Time to Thank Coach Cooley - William Lynch
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Although I am not a Providence College alum, I have been a long-time Friar fan and regularly attended PC basketball games since they were playing in Alumni Hall back in the 1960s before moving to the Civic Center (now the Amp). Like many Rhode Islanders, I have enjoyed the many great PC wins and the historic highlights thanks to the Friars and the exceptional coaching provided by men with names like Gavitt, Mullaney, Pitino, Barnes, Gillen, and most recently, Ed Cooley.
As a season ticket holder in the years leading up to the hiring of coach Cooley in 2011, I remember well the dire and desperate shape that the PC basketball program was in. It's easy now to ignore the many low lights of those years prior to Cooley's arrival, which finally culminated in the arrest of multiple players, repeated losing seasons, finishing 14th in the Big East, playing in a home arena that was mostly empty and practicing in a shared on-campus facility that was simply not adequate for a major college team looking to compete at a national level.
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Enter Coach Ed Cooley, and the rest is history or as one reporter recently wrote, "Coach Cooley and PC have mutually benefited from a partnership that was written in Hollywood."
Under Cooley's leadership, PC enjoyed seven NCAA tournament berths (eight except for COVID), PC's first-ever Big East Season title and a Big East tournament title. Keep in mind that while coaching PC, Coaches Gavitt, Mullaney and Pitino totaled nine NCAA berths all combined to the seven NCAA berths under Cooley alone. This amazing turnaround and the incredible and consistent success under Cooley's leadership, however, doesn't even begin to measure the tremendous personal dedication and the resulting positive impact that Coach Cooley provided off the court to many young men and women across Rhode Island, particularly young men and women of color, who were and continue to be inspired not only by Coach Cooley, but by Ed Cooley, the person in his own personal journey to survive and succeed against seemingly impossible odds.
So, while we may initially be disappointed at losing Coach Cooley at Providence, I must admit to being disappointed at those who seem more interested in criticizing Coach Cooley's personal decision to accept the position at Georgetown rather than acknowledging and appreciating what Cooley has accomplished during his 12 years at PC. We should celebrate a program that now provides regular championship-caliber teams, perennial national rankings, and a new multi-million-dollar state-of-the-art on-campus practice facility that is often described (including by new PC Coach Kim English) as "the best in the nation."
As is typically the case in college athletics, there also came a time when coaches Gavitt, Mullaney, Pitino, Barnes, and Gillen all left PC to pursue new challenges. I have no doubt that in each instance, these coaches made difficult personal decisions for themselves and for their families, as did Ed and Nurys Cooley (and spare me the anguish about moving to another school in the same league; it’s a regular occurrence in college sports across the country and everyone else seems to survive). Rather than complain, criticize and lament Cooley's decision, it's high time that we take a step back and simply thank Coach Cooley for a job well done.
William Lynch is the former chairman of the Rhode Island Democratic Party and was an accomplished college basketball player.
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