Duke Men's Soccer Head Coach to step down after season

[pratt '04]

John Rennie, the coach who brought Duke its first national championship in 1986, announced today that he will be stepping down after the 2007 season.

The Duke job should be a highly sought after position. Rennie has built the program into a perennial national powerhouse. Duke AD Joe Alleva says that a coaching search will begin after the 2007 season. But will that search begin and end with Associate Head Coach Mike Jeffries? It seems quite plausible that this transition has been in the works ever since Jeffries joined the Blue Devils staff last season.

Link: goduke.com article (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=1154051)

[gotham devil]

John Rennie, the coach who brought Duke its first national championship in 1986, announced today that he will be stepping down after the 2007 season.

The Duke job should be a highly sought after position. Rennie has built the program into a perennial national powerhouse. Duke AD Joe Alleva says that a coaching search will begin after the 2007 season. But will that search begin and end with Associate Head Coach Mike Jeffries? It seems quite plausible that this transition has been in the works ever since Jeffries joined the Blue Devils staff last season.

Link: goduke.com article (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=1154051)
Who would be some of the other potential candidates?
How will this impact recruiting for the 08-09 season?

[bluedevil]

Is Jennie Alleva a candidate? She played soccer for Duke. What happened to all the insiders that said Joe Alleva was gone after his daughter graduated? Were they just trying to calm the rage from the boating and lacrosse incidents until nobody cared about it any more like football, baseball, etc.? So Rennie has already said he's stepping down giving plenty of time to find a new coach, and Alleva won't even begin looking until after next season while recruits are wondering what will happen? Sounds about right. This will probably be like the womens soccer hire, when Alleva replaced Hempen who took Duke to the national championship game 4 years after he started the program with a mediocre coach who took the program backwards.

Duke needs the best national champion college coach that thinks recruiting with Duke's prestige is easier than trying to entice kids with a Maryland scholarship or fill a roster with the best bluechips Indiana has to offer. If you were a bluechip soccer star from say NJ or TX would you rather get a degree from Duke or UMD or IU or some other mediocre state school if quality of coaching wasn't an issue? Just make a list of the top coaches and offer them the job one by one. Duke soccer is like lacrosse or womens golf or any other nonrevenue sport at Duke, all the kids want the degree that will make them the most money after college since they won't be earning big bucks from their sport. So Duke and Stanford should dominate like with all other revenue sports. But get ready for middle of the pack finishes or another program like football or baseball with Alleva in charge.

Duke is ranked #2 now and has a national championship and plenty of money, so which candidates are the best among college soccer coaches that are in the top 2 or 3 in total compensation? Duke can't find some bargain basement unproven solution like so many of Alleva's other hires, and certainly not an assistant. UCSB, Wake Forest, and Santa Clara finished 1st, 3rd, and 7th in 2006. Duke should hire the AD from UMD or Wake or Louisville and let them pick the coach, or even promote Jacki Silar who picked the field hockey coach.

[burnspbesq]

If you go for a college head coach, I think the list has to start with Tim Vom Steeg of UC Santa Barbara. Vom Steeg is to college soccer coaches as Mark Few is to college basketball coaches, winning big in an impossible market with overlooked players. The difference is that unlike Few, Vom Steeg has a national championship on his resume.

Bobby Clark of Notre Dame (who formerly coached at Stanford) is also a fairly obvious candidate. Former Duke great John Kerr, now the head coach at Harvard, and Jeremy Fishbein of New Mexico would also presumably be in the mix.

If you look at MLS assistants, the list gets interesting. He was a loathsome player, and he's a Wahoo to boot, but I think you have to take a hard look at Richie Williams of the Red Bulls. Paul Bravo of the Galaxy also seems an obvious choice. The really intriguing possibility is Paul Mariner, Steve Nicol's top assistant with the Revs. Mariner was a stud at the highest levels of the game, has college coaching experience, and has turned a host of good college players into really good pros. If he wants the job, and if Heaps vouches for him, I think he has to get an interview.

[pratt '04]

I would also add a couple other college coaches with Duke ties to the list of those who will be considered. Ken Lolla is a Duke alum who is about to begin his second year as head coach at Louisville. Before Louisville he did an amazing job as the head coach at Akron where he had the Zips competing with the big boys of college soccer. In his final NCAA tourney game at Akron his Zips tied eventual national champions Maryland in the Elite Eight before losing in a shootout.

An up-and-coming coach to consider is Mike Jacobs who is about to begin his second year as head coach at the University of Evansville. Jacobs was an assistant to Rennie before leaving to take the helm at Evansville. Jacobs is said to be an amazing recruiter who brought in several of Duke's recent top ranked recruiting classes.

That being said, I would be quite surprised if Jeffries isn't Duke's next head coach. With his coaching experience at the collegiate and MLS levels, I think that he can keep Duke in contention for national titles.