The worst part is now it will be all about him. No getting around it.
University of Denver coach Bill Tierney, the only men’s lacrosse coach to win seven Division I national championships and the first to lead two schools — Princeton and Denver — to titles, will retire at the end of this season, he told The Athletic in an exclusive interview. The school will make the news official later, setting in motion a season-long farewell tour for Tierney. He will hate it.
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“I know, I know,’’ he said with a chuckle. “It will be awful.’’
But this is not a decision made of ego, or a need to be feted for months. He joked that the last thing he wants is rivals North Carolina and Duke saying nice things after trying to pulverize his team. He’s going public before the season begins only because he wants his players — the ones currently in Denver uniforms and the ones who might choose to become a Pioneer — to know.
“I wanted to make sure they heard it from me in person,’’ Tierney said Thursday morning, a few hours before he planned to gather the Denver players to share the news and then call each of the 23 recruits targeted for his program. “That’s all that matters. The rest of it, yeah, it makes me cringe.’’
That is, really, the essence of the man. He is inarguably the best coach the sport has seen, and he will be lauded because he deserves it. The pile-up of championship trophies, Final Four berths (15) and title game appearances (nine) are merely the end result. The path to success, believe it or not, is even more impressive. Tierney did not walk into winning; he manufactured it out of nowhere everywhere he went. At his first college stop, Rochester Institute of Technology, he led the team to its first NCAA Tournament appearance and was named Division III coach of the year.
Before he arrived at Princeton, the Tigers had never won an Ivy League title much less an NCAA Tournament game, and the Ivy League hadn’t made a real dent on the national lacrosse scene since the sport’s early days in the 1970s, when Cornell won three titles.
An absence of scholarships and demanding academics did not make for an easy build, yet in 1992, Princeton beat traditional powerhouse Syracuse 10-9 in overtime to win its first national title. The Tigers won it all again in 1994, and from 1996 to 2002, they either played for or won a championship five times.
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By 2010, Princeton was an NCAA Tournament mainstay. Tierney easily could have stayed at Old Nassau forever. Instead, he took a $30,000 paycut and moved to Denver, to lead a program that had made only a slightly deeper footprint in lacrosse than Princeton. Denver claimed two NCAA Tournament appearances in its history before Tierney arrived. Five years after his hiring, the Pioneers became the first team outside the Eastern time zone to win a national title.
Altogether, Tierney has a career record of 429-147, a 74.5 winning percentage.
Yet the real testimony to his success lies not in a trophy case. It comes each year in the mailbox, with birth announcements and Christmas cards from his former players, or at alumni games where his athletes return annually, children and spouses in tow. He crows like a proud father when he recalls the successes of Justin Tortolani, one of his first Princeton recruits who not only scored a then-school-record 120 goals and led the Tigers to their first title, but is now an accomplished spine surgeon.
“To say I had some small part in these guys’ lives,’’ Tierney said, “I’m really proud of that.’’
Bill Tierney, 70, will retire at the end of this season. (Courtesy Denver Athletics)Make no mistake, Tierney is no picnic to play for. He is an exacting and demanding coach who percolates on the sidelines (though his older players will say he’s a softie these days). Many a baseball hat has paid the price for his boil.
But he is a good man. That sounds too plain and simple, but it is meant as the heaviest of compliments.
Full disclosure: I first met Tierney right after I graduated from college, when I knew nothing about lacrosse but was asked to cover it anyway. A decade later, I’d marry his athletic trainer. Tierney came to our wedding, and when our daughter was born on the eve of Princeton’s NCAA Tournament game in 2001, he ultimately would name a play after her. The Tigers scored on it, too, when they won the championship.
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I come at this with some bias, but I also come at this with some insight. Tierney is not and never has been about show or performance. His decency is done quietly, out of a very basic need to do the right thing. When our children were young, he’d call about rescheduling practice, understanding that reconfiguring his schedule meant upending ours as well. When Princeton basketball legend Pete Carril died last year, Tierney flew in and out of New Jersey on the same day for the services at Jadwin Gym to honor the man. Asked about his fondest memory, he didn’t hesitate before naming the 2001 title, which he shared with his sons, Trevor and Brendan, both on the Princeton roster. Asked what he’s most proud of, he deflected to his wife of 46 years, Helen, who raised their four children while he chased a lacrosse dream.
Tierney wrestled with the decision only in the same way any healthy person wrestles with his or her retirement. Life changes are hard, and Tierney has known nothing but a life lived to a lacrosse rhythm since coaching Great Neck High School in 1976. But things are changing. Lacrosse doesn’t play front and center on the college athletics stage, but the shifts trickle down with just as much impact.
“It’s time,’’ he said. “I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve been blessed to work where I’ve worked and with the people I’ve worked alongside. But with the changing world of college athletics, it just seemed a good time to leave the spot in the hands of the younger people.’’
He knew telling his team would be hard, so much that he rehearsed what he would tell them beforehand. “I’m a crier anyway,’’ he said. “I want to get it right.’’
And he’s not saying he’s going away entirely. Tierney technically still has another year as the president of the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Association (IMLCA) and has a long history with USA Lacrosse (he led the 1998 team to a world championship). As the NCAA looks to restructure its governance, ceding finally to sport-specific leadership, you’d think Tierney would be on speed dial for an assist.
He has no concrete plans, but he will keep the door open to any and all opportunities that come. Any, that is, save coaching. When Denver travels to Johns Hopkins later this month for an exhibition game, it will be the first step on the last leg of Bill Tierney’s coaching tour.
Let the celebration begin, even if the celebrant will hate it.
(Top photo: Courtesy Denver Athletics)
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