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NEW TWIST ON COACH-AD RELATIONSHIP


Unique.

That is how then newly appointed Rider coach Tom Dempsey described the opportunity that presented itself to him last June. Ten months later a better world might be -- relieved.

It was a bit surprising to many when Don Harnum stepped down as the head coach to fill the void of athletics director. After all, Harnum and the Broncs were coming off a season that saw them claim a share of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season title and a spot in the MAAC championship game.

One game from the NCAA tournament and now he was stepping down?

What made it even more interesting was the fact that he assumed the role as athletic director with the understanding that he would return to coaching after a permanent replacement was found for Curtis Blake who was retiring after 14 years as the Rider A.D.

Enter Tom Dempsey who, despite being just 31 years of age, had already taken two different programs to the National Junior College Athletic Association Final Four (Keystone College and Lackawanna College). Dempsey brought an 88-12 record and two Coach of the Year honors to Harnum’s staff for the 2003-04 season. Like so many young assistants, the move was designed to help better prepare to one day take over a division I program of his own.

Opportunity knocked a little early.

“I remember thinking that this was unprecedented,” said Dempsey. “It’s not often in any sport, at any level that the head coach takes on the role of athletic director for one year to return to coaching the next. On the one hand I was excited for about the opportunity, but I was also very conscience of what Donny [Harnum] was about to do.”

Complicating an already dynamic set of circumstances was the fact that the coach and the assistant are great friends. With the coach-athletic director relationship being so important in the politics of the sport, most observers would wonder how this could be anything but a positive.

As much as Dempsey longed to be a head coach, his initial conversations with Harnum, on this matter, focused on the pluses and minuses of Harnum stepping away for the upcoming season. And the soon-to-be ‘inactive’ coach had similar concerns.

“I was asking Tommy to take a potentially tough assignment,” Harnum said. “In most cases the interim tag goes to those replacing a coach that had been fired. This was obviously much different. I was asking him to basically keep my seat warm for a year.”

But was Dempsey the ‘interim’ coach? That tag has always meant one of two things. Either the administration is going to take a long look at you as the next head coach or they have no intention or retaining you and it’s a one-year deal.

Neither was discussed between Harnum and Dempsey.

“It was understood that Donny would return next season,” said Dempsey. “That’s the way the players, the media and I saw it. I guess you could say I was the ‘acting’ coach and I was completely fine with that and was fully prepared.”

But it turned out to be a little more challenging than even Dempsey had thought. Having been a head coach, and been very successful, Dempsey was confident that the experience would outweigh all else. But something that Dempsey had never been accustom too happened during the 2005-06 season. His team lost a lot more then it won.

Including his time spent as an assistant coach at Rider, Dempsey had never lost a home game in his coaching career. That streak ended on opening night and the reality quickly set in that this was going to be much different then anything he had previously experienced.

“Going back to my days as a player I had never been associated with a losing team,” said Dempsey. “We had to replace five seniors with five freshmen and everyone was proceeding with the idea that Donny would return in 2006. If we were winning it would have been easier to keep everything in order, but anytime you lose games it can get interesting. This was new for me.”

There was never a point where Dempsey lost the attention of his players, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a legitimate distraction and perhaps even somewhat of a concern for some.

But in spite of all the obstacles, Dempsey and Rider emerged from December with a very respectable 4-5 record. However the Broncs preceded to drop five straight and fell into the bottom of the MAAC’s second division, a place where the program was not accustom to being.

In eight seasons, under the guidance of Harnum, Rider won or shared the MAAC regular season championship three times, averaged 16 wins a season and was always a contender for the MAAC’s upper division. In more way then one, the 2005-06 season was new territory for the program and the landscape was starting to shift again.

While the Broncs struggled through January the first whispers of Harnum not returning to the sidelines were heard. And it didn’t take long for that to be heard on the recruiting trail. The signing period was just around the corner and things couldn’t be much more confusing at Rider.

At least that’s how it looked from the outside. Inside the program the foundation for the future was being laid.

Harnum took over as ‘acting’ athletic director with the idea that one day that was a position he wanted to hold. After a short stint in the role he realized that the best time for a career change was the present.

Harnum’s first order of business was to hire his longtime friend.

By no means was it a banner season for Rider basketball, but the official hiring of Harnum and Dempsey respectively, was arguably a better conclusion to the season then the Broncs appearance in the MAAC title game just twelve months earlier.

An 8-20 season may not seem like much to be excited about, but Rider has what so many programs don’t. They have a former coach in the role of athletic director and the coach-AD relationship is obviously on pretty good terms.

“I still have to win or I will hear about,” joked Dempsey, “but I couldn’t ask for a better situation. We have so many good things happening here and not just for the basketball program. The prospects are bright for all of the Rider athletic programs.”

Considering the circumstances Dempsey did an outstanding job and it’s hard to imagine that the win-loss record would have been any better had Harnum not stepped down last summer. Moreover, the three original recruiting targets by Harnum’s staff all committed to Dempsey and the new-look Rider basketball program.