From the Desk of Athletic Director Glenn Hofmann
This is the third edition of "From the AD's Desk"
I have always thought that leadership is one of the more interesting aspects of any team or program. And I have always struggled in my mind as to whether people are born with leadership or if it can be taught. While I am still not sure where I stand on this I do think one of our jobs in the Merrimack Athletic Department is to do our best to bring out the leadership qualities in each of our student-athletes with the expectation that this will result in better performance and ultimately a better experience for them while at Merrimack.
With that in mind we hired an organization that runs a program called "Judgment Day" to work with our student-athletes. I have included a link to this organization so you get an idea of how the program works. After an initial two-hour presentation with all of our student-athletes in September, three of our teams recently participated in the two-day program. Ultimately all of our teams will do likewise.
Based on feedback I received from student-athletes and personal observation it has been a huge success. Watching our basketball, lacrosse and hockey players work together in uncomfortable situations such as a 10-foot swimming pool in order to reach simple goals such as taking off a wet sweatshirt, handing it to your partner and then putting it on yourself while treading water was very interesting and rewarding. The hope is this program helped identify who the real leaders were of these sports and how working together and giving extra effort will result in more success.
Speaking of success, winning is part of the overall student-athlete experience and we certainly have had a tremendous fall so far. Our field hockey team is nationally ranked and has set a school record for wins. Our women's soccer team has again qualified for the Northeast-10 Tournament making it a perfect 25 of 25 under head coach Gabe Mejail. When you speak of mentors and leaders no one is better than Gabe. He is the all-time winningest women's soccer coach in Division II! Our volleyball team is on the cusp of qualifying for the Northeast-10 Tournament and has the school record of 20 wins, set last season, in its sights. Men's soccer is close to qualifying for postseason action, football is challenging for first place in the conference, men's tennis beat Division I Holy Cross and the cross country teams head up to St. Michael's for the Conference championships this weekend.
In previous "letters" I spoke about one of our other goals being revenue enhancement and the need to build atmosphere and enthusiasm on-campus and in the community. Our football revenue numbers have surpassed our season goal with one game to play and the attendance at our first home hockey game set an opening night non-league record and included nearly 700 students.
Speaking of hockey, I don't necessarily like to point out student-athlete accomplishments early in the season let alone those of a freshman, but Stephane DaCosta became the first Merrimack player ever to score five goals in a Hockey East game last Saturday night against Army. If you like hockey you will definitely want to see him and our entire team play.
Napoleon once said, "A leader is a dealer in hope." Through the efforts of our student-athletes and coaches the results indicate we have a good deal of leadership taking place right now and I can't wait to see the path that this leadership takes us.
