Bill Tierney is back in Princeton, returning to the place where he led the Tigers to six NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse championships for the first since leaving for Denver in 2009.
The seventh-ranked Pioneers, whom Tierney led to an NCAA title in 2015, face the Tigers in a nationally televised game Tuesday (6 p.m. ET on ESPNU). A DU victory would give Tierney his 400th career win on the same field where he accumulated most of those victories (238) and allow him to join Duke’s John Danowski as the only Division I coaches to achieve that milestone.
“I’d be lying if I said this was just another lacrosse game,” Tierney said, “because that would be untrue.”
With subplots aplenty, Jerry Price, the senior associate director of athletics for athletic communications at Princeton, wrote a blog about rooting against Tierney for the first time in their long history as associates and friends. It is republished below with Price’s permission.
Tierney’s Return
TigerBlog will be doing something tonight that he’s never done before in his entire life.
He’s going to root against Bill Tierney.
It’s never happened before. Certainly not in all the time that Tierney was the men’s lacrosse coach at Princeton. Tierney was here for 22 years, and TigerBlog was with him for 20 of those. Root against him? No way.
Then Tierney left in 2009 to go to Denver. From Day 1, TigerBlog was on the Denver bandwagon.
Tonight, things will be different.
Tierney is back in Princeton, this time as the Denver head coach, bringing his ninth-ranked Pios to Sherrerd Field to take on the Tigers. For TigerBlog, there’s no hesitation at all. He hopes Bill Tierney is on the losing end.
Just this once, of course.
The game tonight (face-off at 6, also on ESPNU) is fascinating on a lot of levels, beginning of course with Tierney. TB talked to him yesterday, and Tierney had this to say: “I’d be lying if I said this was just another lacrosse game, because that would be untrue.”
He’s right.
He’s bringing his team to a place where he built one of the greatest lacrosse dynasties ever, with six NCAA championships in the 10 years from 1992-2001. His Princeton resume includes 10 Final Fours and 14 Ivy League championships, and he was inducted into the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame long before he headed West.
Tierney won 238 games in 22 years at Princeton after inheriting a program that had never made an NCAA tournament before and was 20 years removed from its most recent Ivy League championship. He famously told his first recruiting class that they would win an NCAA championship, and not one of them believed them at the time.
He, and they, made it happen though, winning the title in 1992 and then again in 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2001. He won the last one with his son Trevor in goal and his son Brendan as a Tiger attackman.
Just his presence alone make the game worth seeing. And yet there’s so much more.
For starters, there’s a little math for you. If Tierney won 238 games at Princeton, 34 at RIT before he came to Princeton and now 127 more at Denver, how many total wins does his have?
Hmm... That would be 399, which he got Saturday in a 7-6 win at Towson. Then his team bused to Princeton, and he takes his first shot at 400, somewhat amazingly, on Sherrerd Field.
The only Division I coach ever with 400 wins is Duke’s John Danowski, who got there earlier this year. There are two women in Division I history with 400 career wins, and one of them is Princeton’s Chris Sailer, who coached alongside Tierney for all 22 of his years at Princeton. Sailer, who is also in the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame, got to 400 wins earlier this year, on Sherrerd Field as well.
What were the odds that Tierney would come back to Princeton with 399 wins? In fact, it may have taken an act of God, as Denver’s game two weeks ago at Ohio State was cancelled due to a massive Colorado snowstorm that grounded the Pioneers. And hey, there’s not guarantee Denver would have won that one, as Ohio State is the lone unbeaten in the country, but still.
Tierney back to Princeton, with 399 wins?
Of course, there’s a game to play as well. It’s a big one for both, a chance for Princeton to knock off a nationally ranked non-league opponent and Denver a chance to build on its win over Towson before it starts its Big East schedule.
Denver is the No. 1 scoring defense team in the country, allowing just 7.7 goals per game. Scoring defense stats go back to 1996 in the NCAA record book, and Princeton was ranked No. 1 in D1 in five of Tierney’s final 13 years here.
Princeton averages 13.3 goals per game, tied for 12th with Georgetown, the team Denver plays Saturday in Colorado.
Princeton is led by the remarkable Michael Sowers, who is sixth all-time at Princeton in points in a career with 205. Sowers averages 5.86 points per game for his career, which is sixth in Division I history and the best by any Division I player in the last 38 years.
Sowers, who got to 200 career points 15 games faster than any of the others who have done it (and that list is sort of impressive), needs two points to tie Mike MacDonald for fifth place. The top four - Kevin Lowe (247), Ryan Boyle (232), Jon Hess (219) and Jesse Hubbard (215) - all played for Tierney.
No matter what, tonight is a very special night in Princeton men’s lacrosse history. It’s the return of the beloved coach, who still, 10 years later, looks a little out of place in Denver red and gray.
There aren’t too many people TigerBlog has ever met who have meant more to him or done more for him than Bill Tierney. He has been a positive impact on TB’s life in so many ways, and he’s also done a lot for both of TB’s children.
He’s a man of the highest character, who has also touched the lives of so many others, far away from the spotlight. He is fiercely loyal. He’s funny. He’s welcoming. He’s approachable. He’s all of those things, not to mention the single greatest coach of any sport that TB has known.
And for all that?
TB hopes he loses tonight.
Just this once.