Four former coaches reflect on departures, Princeton athletics

Don Cahoon started it all in April. After nine seasons as the head coach of Princeton men's hockey, he announced that he would accept the head coaching position at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. What followed in the ensuing five months was the exodus of three other Princeton head coaches: former softball head coach Cindy Cohen took the associate director of athletics post at the University of Rochester, former women's basketball head coach Liz Feeley accepted the head coaching position at Smith College and most recently, former men's basketball head coach Bill Carmody took the head coaching position at Northwestern.

In addition, Princeton also lost men's tennis head coach David Benjamin to retirement and men's basketball assistant coach Joe Scott to the top coaching spot at Air Force.

In the wake of these coaching departures and the hiring of their replacements, a common question still lingers: Why so many in so little time? For the four head coaches who left to pursue other opportunities, there seems to be no single answer.

Cahoon, the first in the series of coaching departures, points to three reasons for his leaving.

"I'm a Massachusetts native," Cahoon said. "This was an opportunity to come back home."

Cahoon also saw the job as akin to what he had accomplished at Princeton: retooling a struggling program. The former head coach, who assumed the reigns of a Tiger hockey program that had never won more than 15 games in a season, built up a 122-129-32 record in his tenure, leading the Tigers to a 1998 Eastern College Athletic Conference championship and a 1999 Ivy League Championship. He will now attempt to do the same with the Minutemen, who went 11-20-5 last season.

"The opportunity to rebuild a program was an attraction," Cahoon said.

Family also became a consideration for Cahoon.

"My son was going to school in Boston," he said. "And my daughter had opportunities here."

In describing his departure, Cahoon praises his treatment at Princeton.

"They took my needs seriously," Cahoon said. "Princeton was the best place I worked."

Cahoon says that it is his players he misses most and he hopes to build a program similar to the "culture" he created with the Tigers.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Former softball head coach Cohen underwent the most significant job change by far when she assumed the associate director of athletics position at the University of Rochester.

Cohen, who had amassed 560 victories in her 18 years as Princeton's head coach, now oversees 22 varsity sports at Rochester.

"The difference now is I am recruiting coaches instead of students," Cohen said.

Cohen views the turning point in her coaching career as having come a few years ago.

"A couple of years ago, I was offered my dream job," Cohen said. "It was everything I wanted. If I were to continue to coach, I would have taken that job."

Yet by this point, Cohen seemed to have grown weary of coaching. "Recruiting is a 12-month job," she said. "I didn't have the luxury of a consistent [assistant] coach."

And, though Cohen describes the relationships with her players as what she misses most about coaching, she admits to growing frustrated with their dedication.

"We had set the bar high and it was hard to maintain it," she said. "As much as I loved my kids, I questioned some of the commitment of student-athletes."

Poised for something new, Cohen decided not to accept the offered coaching post.

"I knew at that point, I wasn't going to coach somewhere else," Cohen said. "Then, I thought, 'What do I want to do next?' "

Rochester Athletic Director George Vanderzwaag, who spent eight years with Princeton's Athletic Department, answered this question when he offered Cohen the job at Rochester.

"I have no regrets," Cohen said. "It was a wonderful opportunity."

After five seasons as women's basketball's head coach, Feeley accepted the interim head coaching position at Smith College.

Smith, a Division III school, finished last in the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference the preceding season.

Feeley, however, is unfazed by the different level of play at Smith in Massachusetts.

"Basketball is basketball," she said.

The Worcester, Mass., native views coaching at Smith as a chance to be closer to her family and refers to the decision as "a quality of life issue."

The diminished need for recruiting at Smith was also appealing to Feeley, who put 13 years of Division I experience behind her.

"At a Division I level, you spend a greater portion of the day and year [recruiting]," she said. "At the Division III level, you are less of a recruiter and more of a teacher."

Feeley left a team that after tying for the Ivy League title in the 1998-99 season, went 6-8 in the Ivy League and 9-19 overall last season.

"It was a very emotional decision to make," Feeley said of leaving Princeton, "especially where the players are concerned."

Yet despite a fondness for her Princeton players, Feeley maintains a no-looking-back attitude.

When asked what aspect of Princeton athletics she would like to change, Feeley responded: "I'm not there anymore, so the changes would not affect me."

Bill Carmody, the former men's basketball coach, is the latest in the string of coaching departures. Carmody, who had coached for 18 years at Princeton — four as the head coach — left to take the helm at Northwestern, which finished last in the Big Ten the previous season.

"It's a terrific school in a great athletic conference," Carmody said.

Coaching in the Big Ten provides the opportunity for recruiting through athletic scholarships, an asset Carmody calls "appealing" but in no way the driving force in his decision.

"At Princeton, we had a great team without them," he said.

Carmody also did not experience the lack of dedication that Cohen said she witnessed, calling his Tiger squad "100 percent [dedicated]."

"I had great friends there," Carmody said. "Everything was great — the town, the faculty, the staff, all the players."

For Carmody, coaching at Northwestern seemed like a challenging new opportunity.

"[Northwestern] was always a job I thought I'd be interested in," he said. "When it did became available, I notified them."

Each of the four former Princeton coaches appears to have left for different reasons. And each has had a fairly smooth transition to new opportunities.

When Director of Athletics Gary Walters '67 was asked about the coaching turnover, he was equally unfazed. "A modicum of change is healthy," he said.

In fact, the proximity of the coaches' departures appears to be one of the only similarities they all share. That and a common appetite to try something a little different.