CURRENT ISSUE | SUBSCRIBE | ADVERTISE | WRITE TO US | CORNELL AUTHORS | PAST ISSUES

The Rookie Knowles Brings Blue-Collar Work Ethic To Big Red Football

THE CORNELL FOOTBALL PROGRAM is a mess--literally. Evicted from their Schoellkopf Hall offices because of renovations, the varsity staff is camping out for the summer far above the field in the stadium pressbox. As a lone fan blows hot air around the narrow room, coaches and assistants wrestle with dozens of cardboard boxes spilling over with files, recruitment letters, and hundreds of videotapes. In a few weeks, they'll find more stable quarters in converted squash courts during the two-year Schoellkopf renovation project, but right now the moving-day disarray seems to underscore the bigger challenges facing head coach Jim Knowles '87 as he attempts to turn around a troubled team.

After a 1-9 (0-7 Ivy) season doomed Tim Pendergast's three-year tenure at the helm, athletic director Andy Noel undertook a job search that stretched to nine weeks after his initial four finalists either dropped out or turned down Cornell for NFL posts.When Knowles got the call, he had already settled on a new job--he was reporting as linebackers coach at the University of Nebraska. "I'd shown up with my bags in Lincoln," Knowles recalls, sitting in the closet-sized booth he's using as an ad-hoc office.

In tapping Knowles, Noel went with a thirty-eight-year-old defensive specialist with no varsity head coaching experience but abundant Cornell credentials. An All- Ivy defensive end in 1986, Knowles and wife Nancy Schlie '83 were married in Sage Chapel, and their daughter, Halle, was born in Ithaca. After graduating from the ILR school, he put a business career on hold to serve as a part-time assistant to head coach Maxie Baughan; he ended up staying nine seasons, leaving in 1997 to begin a six-season stint at Western Michigan University. Last year he coached the linebackers at the University of Mississippi, which posted its first ten-win season since 1971 and defeated Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl.

The Cornell job represents a homecoming of sorts for the Philadelphia native. The first in his family to attend college, Knowles was an all-Catholic linebacker at St. Joseph's Prep when he was recruited. "Cornell was the place I had always dreamed of, growing up in the city, but I didn't know really existed," he recalls. After visiting the campus, he turned down offers from Harvard and Princeton because, he says, "it was easier for a guy with a blue-collar background to feel comfortable here. It felt like home." Director of football operations Pete Noyes, a defensive coordinator at Cornell during the mid-1980s, remembers Knowles as "the epitome of a coach's player" on the field and a quick study as a grad assistant. "The more responsibility you gave him, the more he'd shine." Knowles was on the coaching staffs of the '88 and '90 squads that each took home a piece of the Ivy championship; according to Andy Noel, those two rings gave Knowles an edge over the other candidates. "Jimmy is part of this tradition," Noel says, "and he has an excellent ability to share the experiences he had here as a player and a coach."

He's been busy doing just that, bringing in such Big Red eminences as business consultant Ken Blanchard '61 and former lacrosse coach Richie Moran to talk to his new staff and "tell them what Cornell is all about." Lesson number one: no whining about the Ivies' no-scholarship policy. "We have to play to our strengths and not make an excuse out of the admission process," Knowles says. "I didn't hire coaches who wanted to be coaching at the scholarship level--they want to be in the Ivy League." Those new hires include defensive coordinator Clayton Carlin, a high school teammate and former special teams coach from New Mexico State, and linebackers coach Mike Roark '92. Former Kalamazoo College head coach Tim Rogers will run the offense, and he's bringing Brian Coon, his offensive coordinator at Kalamazoo, along as a line coach. The only holdovers are Noyes and veteran defensive line coach Pete DeStefano.

They have their work cut out for them: last year's winless conference record was the worst since 1975, and attendance has tumbled over the past few years. In a preseason media poll, Cornell was ranked last in the Ivies. It's enough to make a rookie coach nervous, but Knowles doesn't seem worried. "Coming off a terrible season, two months without a head coach … these are all just details," he says. "It's important that everyone believes there's a greater vision. Our goal is to win as many hearts as possible--to get people thinking positive thoughts about the football program again."

-- David Dudley

MOUND MOVE The career of Erik Rico '02 as a professional baseball hitter appears to have ended, replaced by a career as a professional baseball pitcher. Rico hit .275 in 122 minor league games in 2002--03 before moving to the mound in 2004 with the Auburn Doubledays, the New York-Penn League affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. A southpaw, Rico was named the 2002 Ivy League Player of the Year after hitting .380 for the Big Red. Joining him in the New York-Penn League this year was Dan Baysinger '04, who earned All-Ivy honorable mention with 40 strikeouts in 37 innings in his senior year. Drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals, Baysinger was assigned to the club's New Jersey farm team.

HALL OF FAMERS Eight All-Americans will be among the 10 new members of the Cornell University Athletic Hall of Fame. The All-Americans are football players John Jaso '49, Mort Landsberg '41, and Chris Zingo '94; cross country and track stars Brian Clas '94 and Pam Hunt '94; women's lacrosse player Tina Hennessey '93; and wrestlers David Hirsch '94 and Pat Waters '90, BA '93. Joining them for the November 6 induction ceremony will be track champion Susie Curtis '93 and volleyball standout Jennifer Strazza '93.

CANADA'S COACH Women's hockey coach Melody Davidson has been named head coach of the Canadian national women's hockey team that will compete at the 2005 World Championships and 2006 Olympics. Davidson was an assistant coach for Canada from 2000 to 2002 before taking over the Big Red program. She will coach the Cornell women's team during the 2004--05 season before taking a leave of absence for 2005--06.

SILVER MEDALIST Jen Munhofen '06 helped the U.S. women's inline hockey team to a second-place finish at the 2004 World Championship in London, Ontario. Munhofen, who led the Big Red women's ice hockey team with 19 points last season, scored six goals and collected four assists as the American team went 7-1, losing only to Canada in the title game.

NET GAIN One of the best players in college volleyball history will now guide the Big Red program. Deitre Collins was named Cornell's eighth volleyball coach in June, replacing Christie Roes, who left to pursue a teaching career after leading the team to a second-place Ivy League finish and a 21-4 record in 2003. As an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii, Collins was a two-time Broderick Award winner (national player of the year) as she helped the Rainbow Wahine post a 110-5 record and win two NCAA Division I titles. Collins comes to Cornell after eight years as head coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

SCHOLAR-ATHLETE For only the second time in school history, Cornell has a threetime academic All-American. Gymnast Rachel Goldberg '04 finished her Big Red career as a first-team Academic All-American after earning third-team honors as a sophomore and junior. A three-time All-American in the vault and president of the Student Athletic Advisory Council, Goldberg had a 3.97 GPA as a psychology major in the College of Arts and Sciences.

CAUGHT IN THE DRAFT Two returning members of the men's hockey team were taken in this year's NHL draft, along with incoming freshman Raymond Sawada, selected by the Dallas Stars in the second round. Sawada scored 26 goals and had 48 assists in 79 games last season with the Nanaimo Clippers in the British Columbia Hockey League. Defenseman John Gleed '06 was a seventhround pick of the Montreal Canadiens, and forward Mitch Carefoot '07 was selected by the Atlanta Thrashers in the eighth round.

Return to top of page