The men’s basketball team recently received a generous donation of $100,000. The money should be used to update facilities and resign Bill Coen, a great asset to our sports program at Northeastern. The elimination of our football program has weakened Northeastern sport’s fans moral and this can be an excellent opportunity to show that Northeastern is serious about improving sports. Last season, it became evident that Northeastern’s basketball team has a surmountable amount of potential and if the hefty fund awarded to Northeastern is used on them, it will stoke the fire that’s already burning.
Most fans of the team will agree that our current coach, Bill Coen, has contributed a lot to the excitement the team has gotten lately.
Bill Coen has been the coach of our basketball team since 2006 and has shown his ability to improve the foundation of Northeastern sports by coaching an impressive season of 20-13, which ended only last month.
Coen accomplishes a lot on the court, while also making sure players are concentrating on academics. In the 2007-08 season, the Northeastern basketball team had three CAA All-Academic award honorees, which was partly due to Coen’s leadership skills. This is an example of Coen’s concentration on having well-rounded players, a major factor in Northeastern administration decisions.
As Coen’s contract expired, rumors circulated that their were other offers being made that would lead Coen to another college coaching position, specifically at Boston College where he spent nine years as head coach. Although the job went to another candidate Tuesday, Coen made a trip to BC last week-presumably to interview for the spot. But, regardless if the rumors are true or not, it’s a scary thought. It would be a huge disappointment for Northeastern sports fans to lose a head coach of high quality and is the reason why Northeastern should negotiate new contract terms as soon as possible.
There has been notification from WRBB Sports that Coen and the administration are in the midst of negotiating a new contract, but the details were kept confidential during a January SGA meeting regarding the skepticism in January.
According to Northeastern’s website, Al Skinner, former BC coach holding the record for most wins in history at the college, said Coen played an important role in achieving BC’s success, which transferred to Northeastern. Although it would seem like Skinner would stay longer at BC, his contract was ended last week. Coen hasn’t been at Northeastern nearly as long as Skinner was at BC, 14 years, but Coen’s role in Northeastern sports shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Ed Matz, former head coach of the women’s soccer team, left Northeastern because of the lack of commitment the school was willing to put to the high scoring team. Matz transferred to UMASS, where the team is reaping the benefits of his work.
Now that we have the extra funds, there shouldn’t be any excuse to pacify the need to improve our basketball team.
