By Multiple Authors
By Jerry Beach
DefiantlyDutch.com/ Sports Editor – The Chronicle (1993)
The impact of killing football
No, football didn’t draw a lot of fans. But it lent a certain air of prestige to the entire athletic department—one that I am sure drew most, if not all, of the people on this page to campus. And the sheer number of football alumni made football the most valuable ally for the Pride Club and its fundraising endeavors. How was this not considered when deciding to kill the sport? This is a mistake from which Hofstra will not recover until it begins playing football again.
Tom Pecora
Yes, I’m a fan of the guy. And yes, he never got Hofstra to the NCAA Tournament. But he consistently recruited under-the-radar, Big East-caliber guards, won at least 19 games in five of his final six seasons and had teams that were much better in February than December. At this level, there’s not much more you can ask out of a coach.
Charles Jenkins
He can do it all—my all-time favorite boxscore: Jenkins going for 20 points, nine turnovers, eight rebounds and seven assists in the win over Northeastern Feb. 23—and he’s going to end up the school’s all-time leading scorer and the rare three-year captain. But I don’t think people truly appreciate what a rare talent he is, as much for the maturity and class with which he carries himself as anything he does on the court.
Bill Edwards
Like Jenkins, he’s so good, people don’t know just how good he is. An absolutely remarkable coach who has turned a northeast program into a squad none of the perennial powers ever want to face. Right, Arizona?
Women’s soccer
This may be changing, thanks to the school record-tying 10-game winning streak Hofstra has mounted since a season-opening loss to Top 10 foe Boston College. But Simon Riddiough inherited a potent program Joanne Russell built from scratch and in his first four seasons, led it to the NCAA Tournament once and to the finals of the CAA tournament another time and has it primed this year to reach the top 25 for the first time in history and once again qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
By Mitch Merman
Sports Director, WRHU
Simon Riddiough as a coach and recruiter
Sam Brigham doing everything for WBB
The loss will be tremendous this season.
The hiring of Pat Anderson for Hofstra baseball
It was the true turning point for program
Charles Jenkins’s Jumper
Coaches want him to shoot more even though he’s such a power inside against guards
The CAA cutting Men’s and Women’s Soccer, Field Hockey, and Baseball from 6 to 4 team championships
By Mike Leslie
WRHU Sports DIrector 2008-10
Joe Gardi
Not just underrated, but underappreciated. How else can you explain a University eliminating a program that this man built from a solid Division III team into one of the best Division I-AA programs in the country in the late ‘90s? I wasn’t around to experience Joe Gardi, the head coach, but I did have the good fortune of meeting him and interviewing him on a number of occasions and he was a class act. His death in June was certainly sad, but it almost seemed poetic that he didn’t have to experience an autumn sans-Hofstra football.
Carlos Rivera
When Rivera graduated in May of 2007, he left along with another of the best players in Hofstra history in Loren Stokes. But while Stokes was regarded as the major loss for the program, Rivera’s loss likely had a much more dramatic effect on the program. Antoine Agudio was a senior on that ’07-’08 squad, and was in many ways a duplication of Stokes (minus the floater and the hops, but plus some 3-point accuracy). Meanwhile, the program went 3 years before another “true” point guard (Chaz Williams) graced the Mack Sports Complex hardwood. Rivera’s defense was spectacular and he was the consummate floor leader. We’ll see how Brad Kelleher does alongside Mr. Power Guard, Charles Jenkins, this winter. But neither Williams nor Kelleher will fill Rivera’s shoes.
Bill Edwards
He’s not only the best head coach on campus, but he’s quite possibly the nicest person on these 240 acres of former Air Force base. Hofstra softball is the most consistent program on campus and is in a constant, year-after-year battle with men’s lacrosse and wrestling for being the best program on campus. This past May’s near upset of Arizona was heart-stopping for all listening/watching and just another example of how far Bill Edwards has brought this program in his 21 years as head coach. On only two occasions were his teams even close to finishing .500. His first year, the Pride went 19-17-1 and in 2002, Hofstra was 28-25. But they still won the CAA title in ’02. His teams are perpetually tremendous. Quite frankly, the only reason he’s on this list is because it’s not possible to appreciate him enough.
Shuart Stadium (Jim Shuart himself)
First, the stadium. Despite the fact that it is often less full than we all would like, the actual building itself is one of the nicer ones in the CAA. When Shuart Stadium was packed for the NCAA Lacrosse Quarterfinals in 2009, it was a special environment. Here’s hoping that Jack Hayes & Co. keep bringing lacrosse back to Shuart as often as possible (and hopefully that will lead to the Hofstra men’s lacrosse program reaching the Final Four quite soon). As for Shuart himself, he’s the longest tenured President in the University’s history, and was instrumental in the development of Hofstra athletics. A former Hofstra gridder himself, Shuart teamed with Gardi and booster-extraordinaire (and political boss and convicted felon) Joe Margiotta to form a triumvirate that pushed Hofstra football into National Championship contention in the late ‘90s. Then Shuart retired in 2001, Gardi retired in ‘05, and Margiotta passed away in ’08, a trio of fallen dominoes that likely was the actual impetus for the death of Hofstra Football (not that “two-year investigation”).
Tom Pecora
Many wanted to bash Pecora for leaving the Pride for Fordham in the spring. It was the dreaded “lateral move” that often signals a state of disarray within an organization, or just a general dissatisfaction with one’s current situation. And while we can argue until we’re blue in the face over whether this “lateral move” signaled those things, what you can’t argue is that Pecora was successful. Were his offenses often repetitive and mundane? Sure. Would he have benefitted from Tom Parrotta remaining his Associate Head Coach for another few years? Absolutely (and that’s to say nothing bad about Van Macon, but merely that Parrotta was a good offensive coach and helped balance Pecora’s defense-and-rebounding-first [read: rock fight] mentality).
Four 20-win seasons in his final six years in Hempstead, Pecora was always one of the most polished head coaches in the CAA, and always had a competitive team. And as for his departure… it made perfect sense. St. John’s, Seton Hall, and Fordham were all open positions. Pecora’s star had faded just a bit since 2006 and he wasn’t quite in the mix for the two Big East jobs. But if he didn’t take Fordham, all three would be filled by people not named Tom Pecora. And he would’ve had to have waited until probably at least 2015 until any of those positions opened up again.
By then, Pecora will be in his late 50s and the opportunities would have passed him by. Instead, he’s making an extra $250,000/year, while moving to his beloved A-10 (or A-14,whichever you prefer), while not having to move his family in any way, shape, or form. His kids can go to the same school. He and his wife don’t have to worry about a big move. And hey, if he is able to turn Fordham around, maybe a Big East school will take a chance on him in, say, 2017.