Roger Gaeckler’s rebuilding plan for the Flying Dutchmen in the mid-1970s included ACTUAL construction.
And at one point during his fourth season at the helm in 1975-76, it seemed as if the construction of a locker room for the Flying Dutchmen was progressing faster than the rebuilding of the roster.
The Dutchmen, featuring three upperclassmen who were freshmen on an 8-16 team in 1973-74 as well as two transfers who debuted for an 11-13 team in 1974-75, were at .500 after two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 games.
“It’s important to kind of on where we came from,” said Ken Rood, who was a freshman on the 1973-74 team along with Rich Laurel and Pat Kammerer. “We were part of a true rebuilding program. The team before we got there was (also) 8-16. Did not have a winning reputation and it took us two years to get to learn how to play with one another.”
One key lineup change late in the 1975-76 campaign proved to be the turning point for the Dutchmen, who won five of their final six regular season games before winning three games in as many days in the East Coast Conference tournament to advance to the 32-team NCAA Tournament — the first trip to the Big Dance for Hofstra as a Division I program.
It was the first of two straight trips to the NCAA Tournament for the Dutchmen, whose renaissance arrived at a perfect time for a school struggling to stay afloat in a sagging economy.
Which brings us to the locker room.
All the men’s athletic programs shared a locker room at the Physical Fitness Center. But with Hofstra’s athletic budget being cut by 70 percent in 1975, Gaeckler and assistant coach Greg Mikalauskas took it upon themselves to construct a separate locker room for their basketball team.
“He didn’t go out and contract it — he built it himself over one weekend,” Rood said this week. “And he and the assistant coaches literally got the hammer and the nails set up and built us our own locker room. That’s how tough, financially, things were back then.”
Gaeckler also realized he had some work to do within the Dutchmen’s locker room. Hofstra had three 1,000-point scorers in Rood, future NBA first-round pick Laurel and John Irving, the latter of whom arrived as a transfer in 1974 and led the nation in rebounding as a junior and senior. Kammerer was a do-everything glue guy while Bernard Tomlin, who also transferred to Hofstra in 1974, was a prolific scorer.
But all that talent hadn’t gelled yet and the players hadn’t fully connected with Gaeckler.
“The players had to learn to respect leadership,” Gaeckler told Newsday in March 1976. “Maybe I had to earn it.
“I think they liked me, trusted me, but they didn’t absolutely respect me as a coach, I sat down and dissected what I was doing. I began to do a lot of soul-searching.”
Tomlin had to do some reflecting, as well, once Gaeckler asked him to swap roles with Rood, who’d been the Dutchmen’s point guard while Tomlin, the lone senior starter in 1975-76, averaged a team-high 19.8 points per game in 1974-75.
“(Tomlin) and I were trying to figure out who was going to be the point (and) who was going to take the shots,” Rood said. “And about midseason, Bernard, to his credit, kind of gave up his scoring role and deferred that to me. He became the point guard and once we made that transition, the pressure of having to play point was gone. I was able to concentrate on what I did best, which was shoot.”
Rood averaged 15.4 points per game — nearly double the 8.2 points he averaged per game in 1974-75 — as he became the secondary scorer behind Laurel (20.3 ppg). Tomlin (12.2 ppg) and Irving (12.1 ppg) also averaged in double figures.
The new look nearly carried the Dutchmen to a Sweet 16 date with unbeaten Rutgers. Hofstra led Connecticut by 16 points in the first half of a first-round game before falling, 80-78, in overtime in Providence, R.I.
Perhaps proving 5-on-8 for a mid-major against a power conference foe is a timeless NCAA Tournament tradition, Laurel fouled out with 7:14 left in regulation before Rood was eventually disqualified as well.
“That game, probably for me personally, was the biggest disappointment because the first half, we were playing so well and clicking on all cylinders,” Rood said. “I look back and that’s the most coulda, shoulda, woulda game in my career.”
The Dutchmen, returning every starter except Tomlin, earned another NCAA Tournament in more dominant fashion in 1976-77, when they went 23-7. Hofstra earned a trio of impressive regular season wins over Duquesne (led by future Los Angeles Lakers star Norm Nixon), nationally ranked Southern Illinois and the ACC’s Virginia.
The Dutchmen won their final six regular season games before closing out another three-game sweep of the ECC tournament with program-validating, double-digit wins over Temple and La Salle, a pair of future Atlantic 10 members. (One of La Salle’s backups that night? Joe Mihalich)
“We went from winning eight games to winning 23 games our senior year, so it was a tremendous accomplishment just to get there,” Rood said. “We beat Temple in ’76 to win the conference and we beat La Salle in ’77. And back then, Temple and La Salle were probably closer to majors than mid-majors.”
There was no near-miss heartbreak in the NCAA Tournament, when Notre Dame — whose roster included future NBA players Dave Batton, Bruce Flowers, Bill Hanzlik, Toby Knight and Duck Williams, who combined to play in 1,219 games at the next level — took a 16-point lead early in the second half and beat the Dutchmen, 90-83, in Philadelphia. Laurel scored 35 points in his Hofstra finale.
“When you count up how many pros they had on that team that night — for us to be competitive with them, we were more proud of that game than we were the UConn game,” Rood said. “Because the UConn game, we should’ve won.”
Almost half a century later, the Dutchmen’s return to the NCAA Tournament carries extra layers of poignancy for Rood.
Speedy Claxton’s comments about these Dutchmen being bonded forever following the CAA Tournament title game win over Monmouth resonated with Rood, who talks weekly with Laurel and Tomlin and regularly attends games at Old Westbury, where Tomlin is the head men’s basketball coach. Rood was close with Kammerer until his death in 2021.
Rood and his teammates received another solemn reminder of their forever connection in November, when Gaeckler died at age 84. Rood and Laurel spoke with Gaeckler via Zoom a few weeks before his passing.
“Never thought it was the last conversation, but I think Rich and I had closure that we were able to say goodbye in our own way,” Rood said. “My teammates and I still get together. We still are close. And that’s all because of what coach Gaeckler did to build a family and to bring us together and get us to not only play as a team but to have a relationship that has endured 50 years.”
Another enduring tradition is on pace to continue Friday, when Rood, who lives in Bridgehampton following a 20-year career as the president of Ralph Lauren, plans to attend the Dutchmen’s game against Alabama in Tampa — just as he attended the 2000 and 2001 NCAA Tournament games in Buffalo and North Carolina, respectively.
He hopes it’s not nearly as long until the next one.
“It’s 50 years since our championship, it’s 25 years since Jay Wright’s championship, so 25, I think, is the operative number here,” Rood said. “Every 25 years, we go to the tournament, And I don’t want to be remiss and not mention Joe Mihalich’s 2020 team that didn’t get to go to the tournament.
“So Hofstra, I think, is owed more tournament bids than it has. But it is a little bit interesting that 25 years (from 1976 to 2001) and then 25 years again. I hope it’s not another 25 years before we get back to the tournament again. I’m sure it won’t be.”
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