Edwards sets the standard for Hofstra softball

At first listen, Flying Dutchwomen softball coach Bill Edwards is the most vanilla of speakers, someone who talks about staying in a routine and taking everything one day at a time and not getting too high or too low.

But Edwards' words are a lot more than just recitations from someone who has read The Great Book Of Sports Cliches. They are words of experience from someone who has spent five decades in coaching and has modified his approach the last 23 years so that it is decidedly different than the one he used as a football and hockey coach earlier in his career.

It has been a wildly successful approach: The Flying Dutchwomen begin play in their 13th NCAA Tournament under Edwards—all since 1993—tonight at UCLA when they play the host Bruins.

"I've had to adjust to softball, which was different than when I coached football and different when I coached some hockey," Edwards said this week. "Coaching those sports, you needed the energy, you needed a fire, you needed the competitive spirit. You needed them to get a little bit excited—overly excited, because they're all contact sports and you want to do the things that you have to do to be successful in those sports.

"In our game, we have to relax. We have to be in the same tenor, the same feeling of confidence, the same mode in order to perform. We can't get too high because then we start throwing the ball away. We can't get excited because then we overrun a groundball. We can't get excited because then we start swinging at pitches outside the zone. So just keep everything the same, keep them relaxed, keep them focused now hat they have to do as individual student-athletes."

Edwards' words are also those of someone who manages to create chemistry by getting everyone to, quite literally, check their egos at the door. The all-day rains Tuesday forced the Dutchwomen to practice in the bubble near the tennis courts, and after practice, Edwards went ahead of his players and opened the door to the Physical Fitness Center. He held the door open as pairs of teammates walked through toting equipment.

The players were pictures of symmetry, with the first person to walk through the door silently stepping to the right as the person behind her took control and guided the equipment and her teammate through the other set of doors and into the PFC's gym.

"They're not afraid to get their hands dirty," Edwards said. "They're not afraid to pick up screens. They're not afraid to carry stuff. They're very receptive to the things we ask them to do. No one ever rolls their eyes. It's just the way Hofstra softball is. And it's the kind of kid that we recruit: Hard-working, put a light on the miner hat, bring your lunch bucket to work. That’s everything that we want our kids to be."

Most impressively, Edwards gets the Dutchwomen to focus on the tiniest and most immediate of objectives, yet also understands how important it is to current players to measure up to their predecessors at Hofstra.

This year marked the 21st straight season in which the Dutchwomen won either the regular season championship or conference tournament and the 13^th time in the last 15 years they won the tournament. The Dutchwomen didn't win the conference tournament in 2009, which they responded to in 2010 by winning 21 of 23 CAA games (including the tournament) and nearly forcing an elimination game against Arizona in a regional.

The Dutchwomen were upset by Georgia State in last year's CAA tournament. The reaction: Hofstra enters the NCAA Tournament an absurd 34-1 in its last 35 games. The Dutchwomen have won 17 in a row and just completed a perfect CAA season in which they won all 21 regular season games before sweeping three tournament games last week at Hofstra Softball Stadium.

So rest assured these Dutchwomen know the opportunity they have beginning tonight. A College World Series is the one thing missing from Edwards' resume, but the Dutchwomen have a legitimate shot at history thanks to record-breaking ace Olivia Galati (30-5, 0.90 ERA, a 331/22 strikeout-to-walk ratio) and their potent offense (.301 team batting average).

"I think this team really wanted to—and I don't like this word—revenge [for] last year," Edwards said. "I don't like that word, because I don't think it has a place in our athletics, but they really wanted it. They want to establish their identity. The seniors wanted to have their banner on the wall. They know the tradition of our program. They don't like to have the tradition taken from us.

"So I think they were very much aware of what they had to do in order to get it done."

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Defiantly Dutch Q&A: Tom Yeager

Well, of all the people I expected to see when I rolled out of bed this morning, Tom Yeager was about last on the list. But there he was in Hempstead for the Jeff Hathaway press conference while VCU prepared for its own press conference announcing its immediate departure for the Atlantic 10. Yeager was kind enough to give us a few minutes of time to discuss the state of the CAA. As always, we have it better. Here is our conversation.

If what we're all reading on Twitter is correct, there's some pretty big CAA news about to happen, What brings you here today?

Well, it's a combination of things. President Rabinowitz is chair of our council of presidents. We have our annual meetings coming up, so it was a chance to kind of dovetail the two of them together. And what you're hearing is correct.

You were adamant on the conference call a few weeks ago that VCU and Mason weren't leaving…

Mason didn't. And over the next couple of weeks, VCU made up their mind to leave.

Were you surprised by their departure?

Yes. But you know what? The good part of this business, the bad part of this business, is results will tell the tale.

Was coming here today a sign of support for those schools that aren’t going anywhere?

No, no. I was coming here. The VCU thing just developed after this was scheduled.

How is realignment 2012 different than realignment 2000-2001?

This go-around is so much more widespread. Back then, it was more limited. This round, there's a near-hysteria on some fronts and people jumping around. It's going to take time to see [the results]. There have been a lot of decisions being made for all different kinds of reasons. Time will tell which ones were good.

You talk about the results telling the tale. Are you galvanized now by the success the CAA had after 2001?

Yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah, sure. In 2000 people were saying the grave was dug. They were shoveling dirt on us. We did OK. We had national champions, two men's basketball Final Fours, we had a record number of teams in other sports participating [in the NCAA Tournament]. When you start with good universities that have good leadership, good coaches and good student-athletes, I'll take that. I'll take that right now.

We have a ton of guys—Justin Verlander, he played here. Joe Flacco played here. Marques Colston. You've got them all and we have tons of soccer kids out there [playing professionally]. We're going to have a bunch of people in the Olympics. And most or all of them are graduates. I can think of a worse fate in life than that.

I know there's not much you can probably say about this, but do you have a timetable for getting back to 12 and/or a geographical area you'd like to tackle?

This is part of the evaluation everybody's doing. I think we want to look first and foremost at institutions that bring something to the table. You just don't want to fill out [and say] 'OK let's get back to 12 and let's pick two.' You want to have somebody that brings a requisite amount of assets and contributions to the good of the group.

Have you thought about next year's men's basketball tournament and how it will play out in terms of scheduling?

There's no Friday games at this point. Get back to the old days—just everybody lays three games. You're in and out.

You seem calm about this. Does your stomach churn at night thinking about all the possibilities?

Yeah, absolutely, I didn't sleep very well last night in the hotel. Because [he's] more emotionally invested in this stuff. I've been doing this a long time at this place. Got a lot invested in what we built. And people saying bad things about you—your girlfriend just dumped you, your wife just said 'Ahh, I'm gonna go hook up with somebody else.' Yeah, it's not a good day. But you know what? It's a disappointing loss. There's another game next week. So get ready to play.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Hathaway named new Hofstra AD

It probably won’t be the biggest news of the day in the CAA, but Hofstra has a major announcement of its own scheduled for 11 a.m., when ex-UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway—last seen running teh Selection Committee—is introduced as the school's new athletic director.

But unlike VCU's likely exit to the Atlantic 10, this news qualifies as a sizable surprise. Those in the know expected the search to last well into the summer, but it took Stuart Rabinowitz just 40 days to identify Hathaway as the successor to Jack Hayes. The search for Hayes back in 2004 took more than six months and featured Rabinowitz turning down the search committee's recommendation of ex-Stony Brook AD Richard Laskowski.

It is also somewhat surprising that Rabinowitz chose another AD from the UConn tree. It's a sign that ex-Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese, who consulted with Hayes prior to the Tim Welsh hiring, wasn't banished in the aftermath of the Welsh DUI debacle. And it's also a sign Rabinowitz holds no grudges over the departure of Hayes for Brown.

(It's also a sign that he apparently wants to bring in every former men's basketball Selection Committee chair who mistreated Hofstra and/or Hofstra's conference. If Tom O'Connor or Craig Littlepage end up at Hofstra as anything other than meter maids—and we don't even have parking meters!— I am done)

Hathaway also arrives with the type of pockmarked—with a caveat—resume that one would not normally associate with a Rabinowitz hire. While both UConn basketball teams won multiple national championships during Hathaway's eight-year tenure and the football team (Football team? What's that?) won a Big East title, the men's basketball program suffered from declining APR scores and graduation rates and was the subject of a 15-month investigation by the NCAA in which the school admitted committing major violations for which it imposed upon itself two years of probation.

It was just a decade ago, of course, that Rabinowitz suspended men's basketball starters Rick Apodaca and Wendell Gibson half a season for failing a drug test. Hiring Hathaway is more evidence Rabinowitz recognizes the stakes have gone up for Hofstra as it tries to compete with and eventually escape the CAA—you can bet Hathaway's ties to big-time conferences will be emphasized today as a necessity in this era of constant realignment—as well as his attempt to convince a skeptical fan base of his commitment to athletics.

Hiring Hathaway is also a sign that Rabinowitz believes what just about anyone with a pulse believes: That any problems with the UConn men's basketball program can almost surely be traced back to one person and one person alone—the all-powerful Jim Calhoun, with whom Hathaway reportedly had a frosty relationship before Hathaway "retired" last year.

Not surprising is Rabinowitz going outside the Hofstra family to make this hire instead of handing the reins to interim AD Danny McCabe, which is rather ironic considering he got the presidency as the lone internal candidate back in 2000. Hofstra was a school defined by athletic stability for a long time, with Harry Royle replacing Jim Garvey as athletic director in the late '90s and Tom Pecora replacing Jay Wright as men's basketball coach within days in 2001.

Rabinowitz is far from the only executive, for lack of a better term, to prefer outsiders these days, but that won’t make today any less nerve-wracking for athletic department employees, all of whom are surely aware of how a new AD tends to like to bring in his own people and many of whom were hired by Hayes. It is a reasonably good sign that McCabe will remain at Hofstra, per Newsday, as the executive director of athletics.

As for the Flying Dutchmen basketball team—the anchor of Hofstra athletics and a program desperate for some stability after two unprecedented years of turmoil—it is also a decent sign for Mo Cassara that his 2012-13 squad features UConn transfer Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and that his coaching staff includes ex-UConn assistant Patrick Sellers, who resigned in the wake of the NCAA's investigation in 2010 but was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Hopefully Hathaway will come in and engage in actual evaluation (a popular buzzword for new ADs) of the current staff and leave the broom (a popular weapon for new ADs) at home. Some turnover is inevitable, but at every level of Hofstra sports Hathaway will find good, hard-working people who embody all the principles espoused by the school. His job will be much easier, and Hofstra will have a better chance of reaching the heights Rabinowitz will say today he wants to attain, if Hathaway immediately tries to foster an environment of stability for a department that has suffered far too much tumult the past three years.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Of the rumours in the air and how Hofstra may benefit

A Night Ranger song relevant to the topic. Thank you realignment!

Let's hand it to the CAA, or whatever is left of it and its renegade Virginia-based core members at this early morning moment: It is an equal opportunity provider. Multiple times per week, news and/or rumors break that supply a chance to write with some clarity about this murky, messy, mucked up situation. And multiple times per week, news and/or rumors break that make it utterly impossible to write with some clarity about this murky, messy, mucked up situation.

Sometimes, both things happen in the same day. Like yesterday, when CBSSports.com's Brett McMurphy reported Conference USA is adding Old Dominion and five other schools for the 2013-14 season. The Virginian Pilot wasn't quite as declarative later Tuesday, when it reported Old Dominion to C-USA was not a done deal but that the conference wanted an answer from the school by the end of the week.

Regardless, the news/rumors brought a sudden end to the temporary tranquility the CAA was enjoying after the Daily Press reported Saturday VCU would remain in the league for at least another year and not immediately jump to the Atlantic 10. Of course, a one-year "commitment" recommended by an athletic director who will be calling Minnesota home later this month shouldn't have given anyone a long-term sense of security or stability.

Now? My guess is if Old Dominion leaves for C-USA, it will have done the dirty work for VCU and George Mason by giving them the opening they needs to spin their exits—exits that were probably going to happen anyway—from the CAA as a search for stability.

There's no way to spin this: It will be very bad news for the CAA as a whole if the three schools that have combined to win the last six CAA titles and 13 of the last 18 overall bolt.

But it'd be pretty easy to spin it as good news for the Flying Dutchmen, both in the short- and long-term.

If Old Dominion, VCU and Mason all leave, they will presumably be ineligible to participate in next year's CAA tournament. (I don't know if the CAA can bar a school from participating in the tournament if it announces its intentions to leave in mid-year—don't underestimate all three schools dragging out the decision-making process in hopes of keeping their NCAA hopes alive) Subtract UNC Wilmington and Towson—each likely to be ineligible for postseason play due to their APR issues—and there would be a grand total of seven teams competing for the title in Richmond.

This would be GREAT news for the Flying Dutchmen as well as everyone else sticking around. Hofstra would still not be a favorite in this scenario—that honor would probably be shared by Drexel and Delaware—but the path to the NCAA's is a lot clearer with the big three gone and only seven teams in the tournament.

In the longer term, Hofstra has been absent from the realignment talk (that we know of, anyway), as has the rest of the America East five (that we know of, anyway) and UNC Wilmington (that we know of, anyway), and, to a large degree, James Madison and William & Mary (that we know of anyway).

The irrelevance makes sense on multiple levels. As noted above, VCU, Old Dominion and Mason have been the conference's marquee programs (though UNC Wilmington is the only school still in the CAA to win a title in the last 18 years). They have the cache that other conferences want.

It's also appropriate the America East five and UNC Wilmington have been ignored as everyone frets over the future of the CAA, which can talk all it wants about the footprint but has made it abundantly clear it cares the most about the schools located inside the 10th of the original colonies (American history lesson!). Now that those schools may be the ones that end the CAA as we know it, and lead to a worst-case scenario of mass defections of core members, the CAA might find itself needing the AE5 to save its backside all over again. (Oh yes, we haven't forgotten)

Let's assume (yeah yeah I know what happens when you assume) that Old Dominion, VCU and Mason all leave. That drops the CAA to eight members: Hofstra, Delaware, Drexel, Northeastern, Towson, James Madison, William & Mary and UNC Wilmington. In order to maintain its automatic bid, a league must have at least six schools that have been in the league for at least five consecutive years.

At this moment—and again, anything can change at any moment—it looks like non-football schools Hofstra, Drexel, Northeastern and UNC Wilmington are the most stable. In that case, just ONE more school has to stick around—either William & Mary remains or one of the trio of Delaware, Towson and James Madison decides I-A football is a bloody awful idea—for the CAA to keep its NCAA golden ticket as it rebuilds around what is now its northeast-based core. After years of drawing the short straw, Hofstra, et al, would now be in a position of power—maybe even powerful enough TO GET THE TOURNAMENT ROTATED AMONG A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT SITES.

Who knew we might be able to get the conference home we wanted by hanging tight? And all it would take is anarchy in the CAA. Bad for the league, terrible for tradition, but pretty damn good for Hofstra. Unless what's happening to the CAA is what happened to the East Coast Conference, in which case this isn't good for Hofstra. We'll have more on that possibility later in the week. Unless there's nothing to write about. I'm not really sure.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

In which I request your help to save The Chronicle's office

Despite what has turned into my annual springtime silence here at Defiantly Dutch, there are no shortage of interesting Hofstra-related sports topics to cover. And in the days and weeks to come, I will—I swear—write about the baseball team enjoying its most successful season ever, the softball team returning to its usual level of ruthless dominance, the search for a new athletic director and, of course, the ever-fluid future of the CAA (Today: EVERYTHING IS GREAT! Who knows how things will be tomorrow, though)

But today is for a cause even more important to me than Hofstra sports. I am writing to express my support for Hofstra's student newspaper, The Chronicle, as it tries to remain in its long-time office in the Student Center. Hofstra's Student Government Association has proposed a realignment of the second floor offices in the Student Center, including moving The Chronicle about 20 feet down the hall into a much smaller space that is currently occupied by the Nonsense humor magazine, and will meet to vote on the issue Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Such administrative issues between SGA and The Chronicle might not seem even tangentially related to Hofstra sports, yet without The Chronicle there would be no Defiantly Dutch (go ahead, Mason fans, have your fun).

The Chronicle is as old as Hofstra itself, and while nobody can say for sure if the office is similarly aged, nobody can remember when the newspaper was housed anywhere else. Room 203 in the Student Center has been the home of hundreds of student journalists who spent more time there than in our dorm rooms—or in classrooms for that matter—and learned priceless lessons that no amount of tuition could ever buy and no amount of communication classes could ever teach.

We laughed and cried, fought and made up, flirted and fell in love, screwed up and earned the admiration of our peers, sometimes all in the same night. In that office we learned how mutual passions and goals could supersede suspicious first impressions, unite otherwise dissimilar people and create lifelong friendships.

Of course, sometimes it wasn't that complicated. I remember the day 18 years ago this month when I saw a very cute and very pretty news writer walk in wearing a New York Yankees 1961 jacket. Michelle and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in June and welcome our first child in September. By our count, we are one of four Chronicle marriages from that era while our child will be the third Chronicle baby.

Interpersonal relationships aside, there was something magical about that office, sensed by all who inhabited it even if it was hard to describe. It was equal parts invigorating and humbling to know we were sharing the same office space as those who'd produced The Chronicle decades earlier, and exciting to think of future journalists walking in with wide-eyed wonder before they became the next link in the chain and generated their own memories.

When I think of The Chronicle office, I am reminded of the last—and probably only—pure journalistic enterprise in which any of us would ever participate. We didn't have to worry about "doing more with less" or compromising our coverage because of real world issues such as staff (or lack thereof) and the type of conflicts between business and editorial that we were never told about in a class about journalistic theory. We had all the resources to do the best job we could possibly do.

The office has certainly undergone transformations over the years. When we attended The Chronicle reunion last April, we were excited to see the darkroom (GOOGLE IT) had turned into the library where the paper's archives were stored. The computers were certainly faster and better than anything we could have imagined in the mid-1990s.

We were amazed upon seeing the modernity of the back right corner of the office, which now features two sleek looking couches as well as a wide screen flat TV. Back in our day, the office was partially closed off by a file cabinet and contained a perpetually messy desk on which we cropped photos and pasted up that week's paper for delivery to the printer (GOOGLE EVERYTHING) as well a decrepit couch on which many of us slept off Wednesday night layout exhaustion and Friday afternoon hangovers.

We were disappointed to see the "Tuition Bricks"—at the end of every year, the editor-in-chief would write on a brick the cost per credit to attend Hofstra and place it on a wall to serve as a timeline of the school's skyrocketing tuition—had disappeared over time, but thrilled to see plaques and certificates honoring the newspaper's achievements through the years hanging around the office. And my heart swelled with (you guessed it) pride as I saw a framed masthead from 1995-96—my year as managing editor—hanging just to the right of the entrance.

The décor was different but it was still The Chronicle office, a place where technology could not change the common experience shared by everyone in the room. Moving to a different—and much smaller—office is unimaginable for a newspaper that not only needs the space provided by Room 203 to produce each issue but for an institution that appreciates its history and continues to rely on it after more than 75 years of publication.

If you ever wrote for The Chronicle or ever read an issue—or even if you've never stepped foot on Hofstra's campus yet value the tradition of a college newspaper—I implore you to write to the Hofstra SGA today at Hofstra.sga@gmail.com and ask them to keep The Chronicle in the only home any of us have ever known. Email addresses for each member of the SGA can be found here. Also send your letters to former Chronicle editor Lisa DiCarlucci (l.dicarlucci@gmail.com) and express your support for The Chronicle at the Facebook page she has started for this cause. On behalf of every Chronicle alumni, I thank you.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

What will uncertainty yield following Hayes’ departure?

We should have known better than to think Hofstra would be immune from the free-for-all enveloping the CAA this off-season. Those of us who breathed a sigh of relief as Georgia State prepped to exit the CAA (gosh I guess that must have been some hastily called cocktail party!), rumors continued to fly about the long-term home for VCU and George Mason and the bottom fell out once again for UNC Wilmington got a swift kick in the Tony Skinns late last night, when Jeff Goodman of CBSSports.com reported Hofstra athletic director Jack Hayes is leaving to accept the same position at Brown University. According to a source, Hayes will be introduced at a press conference today at 1 p.m.

Hayes will have to do more with less at Brown—the school fielded 35 teams with an athletic budget of almost $15.8 million in 2011 while Hofstra fielded 17 teams with athletic budget just shy of $17.5 million; all monetary figures from BasketballState.com—but the move to the Ivy League is certainly a step up in prestige as well as a chance to return home. Hayes is a native of Providence, Rhode Island, the same city in which Brown is located, and graduated from Providence College in 1989.

As for the school he’s exiting after more than seven years at the helm: There’s cause for concern for Hofstra’s head coaches and fans alike. New athletic directors tend to like to bring in their own coaches, and of the 15 coaches that were on campus when Hayes arrived in October 2004, seven were elsewhere within two years.

In fairness to Hayes, three of those (football coach Joe Gardi, volleyball coach Fran Kalafer and women’s soccer coach Joanne Russell) retired, three others (women’s basketball coach Felisha Legette-Jack, wrestling coach Tom Ryan and men’s lacrosse coach John Danowski) moved up to BCS schools and the seventh (women’s lacrosse coach Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe) went to her alma mater (James Madison).

Still: Suffice to say Mo Cassara and the rest of the head coaches are a bit tenser this morning than yesterday. The uncertainty is no fun for anyone, but especially a men’s basketball program that is just getting to the point of stability after two seasons of almost constant tumult.

The good news for Cassara is he’s got the most powerful ally of all in president Stuart Rabinowitz, who signed Cassara to a long-term extension just after his rookie season and is fond of the coach. History works a bit in Cassara’s favor as well: Tom Pecora had just completed the first year of his second contract when Hayes was hired in October 2004 and he stayed on another six years.

This morning’s uncertainty isn’t all that pleasant for fans, either, who have been fretting about Rabinowitz and athletics since he disposed of football in December 2009. We are told often of how enthusiastic Rabinowitz is about sports, despite his infrequent attendance at games, but he can declare the university’s commitment to this level of athletics with this hire.

It would be encouraging if Hofstra hired from within to maintain continuity, and a source indicated this morning Danny McCabe, Hayes’ longtime assistant, will be the interim AD. If McCabe or another internal candidate doesn’t get the permanent gig, let’s hope Rabinowitz oversees a smoother search than last time, when he turned down the search committee's initial recommendation of former Stony Brook AD Richard Laskowski, and one that ends with someone whose pedigree suggests Hofstra is looking to keep the status quo—i.e. make the best of a borderline lousy situation in the CAA while trying to position itself for a move up at some point.

As for Hayes, like most athletic directors, he leaves behind a resume with plenty of pluses and minuses. Many fans will forever associate him with the demise of football, though that was a decision that clearly came from above. He bolstered fundraising for the Pride Club, which raised $1 million in three straight years under his watch, and increased corporate sponsorships.

In retrospect, though, the “re-seating” policy for season ticket holders at Hofstra Arena instituted following the Flying Dutchmen’s wildly successful 2005-06 season was too much too soon. Coincidentally, one of Hayes’ final acts as AD was sending a letter to men’s basketball season ticket holders informing them reseating (which was supposed to take place again prior to this coming season) will be suspended for at least two more years.

Several facilities were built (including Hofstra Field Hockey Stadium) or refurbished (including University Field, the home of the baseball team) during Hayes’ tenure while Shuart Stadium hosted the NCAA men’s lacrosse quarterfinals in 2009 and 2011. He also brought back the Hofstra Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006 and retired more than 20 numbers over the last four years.

Hayes was hired as the eighth athletic director in Hofstra history on October 4, 2004. With almost eight years on the job, his tenure ranks as the fourth longest, in terms of continuous service, at the school, behind Howdy Myers (23 years), Bob Getchell (12 years) and Jim Garvey (10 years). Hofstra’s first two athletic directors, John Bartlett MacDonald and John Archer Smith, each spent eight years in the position over two different stints.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

DEFIANTLY DUTCH EXCLUSIVE: Hofstra is joining the Atlantic 10!

Tom Yeager was right: The Atlantic 10 hasn’t been talking to George Mason and VCU. But the A-10 has been talking to Hofstra—and is about to cement itself as the premier basketball conference on the east coast by luring the school from the CAA.

“It’s a done deal,” said a source nowhere close to the negotiations. “Hofstra will be in the A-10 for the fall.”

According to another source completely unconnected to any of the particulars in this story, the Atlantic 10 convinced otherwise reliable reporters to float rumors of its interest in George Mason and VCU in order to complete an end-around to its actual goal of getting Hofstra into the fold.

“We knew George Mason and VCU were never going to leave the CAA,” a source not employed by the A-10 said. “Why would you leave a conference where everything is set up for you to succeed? I mean, really. VCU leaving Richmond? Are you insane?”

The source said the A-10 was drawn to Hofstra by the program’s history of sending players to pro ball. Since 2000 alone, Speedy Claxton, Norman Richardson and Charles Jenkins have gone to the NBA while more than a dozen other alums have played overseas, including Rick Apodaca, who played for Puerto Rico in the 2004 Olympics.

“Going to college is about preparing students for their chosen profession, right?” said the first source (or was it the second?). “Nobody in the CAA has done a better job of sending basketball players to pro ball than Hofstra. At least I don’t think so. I haven’t looked it up.”

Added the source not connected to the A-10: “Final Fours are a pile of hooey. I mean, if they mattered that much, we would have two since 2006 and the CAA would have none. That’s what we say to get ourselves to sleep at night, anyway.”

This source (or was it the first one?) said Hofstra’s connections to current A-10 programs made it a natural fit and a natural new rival. Hofstra played in the East Coast Conference with Saint Joseph’s and LaSalle while former Flying Dutchmen stars Halil Kanacevic (Saint Joseph’s) and Chaz Williams (Massachusetts) transferred to A-10 schools two years ago. So, too, of course, did ex-Hofstra coach Tom Pecora (Fordham). And Stevie Mejia went to Rhode Island before transferring to Hofstra.

“OK, fine, it’s five so-called rivals, only three of whom have any real tangible connection to Hofstra,” some source, no idea who, said. “But is that any worse than what Hofstra has now in the CAA?”

A Hofstra spokesman declined to comment on the imminent move, mostly because no spokesman was contacted for comment, though another source who doesn’t even know how to spell Hofstra said plans are in place to commemorate the move from the CAA by erecting a statue of Jack Hayes. It will stand outside campus and be named “The David S. Mack Jack Hayes Statue.”

Another source who doesn’t exist said the only hurdle to clear was the location of the conference tournament. Some A-10 members were concerned Hofstra would have a home court advantage for the conference tournament, which will begin a five-year run at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn next season. To alleviate those concerns, the A-10 agreed to move its conference tournament to a place nobody at Hofstra ever visits: The David S. Mack Nassau Coliseum.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.