Middlebury’s Quinn Reflects on “First Time”
by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne Archive | Twitter
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| Former Middlebury head coach, and current athletic
director, Erin Quinn believes Tufts should benefit from
Middlebury's success in the championship game a decade ago when the
Jumbos meet Salisbury on Sunday. © Middlebury Athletics |
Everything seemed to be going well for Erin Quinn and his
team.
Making their first trip to the Division III championship game in
1999, Quinn, head coach at Middlebury, and his Panthers were
standing on the edge of the field looking around in awe at the size
of Byrd Stadium on the campus of the University of Maryland.
The Panthers were waiting for the green light from the NCAA rep to
get in their hour-long workout on the game field on the Saturday
before the title tilt, which was delayed because the grounds crew
was watering the field.
Because it had been a very hot spring, the surface of Byrd was rock
hard. In an attempt to soften things up for the five games in three
days schedule, the sprinklers were out.
When the word came down that Middlebury could finally enter the
field, Quinn witnessed what would be a harbinger of what would come
the next day.
“If you can picture running on wet pavement with cleats on,
that’s what it was like,” said Quinn, who’s able
to chuckle about it now. “Our guys are on the edge of the
field jumping up and down, pretending like they were really
preparing for a game and the NCAA rep said, ‘The field is
yours.’ The players go running out there trying to do cuts
and half them fall down. It made us incredibly nervous and
I’m not sure if we ever recovered. Guys were falling all over
the place. That was the first wake-up call about the
event.”
It was the first of many lessons that Quinn learned on that first
trip that he was able to rectify during the five other treks the
Panthers made to the championship game from 2000-2005, three of
which results in titles.
Quinn also learned that he would have to structure his weekend
visit a little better – “Enjoy the trappings of playing
in that game and soak it up, but once the game starts, get it out
of your mind and concentrate on the game.”
It’s easier said than done, as the former Midd coach
personally understands all too well.
With his team playing miserably in the first half of its eventual
13-6 loss to Salisbury in ’99, Quinn found himself becoming
slightly unhinged by the magnitude of the game.
“I felt like for the first time maybe in my career, and
certainly in that season, I got uptight,” said Quinn.
“I found myself telling the players to relax, but as I was
sort of snapping at guys to stay relaxed, I was thinking to myself,
I’m not really modeling that behavior very well at all.
“I got caught up in the moment, as well. I was thinking that
this is a really big stage and I need to represent our school well,
but instead of just coaching my team like I knew how, I got
uptight. We had a very good team that year that jelled down the
stretch and we weren’t playing that way – we were
playing nervous. It was getting me frustrated and I let that show
through a little bit.”
The three consecutive championships after the ’99 loss
obviously makes it a little easier for Quinn to reflect on that
first run, but it still provides an insight into the many hurdles
facing a team in its first appearance in the championship game.
Will Tufts, a member of the first-timers club this year, have to
deal with some of the same obstacles?
Quinn believes the Jumbos are better suited to have a strong first
appearance partly due to what Middlebury was able to accomplish
before them.
Up until Middlebury’s win over Ithaca in the NCAA
quarterfinals in 1998, no Division III team from New England had
ever won a tournament game. In addition, the NESCAC had
just started allowing its members to compete in NCAA team
tournaments four years previously, so Middlebury was breaking new
ground – an achievement that Quinn believes Tufts can use on
Sunday to its benefit.
Instead of not knowing where the conference stood in the national
hierarchy as Middlebury did on that first trip, Tufts knows that
NESCAC teams can not only win, but establish a mini-dynasty.
“They have a real knowledge that they belong on that stage
and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they could
win,” said Quinn. “It’s not outside the limits of
what is possible for a NESCAC team. We won that playoff game in
’98 and the next year we’re in the finals against
Salisbury. That’s why I got uptight. I knew our team was very
good and I wanted our team to play the way I knew they were capable
of rather then just coaching. I just wanted it too much and I
didn’t coach them very well. I don’t think Tufts will
have to go through that.”
Quinn also believes that Tufts’ victories this year have
prepared them well to make a good impression against Salisbury.
“I think they play confidently and very poised,” he
said. “They had to come from behind to beat us in the NESCAC
championship game, they had to come from behind to beat us in the
quarterfinals, and they had to come from behind to beat Cortland at
Cortland. When we beat Ithaca [in ’98] in the first round
that was a big milestone for us, but when we got to the next round
against Naz, they dominated us. Tufts has already cleared hurdles
like that. They have cleared enough hurdles this year to make them
believe like they belong in that game.”
We’ll just hope the Jumbos can stay on their feet during
their Saturday walk-through.
