A Visit With Snooks

A cramped office in the drafty lobby of the Boston College ice rink hardly seems like an appropriate house for the dean of collegiate hockey coaches. But if you ask John Snooks. Kelley about his, humble digs, he'll tell you that the B.C. athletic department once offered him a spacious executive style suite at the other end of the rink, and he turned it down flat.

"From here I have a wonderful view of everyone who comes into the rink and they can all stop in to say hello, says Kelly. Bobby Orr. Kenny Hodge, the students ... they all come into the rink, and when they do they go past that door and see me sitting here."

Snooks Kelley moved into his current office ten years ago, when he retried after 36 seasons as head coach of the Eagles, ice hockey program. Officially, he is now the director of the Boston College chapter of the National Sports Program for Underprivileged Children, Unofficially he is a unique Boston treasure and a legend in the world of hockey.

Kelley proudly displays the requisite hardware of a successful sporting career a plaque commemorating his 501 wins (the collegiate record until last year. When Michigan Tech's John McGinnis won No.502), a certificate naming him one of Boston's 350 most prominent citizens" two Coach of the Year Awards. The 1971 Boston College Alumnus Award.

And, naturally, there are al lot of pictures. On one wall the 1949 B.C. squad-first team form the East to win a national championship Nearby, Kelley and Teddy Kennedy '54 in front of the Waldorf Astoria in New York, where the senator presented the coach will the NHL's Lester Patrick Award, the most-coveted honor in the game.

When Beanpot time rolls around each February, many of the world's loyal Kelley fans gather to pay their respects and enjoy his now-famous monologue at the tournament luncheon Kelley coached a record 20 'Pot teams and always manages to put each year's participants in the proper frame of mind before the first puck hits the ice.

"He always gets up there and tells [Harvard coach] Billy Cleary that he doesn't want to hear his excuses about exams and tells Jackie Parker [of B.U.] that he once took a math course at B.U., and the first question on the final was; "How many holes are there on an 18-hole golf course?" says Read Oslin. Boston College's sports information director "None of it would be funny, but he gets up there and starts calling everyone an egghead, and with his delivery, he has everyone in hysterics"

Cleary has always been one of Kelley's favorite targets because Snooks worked with Cleary's father and remembers the Harvard coach as a toddler and then as Crimson hockey star and member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic team.

"There's no one else quite like him." Cleary says of Kelley. "His favorite greeting is 'Hi, son' It doesn't matter who you are, it's always 'Hi, son!'" For Kelley, anyone involved with Boston hockey, and especially the Beanpot, is family.

"There's nothing like it in the whole world," says the sage himself. "Four schools separated by the Charles River get together, and it's just a temendous tournament full of good, healthy rivalries. The Beanpot is a social as well as athletic event. That's where you absolutely have to be on the first two Mondays in February.

"I go around the country to hockey banquets and tell people that out here we hold a tournament with four local teams, and that we sell out 15,000 tickets and could probably fill an arena with a capacity of 30,000, and they don't believe it.

"'You mean a team that is 0-17 could get into the Beanpot, and you'd still have a packed house" they ask me, and when I tell them 'yes' they can't believe it"

Like almost every coach who has ever been in the tournament, Kelley employed a "no-strategy" strategy when approaching the 'Pot.

"You know that almost anyone can win it. Whoever is the Beanpot favorite usually gets licked I think the best strategy is just to sit back and play possum."

Of course, few remember Kelley as a strategist any way. His strength was his ability to motivate a team with stirring pre-game talks and then prod them to victory from his perch behind the bench.

Oslin of B.C. remembers one pre-game pep-rally that inspired more than just the Eagle icemen. During the warm-up, a puck hit a female spectator on the side of her head, B.C. officials took the wounded fan into the training room to prepare for stitches and a trip to the hospital. From there, the victim could hear everything Kelley said to his boys in the adjoining locker room.

"Snooks was in there whooping it up as usual, telling everyone how this was the 'biggest game of the season' (as was every game for Kelley) and how they had to win it for the school." Oslin recalls. "And when he finally told them to get out on the ice, the woman sat up and said. 'Let me out of here, I have to see this game!'"

"You never saw a team as fired up as Boston College," Cleary says. "We always asked the B.C. players who they were supposed to win for this time. We swore Snooks sent himself inspiring telegrams and then read them aloud in the locker room."

Although Kelley dominated his sports as few coaches have, he never endorsed the Vince Lombardi win-at-all-costs philosophy. On his list of priorities, winning a hockey game always ranked below the concerns of the people playing in it.

Accomplishments like his 501 wins and the Lester Patrick Award are worth only passing reference in conversations: Kelley's joy are his former players, and particularly the slew of godchildren they've given him. He delights in the memory of having escorted one player's bride-to-be down the aisle when her father was unable to attend the wedding.

"I was mainly interested in the individuals," Kelley says. "I tried to think of them as people first then as athletes. When Kelley played his 500th game in 1972, all of Boston College celebrated with him. A 400-Ib cake was wheeled onto the ice and sliced up for the spectators, and B.C. President Father W. Seavey Joyce S.J. declared a holiday and closed the school on the following day.

Things haven't changed much since Kelley's retirement. He is in his office every day, and just as he hoped, people stop constantly to say hello.

"I buy two pounds of candy every morning for the kids, and by the end of the day, it's always gone," he says. "That door is always open, and the kids know they can always come in here for advice."

No job could be better suited to Kelley, who always has something to say about everything. In fact, the only thing he draws a blank on is how he got the nickname "Snooks."

"I don't really remember where it came from, but a long time ago it was probably the name of some Saturday morning cartoon character, a little buy who was always into some sort of mischief," he says. "And if you ask people who know me, some smart alec in sure to say I haven't changed a bit."CrimsonHisham I. YoussefBoston College forward GARY SAMPSON (10, in dark jersey) and his Eagle mates look like the favorites heading into the Beanpot. But Snooks Kelley, who coached the Eagles during 20 Beanpots, says, "Whoever is the Beanpot favorite usually gets licked."