Wit and Wisdom

Remember that old book, the Wit and Wisdom of Walter Mondale? It was 200 pages--all blank.

ECAC hockey coaches would be the authors of similar empty volumes if their collective humor and philosophical insight were compiled. How dull are some of the league's coaches?

The hockey reporter from the Potsdam (N.Y.) Bee drags a cot and sleeping bag to post-game interviews with Clarkson Coach Cap Raeder.

The hockey reporter from the Princeton (N.J.) Packet drinks three Cokes and two cups of coffee before making his way down to interview Princeton Coach Jim Higgins.

To encourage reporters to talk to Saint Lawrence Coach Joe Marsh, the SLU sports publicity office pays the Sinning Saints--usually a musical bunch--to do impressions of famous martyrs. As Marsh drones on about how good a club he has, a Sinning Saint is up on stage, giving a rendition of Thomas a Becket's last encounter with Henry the Eighth.

Which brings me--somewhat circuitously and ficticiously--to Harvard Coach Bill Cleary. Cleary, who is in his 17th season at Harvard, earned ECAC Coach of the Year honors (along with UVM's Mike Gilligan) yesterday.

Cleary got deserved recognition for his coaching skills, which are underrated. Cleary has taken his team to the Final Four of the ECAC Tournament four times in a row. His teams have been in the NCAA Tournament Final Four two years in a row.

In 1986, Harvard came within one goal of winning the NCAA Championship.

Cleary wears success well, with a quip on his shoulder and a smile on his face. His post-game interviews often resemble the opening of the Johnny Carson Show.

Give Cleary an opening, and he'll take it. Like the time he said he would make his associate coach, Ronn Tomassoni, Pope if that would keep Tomassoni in Cambridge.

Or the time he said he would get Gorbachev on the phone and tell him to send a couple of Harvard hockey players participating in a Moscow tournament home pronto.

Cleary has pet phrases for any hockey occasion. If someone makes a dramatic shot from the blue-line, Cleary says he "threw that one in from the popcorn stand."

If Harvard wins the first game of a two-game series, the victory represents always only "half a loaf."

Or if Harvard plays in an intense game, one that goes down to the wire, well, that game is "not very good for the hair line. Not that I have much hair left anyway."

Some coaches are funny despite themselves. RPI's Mike Addesa, an intensely serious man, occasionally spurts out a bizarre metaphor. Addesa once said that "they should throw the dirt over me now" if his team didn't come out and play hard.

What did he mean? No one knew. But that didn't stop everyone from chuckling.

Not so with Cleary. After a victory, or even after a loss, Cleary is usually jovial. This year, Harvard dropped both of its Beanpot games. Cleary has become so accustomed to such a fate--Harvard has failed to win a first-round 'Pot game since 1981--that he turns his post-game press conference into a Greek tragicomedy, in which he plays Sisyphus.

His reponse to The Question--"Why haven't you won the Beanpot in so long, coach?"--is always the same.

"If I knew the answer," Cleary says, "I'd make a million bucks."

To go along, perhaps, with his million dollar smile.