquestionably most dominant team of the last decade, not just in women's lacrosse, but any NCAA sport (if you can think of a better one, please share.) This would have been like getting the top assistant from Duke or North Carolina's basketball team to replace Milan Brown - if Duke or North Carolina had advanced to SIX CONSECUTIVE FINAL FOURS!

This post is a little all-over-the-place/over the top, because A. I don't have a lot of time to write and B. I can't believe we hired Lindsey Munday, whoever she is.

She may only be here for two years, especially if the Mount women win an NEC title soon (I know, long way to get there), but to have her at all is a privilege we should not take for granted. I don't take back what I have said in the past about the Mount's head coach hiring practices, but I will say that I was WAY WRONG in this case. Have you ever seen so many ALL CAPS words in my posts? NEVER. She's young sure, but she was the FIRST ASSISTANT AT NORTHWESTERN. And we hired her just 24 days after Sonia LaMonica rightfully ditched us for Towson.  (You really can't blame her.) This is the best shocking news since Chappy Meninger (probably spelled his name wrong, don't care) left the Mount earlier than expected due to retirement.

I feel bad for anyone whose first visit to my blog involves this post, because I'm not usually this psychotic, but wow, a big welcome to the woman of whom I've never heard, but is surely going to be an asset for our women's lacrosse program. I can't wait to see what kind of recruiting classes she brings in.

This is a feather in Lynne Robinson's cap for sure. I'm talking NBC peacock feather. I have nothing else to say. I'm sorry, but I also have no time to proofread this. Plus I'm way too shocked to edit anything.


http://www.youtube.com/user/mountathletics?feature=mhum