January 8, 2009
Continuing the Process
Appert Still Positive about Direction of RPI’s Program
by Theresa Spisak/CHN Reporter
As any coach of a college sports program will tell you, rebuilding takes time.
Rensselaer’s Seth Appert is no different.
Appert took over the Engineers’ top job in April 2006, taking over for the school’s all-time leader in wins, Dan Fridgen, at a time when the program had fallen on hard times. He came from Denver, where he spent nine seasons as an assistant coach, working with the goaltenders, recruiting, on-ice coaching and game analysis -- winning two national championship with the Pioneers.
Now, at RPI, Appert has struggled in turning the program around – he had a 21-41-12 record at the helm coming in and is 3-15-1 so far this season – but has remained optimistic.
“We’re excited about where we’re going,” he said, before adding a caveat that “we’re not excited necessarily about where we are at this minute.
“We like the direction the program’s going; it just takes time, there’s no question. We’re very confident about where we’re going. It’s just [that] we have to have patience and we have to have resiliency to keep fighting through it.”
Despite the program’s history of success and his own background of success while at DU, Appert didn’t feel a burden of expectation when he went to RPI – and still doesn’t.
“Our fans and our school has a great expectation of success because of the history and the program – [this] doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. “Everything has slipped over time for a lot of different reasons and it’s no different than what George [Gwozdecky] has done [at Denver], no different than, what more people aren’t familiar with, what Enrico Blasi’s done at Miami. These things just take time.
“I don’t feel any more burden of expectation than I put on myself. I came to RPI not because I was excited to be a head coach, but because I thought we could win. I still believe we can.”
For the Engineers to win, Appert thinks that there’s a combination of things that have to happen besides the obvious answer of recruiting.
“It’s a combination of that and belief and belief from the current players, belief that we can do it, that’s it’s going to happen when they’re here and not a year or two down the road,” he said. “They have to have that mentality that they’re going to make a difference in this program on a daily basis and that takes time to develop.
“I think our young men have been so great. They’ve bought into what we want to do and how we want to go about the program that a lot of times, maybe in the past years, the graduating seiors the past few years thought, 'They’re going to be really good, but it’s going to be after I leave.' We need the guys to feel that we’re going to be good now and we’re going to be the difference for us being good.”
The second, and perhaps bigger piece of the puzzle, is facilities, according to Appert.
“That’s critical and the facilities have slipped over time. We’re in a $75 to $100 million dollar renovation process for all athletic facilities,” he explained. “Part of that has been, we just built new locker rooms, new lounges, new training rooms, [a] new weight room and that’s a big piece because all the top-22 programs in the country for the most part have made major renovations or built new facilities in the last 15-20 years and so now, we’re stepping up to the table and that’s going to be a big boost.”
Despite these positive steps, Appert still knows that the process he’s in the midst of undertaking is a hard one and that it will continue to take one thing for success – time.
“It is tough, but I knew it was going to take time,” he said. “I never felt that it was a thing that we were going to win the ECAC championship in year one, two.
“Now, I think we’re closer. Our record doesn’t say it, but you’ve also got to remember the schedule we’ve had in the first half of the season – we’ve only played seven league games. We have a huge chunk of our league left.”
That, and as Appert will point out, a lot of those twelve remaining games came against top opponents.
“We’ve played Miami twice, now we’ve played BU, we’ve played Northeastern, we’ve played New Hampshire, UMass, Vermont. We’ve gone out and tested ourselves for the reason of making our program credible and getting our hockey players ready to go back into the most important part of our season which is the really competitive ECAC.”
In other words, even though the rebuilding process might be painfully slow for the RPI faithful, they should perhaps try to share in just a tiny bit of their coach’s ever-present optimism.
JeffreyJan 9 2009, 10:00 am
This is not a program that needed rebuiding. This is a program that needed the attention of the administration. Expectation: "Our fans and our school has a great expectation of success" which is unrealistic unless the comittment is made to consistently win at the D-1 level, which was happened upon the hiring of Appert. You stated that Appert took over the program "at a time when the program had fallen on hard times". The team did not win as much as the expectation dictated. Interestingly they are worse off than they were 3 years ago! True: "Everything has slipped over time for a lot of different reasons" However, things did not hit rock bottom until now, which is probably a good thing considering there is only one way to go. And finally: "even though the rebuilding process might be painfully slow for the RPI faithful, they should perhaps try to share in just a tiny bit of their coach’s ever-present optimism." This was not to be a rebuilding process-the cupboard was not bare!!!
gemlover7476Jan 9 2009, 4:29 pm
Everyone involved in RPI hockey must have the commitment, including the administration. i can remember with pride many great happenings in the program. Sherwood playing goal while RPI shut out BU. Beating Cornell anytime. Rensselaer does have a great tradition, even when we sometimes do not seem to perform as well as hoped for. We fans need to keep our support going, nothing will demoralize a team more than the loss of its fan base. LETS GO RED!
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