As of Monday, head lacrosse coach Tony Seaman has yet to hear about his job security.
The university gave Seaman an ultimatum in June 2008 that his team had to reach the NCAA Tournament this season or he would lose his job. Towson failed to meet that goal, but the team reached the conference final and was one goal away from grabbing the Colonial Athletic Association’s automatic bid.
“I just don’t know,” Seaman said. “They told me in June, and then they reminded me earlier in the spring. We came about as close as you can come without getting there.”
Seaman said that given the chance, he believes that the team will continue to improve following an extremely disappointing 2008 season that led to a 2009 full of uncertainty.
“We had a huge improvement over the course of the year,” Seaman said. “We weren’t sure what our goaltending situation would be, and that cleared up for us. We had a new offensive coordinator, Mike Allan, who was still getting used to all the guys on our team.”
That goaltending situation worked itself out quickly, when junior Rob Wheeler stepped up and made huge saves early in the season. His play got better as the season progressed, and he gave one of the most impressive performances in recent memory with his flashy saves in Towson’s 10-2 semifinal victory against Drexel Wednesday night. Wheeler said that his preference would be for his head coach to return for another year.
“I hope everybody’s back next year; that’s all I’m going to say,” Wheeler said.
However, the coach’s status is still in serious doubt, in large part because of the disappointing season last year. Though Seaman credited Villanova’s success to its 14 seniors after the Wildcats won the conference at Johnny Unitas Stadium, the Tigers started nine seniors on a regular basis in 2008, and had a few more come off the bench. That talented, experienced team didn’t even make the conference tournament.
“Last year was tremendously disappointing because we did not play as well as our talent was,” Seaman said.
RSS Feeds
