Meanwhile, back in the ballroom, the players begin to come in from the door to the outside that is behind Tierney. They can see someone there as they file through but won’t be able to see his face unless they turn back around once they’ve passed him. Some do. Most don’t. Hunter Spiess, the defenseman, does.
“Hey Coach,” he says.
The current head coach is Matt Madalon. The very first thing he did when he got the job a decade ago was to call Tierney. Present met the past.
“I was really a big fan early on,” Tierney says. “I’ve been to a few practices there through the years. Matt has always gone out of his way to welcome me, let me talk to the guys. It’s the opposite of what you might think. I was worried that I might seem like I was an intruder, but Matt has always made me feel so at home. I’m always blown away by the respect everyone in the program shows me. Like him [Spiess]. He said ‘hey Coach.’ That means a lot to me.”
So does the history of the sport and the history of the Princeton program, which is something that he shares with Madalon.
“I’m so impressed with how much he respects the history, and not because I’m a part of it.”
Tierney is actually the biggest part of it. He took over Princeton’s team in 1988 and went 2-13 his first year and then 6-8 his second. By Year 3 he was in the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history. Year 5, in 1992, saw the first of those NCAA championships.
The sixth was the most emotional for him, won with his sons Trevor in goal and Brendan on attack. When B.J. Prager’s overtime goal ended it, Tierney dropped to the ground, head in hands, overcome by the moment. Go back to the second championship, an OT win over Virginia in 1994. On that day, Tierney was holding a cup of water in one hand when Kevin Lowe scored the winner and he never spilled a drop.
“I was in a box with Brendan’s class, the ’02 guys, during the Princeton-Duke game,” he says. “Every play. Every goal. Every save. I was so into it. Not that I ever doubted it, but it reignited the … “
He trails off at this point, deep in thought. Now he’s the author, looking for the right words.
“… every coach from every school says they were in a special place. My whole experience at Princeton. My family’s whole experience at Princeton. And now watching it all evolve again. They’ve done such a great job.”
He can watch from the box now. He’s certainly earned that right. His hair is gray. There’s no chance he can bring the fury to the sideline that defined him a quarter of a century ago and beyond that. His current coaching situation is a much different one, a professional one, with minimal actual on-field preparation. And off the field?
“They asked me what kind of music I like,” he says of the Waterdogs. “I said ‘you have any Credence?’ They had no idea what that meant. At Denver, we did this relay run up and down Red Rocks. The losing team always had to sing a song in front of the rest of the team. One year, they asked me ‘what should we sing’ and I said ‘how about Hey Jude?’ They had no idea what that was either.”
Those are his two most recent stops. Since leaving Princeton he’s become a grandfather four times over. He’s won another NCAA title, making him the only coach to win at multiple schools. He’s built a life in Denver, more than 2,000 miles away from the school he put back on the lacrosse map.
“I’ve never felt disconnected from Princeton,” he says. “It was so special. The place. The people. The experience. The program. I can’t tell you how happy Helen was to put on that orange and black to come here.”
Yeah. So was he. It was more than just a rain jacket. It was, again, past meeting present. Bill Tierney. And Princeton back in the NCAA final.
— by Jerry Price
