By Tim Robertson

Remember 2006 Pride fans? Athletic Director Jack Hayes sure does. It was a busy year for the junior director. He hired eight new head coaches, and the men’s basketball team had to replace an assistant coach.

The majority of coaches decided to retire – Joe Gardi from football, Fran Kalafer from volleyball, JoAnne Russell from women’s soccer and Bill Gerdts from men’s and women’s tennis. But what happened to the others?

I’ll skip Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe, who now coaches women’s lacrosse’s chief rival James Madison.

John Danowski, whom a former Chronicle reporter once called the greatest interview, fed the media circus surrounding the Duke lacrosse hoopla and then took the reigns as coach. In his first season, Danowski took a team once rattled by rape allegations and brought them to the NCAA championship game against Johns Hopkins – the Blue Devils fell 12-11 in an epic contest.

Danowski’s Devils went 20-3 – including a loss to, at the time, top-ranked Cornell.

The former Pride coach jetted after leading the Pride to the NCAA semifinals in 2006, the team’s most memorable run in recent years.

Now reunited with his son in Durham, I’m just waiting for the day that Danowski schedules the Pride in what would be an emotional reunion.

While the women’s basketball team made a remarkable run through the women’s NIT last season with the players that Felisha Legette-Jack recruited, Jack led her new Indiana team – yes that Indiana – to the third round of the NIT and coached the team to a win over 15th-ranked Kentucky. The 2007 Hoosiers finished the season with a 13-4 non-conference record and a 19-14 overall mark.

This season, Jack and IU continued a streak of knocking off top-ranked opponents, defeating 14th-ranked West Virginia. Currently, Jack has the Hoosiers at 9-7 heading into Big Ten play.

Tom Parrotta, a former Pride men’s basketball assistant, took over at Canisius last season and started out great, but the Golden Griffins dropped their last nine of 10 to end up at 12-19 for the season.

This year hasn’t proved any better for the young head coach. Parrotta lost three 1,000-point scorers to graduation, and has twelve players are either new to the team this year or entered with Parrotta a season ago – including former Pride frontcourt man Chris Gadley. Seven of the 16 players on the Griffins are freshman.

Gadley, who must sit out a year in accordance with NCAA regulations, has watched his team struggle mightily in the early going. Parrotta and the Buffalo-based Griffins have just two wins in 16 games this season.

Finally, one of the biggest success stories out of this group.

Tom Ryan left Hempstead for Columbus in May of 2006 to coach The Ohio State wrestling team, a team that wasn’t on the radar. Ryan left a program at Hofstra that he helped build, a program consistently in the top 25 and producing All-Americans.

Ryan brought one Pride wrestler with him, Chris Vondruska, and almost pulled recruit Ryan Patrovich with him before Patrovich decided to stay closer to home and go to his brother’s alma mater.

In 2005 the Buckeyes finished 45th at the NCAA finals, a year later, with Ryan on the bench in his first season, OSU finished 10th.

There’s no greater marker of the success Ryan has enjoyed than what happened last week. Ryan took his Buckeyes to the mat against his former team – which includes four members who saw regular action under Ryan in ’05.

The Buckeyes defeated the Pride 25-16, and OSU now sits on a 13-2 dual record, compared to a 5-7 dual mark a season ago.

Despite losing quality coaches to bigger programs – and undoubtedly a lot more money – it’s always good to see former Pride coaches shining on.