Union keeps winning

Despite the departure of now-Penn football coach Al Bagnoli, the Dutchmen have thrived. If Union College has any claim to fame, it is as the answer to a trivia question: what American college developed the first Greek system? Much the same knowledge of Union prevailed at Penn until the second day of 1992 when its football coach, Al Bagnoli, took the reins of the Quakers. Union now answered two trivia questions in on the Penn campus. But Union's success under Bagnoli, and the surprising success that has persisted, has been anything but trivial. In fact the Division III Dutchmen have won over 83 percent of their games since Bagnoli left, slightly ahead of Bagnoli's own .780 clip at Franklin Field. The man who had the unenviable task of succeeding Bagnoli at Union, located in Schenectady, N.Y., just northeast of Albany, was John Audino, Bagnoli's former assistant. "With Al leaving, there was a sense with some people of 'Hey, what's going to happen to our football program'," said Union athletic director Richard Sakala, who has overseen sports at the school for over two decades. "But -- and I use this term a lot with John -- we didn't miss a beat." Even Audino admits, however, that following Bagnoli was an intimidating experience. In the previous nine seasons, Bagnoli's teams had seven winning seasons and two .500 campaigns. In 1983 and 1989, the Dutchmen appeared in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, the Division III title game, losing both times. This after Union had suffered no less than 12 straight losing seasons. "Whenever you get into a situation like this, or like Penn, the new guy in is always going to be under a microscope a heck of a lot more than the guy who left or the guy that lost," Audino said. "When you do have big shoes to fill and you have to follow a legend-type of a coach, there's a lot of pressure a coach puts on himself and I think that's what happened to us." What happened to Union was, by its standards, a mediocre 6-3 season -- "a victim of our own success," in Audino's view. With Bagnoli's recruits and fans expecting a one-or-fewer-loss year, Audino admits he felt the heat. "We tried to keep things pretty much status quo, and that may have been a mistake in terms of X's and O's and personnel and terminology," Audino said. "Since the first year, I think we've been very comfortable with ourselves in terms of the staff and kids. And we've had nice run." After that lackluster 1992 campaign, Union has returned to its '80s form, reaching either NCAA or ECAC playoffs every year. Audino's career has criss-crossed with Bagnoli's. An assistant at Union in the early 1980s, he worked in West Philadelphia during the tenure of Quakers coach Ed Zubrow in 1986 as wide receivers and quarterbacks coach, departing when Zubrow resigned in 1989. Audino coached at Division III Kean College in northern New Jersey for two seasons. When Bagnoli made his much-anticipated move out of Division III, Audino could have returned to Penn, a job Audino could advise his friend to take. "Al and I talk all the time -- we're very good friends and we've always talked about different opportunities," Audino said. "I know he's the kind of guy who wants to make sure he finishes his business, which he certainly did at Union? I did talk to him, tried to help him out as much as could about why Penn was a good place to coach. My personal opinion -- I thought he was a natural for the job because there were a lot of similarities between Penn and Union's programs, academically and athletically." Entering its sixth season since Audino took over, Bagnoli is only a distant memory for most. But his legacy, a yearly winner, lives on. That may not be Bagnoli's only long-term contribution, though. Bagnoli's move was the first in a veritable mass migration of Union-connected coaches to the Ivies. Yale's new head man, Jack Siedlecki, is a 1974 Union graduate, while Brown's Mark Whipple was Dutchmen offensive coordinator for two seasons. The trail leads to Schenectady as well. Union admissions coordinator Dan Lundquist worked at Penn in the Zubrow era. Audino makes no secret of a desire to join. "My professional goal has always been to improve my position as a football coach," said Audino, who in the same breath acknowledges an "excellent situation" at Union. "Certainly, there's a lot of people in the [Ivy] League that are peers are mine? I would love to be an Ivy League head coach, a Patriot League head coach and do what all my other friends are doing." For his part, Sakala realizes the place Union occupies in the college football pecking order. Audino's days may be numbered. "I wouldn't surprise me," Sakala said. "I look at John much the same way I looked at Al Bagnoli."

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