Football: Quick search leads to Surace

The hiring of Bob Surace ’90 as head coach of the football team came earlier than many expected, but in the end his coaching credentials and leadership capabilities made the decision straightforward enough for the athletics department to pull the trigger before Christmas.

Two factors played into the decision to hire Surace quickly: the need to have a coach in place for recruiting purposes and Surace’s outstanding qualifications.

“We had a great candidate and an opportunity to get a jump start on recruiting and piecing together a new coaching staff,” Director of Athletics Gary Walters ’67 said. “The fact that Bob has an Ivy League degree, the fact that he was an All-Ivy player on a championship team and the fact that he has had a distinguished coaching career were all significant considerations.”

But his coaching credentials were not all that went into the decision. After all, it’s not uncommon for coaches with impressive records to flounder. The most recent example is Charlie Weis, who was the offensive coordinator for three Super Bowl-winning New England Patriots teams before floundering in an unsuccessful coaching run at Notre Dame.

Walters said that in addition to a proven track record, Surace possesses the intangibles necessary to direct a successful Ivy League football team.

“Bob’s leadership skills, communication ability, energy and visceral understanding of the Princeton experience were also contributing factors,” Walters said.

One of Surace’s most obvious distinctions is his love of Princeton. He referred to the University as “the best place in the world” in an interview posted on goprincetontigers.com, the official website of Princeton athletics. His wife is also a Princeton alumna and former varsity athlete who lettered four times for the women’s soccer team.

“His love of the University is almost tangible,” Walters said. “His heartfelt desire to be the next head coach of football was compelling.”

Though many expected the athletic department to make its decision after the new year, Surace was hired on Dec. 23. The timing of the hiring came as a bit of a surprise — previous indications were that this was the earliest possible date that a new coach would be hired. The decision was interesting in light of the fact that many NFL teams and Football Bowl Subdivision college teams had yet to finish their seasons. Those teams that would go on to fire members of their coaching staffs had not done so yet.

Surace has wasted no time getting started in his position. Yesterday, he hired James Perry, the all-time leading passer in Ivy League history, to be his offensive coordinator. The quarterback of Brown’s 1999 Ivy League championship team, Perry comes to Princeton after a three-year stint as an offensive assistant at Brown. Perry’s hiring means that former offensive coordinator Dave Rackovan will no longer be with the team.

“Bob has impressively hit the ground running on all of the complex facets associated with being the new coach,” Walters said.

There are of course remaining questions. Surace’s collegiate head coaching experience came at Western Connecticut State, a Division III school with different athletic and academic standards. He was only head coach there for two years, so he never fully built the team with his own recruits.

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Still, overcoming his limited recruiting experience as a head coach should not prove too challenging. For one, Perry had recently been named the recruiting coordinator at Brown and should have a lot to offer. Both Perry and Surace are former Ivy League football players and both are relatively young. Their experiences are still somewhat fresh. At the very least, they will be able to relate to high school athletes considering Princeton and its rivals.