Drexel head coach Chris Bates has accepted an offer to become the new head coach of the men’s lacrosse team, the Department of Athletics announced Monday afternoon. Bates replaces former head coach Bill Tierney, who announced on June 8 that he was resigning to become the head coach at the University of Denver.
Bates is expected to bring with him Drexel assistant coach Greg Raymond, individuals familiar with the situation told The Daily Princetonian. Raymond was the second assistant at Princeton for three years before leaving last year to work under Bates as the top assistant at Drexel.
Bates will also bring assistant coach Stephen Brundage from Drexel, Inside Lacrosse is reporting. Brundage, like Raymond, is four years out of college, having graduated in 2005 from Loyola. While Raymond will focus on the defense, Brundage will work with the offense. The status of Princeton assistant coach Kevin Unterstein, the lone salaried holdover from the old staff, remains unclear.
Bates has shown immediate excitement and enthusiasm about the opportunity to coach Princeton’s men’s lacrosse team.
“This is a great opportunity for me and my family,” he said in a statement. “The University speaks for itself in terms of the caliber of what Princeton stands for and what it does. The second piece of that is the tradition and history of the men’s lacrosse program. I’m honored to be taking the reins.”
A member of Dartmouth’s Class of 1990, Bates was once upon a time an All-Ivy League attackman and midfielder. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and then pursued a master’s degree in education from the University of North Carolina.
Bates becomes the 10th head coach in the history of Princeton’s men’s lacrosse program. He replaces Tierney, who led the Tigers to six national championships and 14 Ivy League titles during his 22 years at the helm of the program.
Bates led the Dragons to a 70-71 record during his 10 seasons as head coach and a 31-17 record in the last three years. He was an assistant coach at Drexel in the five seasons before he was promoted to head coach.
“We tried to create a culture of excellence and hold our student-athletes to a high standard in everything they do,” Bates said in a video interview posted on goprincetontigers.com. “Not only on the field in terms of preparation, skill development and those kinds of things, but also as citizens across campus, and I think that has served us well because our guys have bought into a bigger picture, and it’s allowed us to have a foundation of success.”
Bates was seen as a desirable candidate in part because of his relationship with Tierney and former associate head coach David Metzbower.
“Coach Tierney and Coach Metzbower are both mentors and friends to me, and I’ve admired what they’ve done here,” Bates said. “The track record of success is quite impressive.”
Bates also presumably received a seal of approval from a search committee that included Jon Hess ’98 and Mark Kovler ’09, both former first-team All-Americans as players under Tierney. Volunteer assistant Bryce Chase ’63, who has been with the program since 1970, was also involved in the process.
While it seemed for a time that Cornell assistant coach Ben DeLuca was the frontrunner for the job, he withdrew his name from consideration following the interview process. DeLuca is the defensive coordinator at Cornell, and it was under his direction that the Big Red held the Tigers to a season-low four goals in their NCAA quarterfinal match this past season.
The new coaching staff will need to hit the ground running, as July is a prime recruiting period for high-schoolers. Princeton might have lost some ground on recruitment with Tierney’s departure and the absence of a head coach over the last three weeks, but the situation should improve now that a new head coach has been selected.
Bates’ hiring should make the upcoming Ivy League season one of the most intriguing in recent memory. With an Ivy League tournament — an event Tierney envisioned and pushed for — set to take place for the first time, the conference will be as competitive as it has ever been.
Princeton returns from last season its starting goalie, two starting defensemen, a starting midfielder and two starting attackmen, in addition to several key defensive midfielders and all of its faceoff men. But Cornell returns a team that came four seconds from a national championship, Brown returns a team that reached the NCAA tournament, and Harvard returns a team that made huge strides under first-year head coach John Tillman. The Ivy League is as strong as it has ever been, and Bates will be tested early and often.
Bates began his coaching career by starting a lacrosse program in 1992 at the Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia.
The ‘Prince’ reported early Sunday afternoon that Bates had been offered the position and was expected to accept it.
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