From Fred Morrison:
1972 was the first season that we had a full time coach for the entire year.
Our coach was Rich O'Leary who had just served as an assistant on Cornell's national
championship team. Rich had talked Mac Ogilve, a three-year starter at Navy, into being
his assistant. We learned a lot in fall ball and got in great shape with nighttime ACC
practices in the winter. Rich set up a trip to California to kick off our spring season.
We traveled to California on a 747 red eye out of Chicago. There were only 2 or 3 actual
passengers, the stewardi, the lax team and the lax SMC groupies on the plane. Certain
midfielders drained the bar in the piano room on the top deck of the plane and considerable
assistance was required for them to deplane when we landed in Los Angeles. Rick put us up
in a former frat house at UCLA. The only residents of the frat house were Bill Walton and
his girl friend. Bill gave us the play by play from memory for two of the games he played
in at Pauley Pavilion while we were there. Rich also set up a tour of Paramount Studios,
a trip to Disneyland and a weekend in Palm Springs at Ed Hoban's dad's condo. When we
returned to the Midwest we were playing very well. We knocked off the Wooster varsity and
then lost a close game to the Ohio State varsity. We should have won the Ohio State game
and everyone was upset. Our next game was against the Ashland College varsity. It was a
rainy, muddy day. The team was really looking forward to Coach O'Leary's pregame talk.
Coming from the Cornell staff we figured that he would analyze the Ohio State game,
make changes then give us the game plan for Ashland. That's not how it went.
Instead of all that coaching Rich talked about the muddy field and how you had to take
care of your equipment on days like this. He told us how to treat our cleats with
Vaseline, being sure not to forget to load up the seams and stitching. Then he talked
about gloves and sticks. We went out after that Rockne like talk and killed
Ashland 14 to 0. Our next game was our most important in that in was against arch rival
Michigan. We needed the win to be Mid West Champs. As the clock wound down we were
down by 2. We picked up a goal on a transition fast break off a Michigan shot.
There was 1 minute left and Rich took a time out. Again we thought, here comes a great
Cornell play. Wrong again. This time Rich called us all in close and said "Remember boys
you can only get your playing time in when you are on the field." Just like before the
Ashland game, Rich's dissertation broke the tension and got us relaxed. We won the face
and scored on a fast break, which took us into overtime. We repeated the scenario in
overtime with Jim Brown posting the winning tally. After the season was over several of
us were working out on Cartier field to get ready for the Midwest All Star game.
Moose Krause was taking a walk at that time and stopped to watch us. He came over an
asked how we like working with Rich. Of course, we had to tell him the story of Rich's
coaching job at the end of the Michigan game. Moose laughed and said, "You know, I wouldn't
be surprised if that boy doesn't coach a varsity lacrosse team here in the very near future."
Recollections of the 1972 Season