A FRONT ROW VIEW: Princeton is where Penn wants to be

1988. Penn lacrosse had its best season in history. The Quakers reached the NCAA Final Four that year for the first and only time. Their dreams of capturing Penn's first national championship ended in a 11-10 thriller to Syracuse in the Semfinals. The Orangemen went on to win the tournament, the first of three consecutive national championships. 1988. Princeton -- the doormat of the Ancient Eight, winners of only five Ivy games the previous four years -- began its first season under coach Bill Tierney. Tierney, whose only previous head coaching experience was with Rochester Institute of Technology, an obscure Division III school, did not have much success in his first Division I campaign. The Tigers went winless in Ivy League games en route to a 2-13 season. Since that pivotal 1988 season, Penn lacrosse has been in a tailspin it has been unable to stop. It has had losing records the last five seasons. Going into the 1995 campaign, the Quakers lost 16 of 27 lettermen from last year's team -- by far the worst percentage in the Ivy League. Princeton, once the weak sister of the Ivy League, has become the Big Brother. It was an NCAA quarterfinalist in 1990 and 1991. And in 1992, the Tigers became national champions with a 10-9 double overtime win over Syracuse, ending the Orangemen's mini-dynasty. After reaching the Final Four in 1993, Tierney led the Tigers to their second championship in three years last season with a 9-8 win over Virginia. This season, the Penn administration has chosen a new coach, Terry Corcoran, to lead the Quakers. Like Tierney, Corcoran was hired to turn a slumping program around. Like Tierney, Corcoran's previous head coaching experience was with a Division III school (Washington College in Maryland). Like Tierney, Corcoran was named Division III coach of the year. And most importantly, like Tierney, Corcoran is a winner. Both coaches have won roughly 70 percent of their games in their coaching careers. What was Tierney's magic formula for the Tigers revival? Corcoran should take notes. "A lot of people have said to me, 'wow, what an accomplishment,' " said Tierney, who was also named Division I coach of the year in 1992. "But I don't think it is anything supernatural we did." What Tierney did accomplish at Princeton was attract players who could win. A coach can only do so much from the sidelines. Case in point: In Tierney's first year coaching the Tigers, with players the last coach recruited, the Tigers could only muster that 2-13 record. The victories during the season are won in the real battle of college athletics -- high school recruiting. Tierney was able to win the championship with his first recruiting class. Going into that all-important first recruiting off-season, Tierney was armed with two selling points: The academic reputation of Princeton and the likelihood of a lot of playing time. But these factors do not really explain Tierney's ability to pick out national champions from a cast of thousands. Any Ivy League school can offer these perks, especially if its current crop of players lacks skill. In many ways, Tierney's recruiting success results from not being the stereotypical win-at-all-costs college coach. Tierney looks for winning characters -- even more than pure talent -- when replenishing his roster. It is not because he has a need to be surrounded by boy scouts. He feels, and it is hard to argue with success, that this is the way to win. "I only recruit kids from winning high school programs because I think at this level everyone is basically equal," Tierney said. "It's just a matter of finding a kid who knows how to win and would sacrifice athletic time for academics and academic time for athletics." Not too many coaches look for players to sacrifice athletic time for academics. Not too many coaches start off conversations with potential recruits by grilling them about their grades. "We start very quickly in stressing academics, stressing the sacrifice they will make," Tierney said. "They will not be put on a pedestal in class by any means. We go through all of that first. All the ground rules it takes to be a student-athlete." The academic achievements of his team are perhaps the only achievement that matches, and arguably surpasses, its on-field exploits. In the Tierney era, Princeton has had more scholastic all-Americans than any other university in the country, a 100 percent graduation rate, and an average GPA of over 3.1 the last five seasons. Tierney calls the perception that a player's athletic and academic ability are inversely related "a myth." Refreshingly, his program goes a long way in proving that assertion. "We made an effort to go with the top student-athletes," Tierney said. "I think when people take short cuts, taking a kid who has shortcomings academically, you're telling the team that you want shortcuts." Tierney is very conscious of how his team perceives him. His advice to other lacrosse coaches is to work hard. He believes that a coach's effort rubs off on the team -- whether in a positive or negative manner. "These kids are very bright," Tierney said. "They know when you're not working as hard as you're capable of working." Along with hard work, Tierney instills another often-forgotten value on his team -- discipline. He does not have much patience with the flashy, individual-oriented approach that epitomizes sports today. On his team, earrings, beards, and bandannas are banned. Tierney does not take coaching advice from the American Civil Liberties Union. Do the players complain? "Absolutely," Tierney said with some relish. "They ask, 'How does that affect my play on the field?' I answer, 'It doesn't, it affects the team.' " Whether Corcoran can attract the same level of players or maintain the same discipline remains to be seen. The Quakers have dropped their first three Ivy League games, including an 18-17 heartbreaker at Cornell last Saturday. Princeton, currently ranked No. 5 in the country, comes into Franklin Field this afternoon with five consecutive wins over the Quakers. If Corcoran is looking for a blueprint to restore his struggling squad to its 1988-level, or even better, the opposing sideline would be a good place to start. Michael Hasday is a College sophomore from Scarsdale, N.Y. and a sports writer for The Daily Pennsylvanian.