Oct. 29, 2004

By Dave Starman
Special to CollegeSports.com

Yanks-Sox, game seven, October, 2003.

The Sox on the verge of the World Series. You think of people you are friendly with who love the Sox, and you know they are probably about to have their hearts broken, again. Aaron Boone. Home run. Game over, series over, curse lives.

Yanks-Sox, game seven, October, 2004.

In the waning moments of game seven between the Yanks and Red Sox, I was thinking of one person, UNH coach Dick Umile.

It had been a year since Boone's walk-off home run won that series. He wasn't the only one walking off that night. A few of Umile's players had done so also.

Seven players walked off campus, having ignored Umile's edict that they be nowhere near downtown Manchester at the end of that game because of the trouble that might break out depending on the result of the Yanks-Sox game. Those seven players included some marquee names on a team that had just been ranked #1 in the polls.

As a result, Umile suspended those seven guys, lost on that weekend, and never regained the #1 spot in the polls. However, it was s decision that had to be made.

"It was unfortunate, but we make rules and those are the rules you live by," said Umile from Manchester. The team is most important. Our guys were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we told them not to be there. It is a decision they made."

Unfortunately, Bowling Green coach Scott Paluch is now in that same boat, but for far more egregious reasons. The university has suspended seven players after a old photo of an unnamed player surfaced. The player was unconscious, undressed, and covered with profanity and racial slurs written on him. It was apparently a hazing prank.

The photo contained the faces of five current Bowling Green players. Paluch told the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune that, "We'll get to the bottom of this, it is unacceptable."

A BGSU spokesman told me on Wednesday that the issue is before the Student Judicial Affairs Commission, and that no further discussion will take place until the investigation is over.

While it is early yet, with facts unclear beyond the existence of an 18-month-old photo, it is already clear that the effects of this will be profound on the players, coach and program as a whole.

The players involved: Hockey is a small community, and people remember these things. The seven involved in this incident will have this on their record throughout their careers, no matter what the investigation reveals. In the short term, college campuses are small places, and those in the spotlight tend to have a tough time fading into the background. Looking ahead, NHL teams may gamble on a player of exceptional talent or special ability with black marks (Billy Tibbetts comes to mind, as does Bob Probert), but the borderline guy will be out in the cold. Beyond that, they'll have to deal with whatever personal feelings and emotions the incident leaves behind.

The Coach: Scott Paluch is a good guy whose enthusiasm for coaching his alma matter, and just coaching in general, immediately comes through when you talk to him. This must be awful for him, because he knows that as the third-year coach, he had a hand in picking these players who just unraveled the program a bit. Remember, it was a hazing situation that nearly ruined the Vermont program, causing the school to cancel the second half of the 1999-2000 season and costing longtime Catamounts' head coach Mike Gilligan his job.

The Program: This is the second hazing situation that has surfaced in college hockey in the past few years, following the scandal at Vermont. Bowling Green's reaction to this, if there has indeed been misconduct on the part of student-athletes (in this case the hockey players), is crucial for the future of the program. Swift discipline of the players and anyone else involved indirectly or directly is a must.

This incident, while out of the direct control of the hockey program, still falls squarely on the shoulders of the coaching staff. Worse, if this incident is 18 months old, then Paluch has been coaching a band of players that have betrayed the confidence and trust he put in them in making them scholarship athletes. The fact that his captain is allegedly involved must make Paluch sick to his stomach.

While a team is a family, there might be a time when Paluch or the athletic director have to show the school, the NCAA hockey world and future recruits that nothing is more important then the integrity of the program. Should the suspended players be found to have crossed the line, BGSU's reaction will be watched closely.

"At times the games become secondary to the game of life," said Umile of his experience. "We're here to educate, to coach. Hopefully you don't need to resort to suspensions to teach players a lesson. Games and practices should be times where lessons are learned, and where you carve your place in the lineup."