Sports: January 26, 2000
Three days after the football team's heartbreaking loss to Dartmouth, Director of Athletics Gary Walters '67 asked head coach Steve Tosches to resign. Although Tosches amassed 78 wins and three Ivy titles during his 13 seasons at Princeton, the last four years have brought a sharp decline in the team's fortunes. This last season, the Tigers finished 3-7, the only wins coming against three of the weakest teams in the East.
Princeton does owe Tosches a debt of gratitude for both the victories and the grace with which he took over the program after the death of Ron Rogerson in 1987. But Tosches's weaknesses as a coach have also long been apparent. During his tenure, Princeton made a habit of losing games it should have won and the offense, especially over the last few years, became both inconsistent and dull.
Initial alumni reaction to Tosches's resignation, as measured by letters to the university, was overwhelmingly positive. However, several articles appeared in local newspapers in which alumni-at first anonymously, but then publicly-criticized the decision. Somers Steelman '54, the former head of the Princeton Football Association, charged in The Daily Princetonian that the university's recruiting policies have put the program at a competitive disadvantage. Steelman echoed Tosches's own complaints about the admission office, citing Princeton's supposedly slow response in mailing "likely letters" to prospects. As Steelman told the Prince, "Our admission procedures [are] so antiquated that it made it impossible to compete. This was outlined in many memos [from Tosches] to the athletic director."
To characterize Tosches as a victim of the university's admission policies is to ignore several facts. It is hard to find other coaches at Princeton who make the same complaint. Certainly, some coaches will privately admit that they find it painful to turn away talented athletes who don't meet the university's stringent admission standards, but since Princeton's sports teams have compiled the best overall record in the Ivy League for the last 13 years, it seems that they're making do. And while recruiting for football may be different from recruiting for other sports, the phenomenal back-to-back classes that the basketball coaches have managed to attract prove that Princeton's standards aren't too limiting to attract superb student-athletes.
The athletics department, under Gary Walters, operates with the premise that sports, while an important part of the university, are ultimately just a complement to academics. "Admission authority rests within the academic domain," Walters says. "Those rules go to the very heart of Princeton University." Dean Hargadon and his office of admission, for example, won't consider an incomplete application, which is one reason that Princeton might sometimes take longer to send likely letters. Harvey Yavener, a columnist for The Times of Trenton, who was critical of the Tosches firing, writes, "Princeton feels it needs the extra time to come up with a special class each year. You wonder if it does. Would the nature of either institution be changed a whit if Princeton and Yale swapped freshman classes? I doubt it. It's not the freshman classes that make Princeton Princeton. It's the money." If Hargadon agreed, Princeton would be a very different place.
Finally, this year's football team had talent-maybe not the best talent in the Ivy League, but enough talent to stay out of the basement. The office of admission didn't blow a huge lead at Dartmouth, nor did it make any of the hideous calls that have horrified Princeton fans and lost league titles for years. It is understandable that the office of admission is tired of being blamed. "I simply don't buy the notion that when we win it's because of great coaching, and when we don't win it's the fault of the admission office," Hargadon says. "Not much character in that notion."
So how to explain the decline and fall of Steve Tosches? One theory has to do with the timing of his ascension to head coach 13 years ago. Around the time Tosches got the job, NCAA rules changed in a way that essentially ended alumni recruiting. The young staffs at Princeton and Dartmouth were able to adapt and outrecruited the other teams in the league. But when places such as Harvard and Yale got their own new, energetic staffs, the talent gap narrowed dramatically, and coaching ability began to matter a lot more.
Perhaps Tosches's winning record would have earned him a few more years to turn things around if not for his habit of blaming the office of admission for his team's declining fortunes. That mantra grew old, and the current complaints of his defenders ought to make fans of Princeton football a little tired too.
-Wes Tooke '98
For more on"likely letters" see our Website at www.princeton.edu/~PAW.
Young talent boosts women's hockey
Holmes sisters provide Tigers with a potent tandem
When Nikola Holmes '03 glanced down the ice, the players in the other
jerseys looked awfully familiar. Just 12 games into her college career,
the Tigers' freshman forward from Apple Valley, Minnesota, was about to
take on a Minnesota-Duluth squad stocked with her youth-league teammates.
"I'm not used to playing against people I was really close with,"
Holmes said. "All I knew was playing with them, and now I'm playing
against them."
Annamarie Holmes '01, three years removed from the Minnesota leagues, felt none of her sister's anxiety. She tallied a goal at the 6:39 mark of the first period to put Princeton ahead 1-0. Nikola had grown far more comfortable by the second period and added an assist on Andrea Kilbourne '02's goal.
The final score was something of a surprise. The 2-2 tie, which left the Tigers at 5-6-3 for the season, was the first blemish on Minnesota-Duluth's record, dropping them to 12-0-1. However, the Princeton box score was no surprise: goals by Kilbourne and Annamarie Holmes; assists from Nikola Holmes and Abbey Fox '01; strong goaltending by Sarah Ahlquist '03 and Susan Maes '02; and no victory. "It's been extremely frustrating, knowing that you have played so well, but it just doesn't show on the scoreboard," Nikola Holmes said.
Although Nikola is disappointed with the team's mediocre start, she feels there is reason for optimism, and with the team moving into the heart of its conference schedule after the winter holiday, Annamarie concurs. "I think league-wise, we're capable of anything," she said. "We could definitely go undefeated for the rest of the season."
Conference success will lie primarily with the Tigers' corps of underclass talent. After a stellar freshman season in which she paced the Tigers with 44 points, Kilbourne is in position to match or surpass last year's total, with 11 goals and nine assists through 14 games. Right behind her are the Holmes sisters - Annamarie with 18 points from her defense position and Nikola with 12.
While the sisters are very close, their styles of play are quite different, according to Kilbourne. "Annamarie is the type that will take charge of the game," she said. "Nikola will just be in the right place at the right time. She hasn't taken charge yet, but I think she has the ability to."
Annamarie would agree, and recalling her assist on Nikola's first career goal, predicts that the sisters' early success will continue. "I remember the first time they said Holmes to Holmes [over the public address system], I'm expecting a lot more of that."
-Jeremy Weissman '01
Rocca leads men's hoops
Schedule, injuries hamper Tigers
There has been a decided analogy between the fortunes of the men's basketball
team and Mason Rocca's health. The senior cocaptain missed the season's
first four games with a groin injury, and the Tigers recorded three losses
and one very shaky win. Rocca returned to spark an impressive four-game
winning streak, but suffered a serious ankle sprain against Rutgers-a game
in which he scored 28 points and grabbed 13 rebounds while playing all 45
minutes of a 66-60 overtime victory.
After that, Rocca saw limited action in a win over Alabama-Birmingham and a loss at ninth-ranked Kansas. He did not play at all in a frustrating, 58-54 loss at Xavier, then had surgery to remove bone chips from his ankle. The 6'9" 235-pound Rocca should be back at full strength when Ivy League play begins in late January.
It should be noted that Princeton's pre-Ivy schedule has been murderous. Six losses have been to teams with an aggregate record of 51-15; seven victories have been over teams with a slate of 42-34. All this amounts to an RPI ranking (the arcane formula that means so much to the NCAA selection committee) in the thirties, which is extraordinary for a 7-6 Ivy League team.
It should also be noted that last year, the Tigers outrebounded their opponents on a season-long basis for the first time since the Flood, and that Rocca was that team's leading rebounder, despite averaging only 26 minutes' playing time.
Despite the presence of 6'11" cocaptain Chris Young '02 and sharpshooting 6'6" guard Spencer Gloger '03, Princeton is a team that gets consistently outmuscled when Mason is not in the lineup. The Tigers shot respectably in tough losses to Kansas and Xavier, but were outrebounded on the offensive end 16-2 and 15-2. Rocca alone had four offensive boards against Rutgers and six versus the University of Alabama-Birmingham. In the Rutgers game, Mason took 18 free throws. In the six games he has missed, the entire Princeton team has averaged about six trips to the line.
A native of Evanston, Illinois, Rocca is as personable and modest off the court as he is aggressive and dominant on it. "I'm happy when I play well, and I know I bring some things to the table, but in basketball there are five guys out there, so I'm not going to take the credit." Five guys or not, a healthy Rocca is essential to the Tigers' Ivy League season, and what will almost certainly boil down to another Princeton-Pennsylvania struggle for dominance.
Perhaps the most expert opinion on Rocca's worth came from coach Bill Carmody, who studied a statistics sheet after the 82-67 loss to Kansas, in which Rocca was hobbled by a severely sprained ankle. "What does he mean to us?" Carmody asked. "They outrebounded us 41-17. What do you think he means to us?"
-Peter Delacorte '67
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