A new look for '96 Ivies

Although there are no games being played, the summer is always a busy time in intercollegiate athletics, as it is the season in which programs die or are reborn through coaching changes. Here's how the Ivy League has changed entering the 1996-97 season: · Brown -- Only one major change has been made in Providence. Baseball coach Bill Almon left after a disappointing 12-24 campaign. He has been replaced by Mereck Drabinzki. Brown also upgraded the softball coaching position, and head coach Deb Carreiro, from part-time to full-time for next year. · Columbia -- The Lions made a number of interesting changes during the off-season. The highest profile job to change hands was the women's basketball position. After five miserable seasons (five league wins in as many years), Kerry Phayre is out, replaced by Jay Butler. Other new coaches are Mike Zimmer (women's crew), Carolyn Elwood (volleyball), and a still-to-be-named lightweight crew coach. Long the only Ivy League school not to field lacrosse teams, Columbia will start a women's team in 1997. It has hired Celine Cunningham as the inaugural head coach. According to the Columbia Athletic Communications Department, the start of a women's program does not indicate any movement toward fielding a men's team. · Cornell -- The biggest news out of Ithaca in the off-season was the resignation, probably under pressure, of men's basketball coach Al Walker in late spring. New boss Scott Thompson, former head man at Rice and Wichita State, will try to improve on Walker's three-year 12-30 Ivy League mark. The last laugh may be Walker's though, as he wound up basketball coach and athletic director at Chaminade, conveniently located on the big island of Hawaii. Other news includes the additions of Katherine Barnard (women's tennis) and Dan Roock (heavyweight crew), as well as splitting the swimming duties between two coaches. Joe Lucia had led both, but will now concentrate on the men's squad, while new hiring Pam Armold works with the women. · Dartmouth -- The Big Green will have a pair of new coaches next season. After six seasons and two NCAA tourney appearances, women's soccer coach Steve Swanson abandoned his talented team to take the same position at Stanford. Neil Orr will assume the reins in an interm capacity. The women's swimming program will also be under new leadership. Betsy Mitchell resigned after six seasons at the helm to go to graduate school. Her successor is Joann Brislin, a long-time assistant at Washington. · Harvard -- Stability is king in Cambridge. All Crimson teams will be led by the same coaches. · Princeton -- Several nationally-known Tigers coaches will not be back next season. Chief among them, of course, is Pete Carril, who finally retired as men's basketball coach after 29 seasons. Carril will work in an ill-defined ("Whatever they want me to do, I'll do," Carril said in June) assistant position with the NBA's Sacramento Kings. His replacement is long-time assistant Bill Carmody. Also going pro is men's soccer coach Bob Bradley. After 11 years with the Tigers, Bradley joined the staff of Major League Soccer's DC United, where he works under good friend and United States Men's Olympic team coach Bruce Arena. He will be followed at Princeton by his former player and assistant Jim Barlow. · Yale -- The Elis will have two new head coaches next season. The first is Brian Tompkins, the former head soccer coach at Midwest power Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who has accepted the post at Yale. The Englishman becomes only the seventh head coach in the last 70 years for the men's team. Steve Griggs, whose 18-year stint as head man included three Ivy League titles, retired in February. The other newcomer in New Haven is softball coach Andy Van Etten. Actually he's not all that new as he spent three years as an assistant to departed Kathy Arendsen, now at Mississippi St., before taking over the team on an interim basis in January.