Stoppage time

Lycoming's sudden changing face

First football coach Frank Girardi. Then basketball Don Friday. and in between, even friend of the Sun-Gazette and Lycoming SID Cotton Mayer departed his post at the Liberal Arts school, opting to move back with his wife to Seattle, where Mayer spent much of his 20s after growing up here.

It's all going to be a little different for Warrior fans around campus next year. And maybe forever.

Lyco is stuck in a tough place — both literally, in a town that is trying to answer many questions of itself — and figuratively, noting general trends in the united states, and their effect on small d-3 programs.

An infusion of Youth in coaching isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's hard to imagine Lyco ever being able to offer a coach enough that he or she becomes the next Girardi. Bigger programs have more to offer than ever — in money, power and prestige — and becoming a town institution doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore in a place where a downtown department store is becoming a delightful exception, and not an expected norm.

Go the other way, with more experienced coaches who are ready to settle, and you are much more likely to get a Dutch Burch than a Frank Girardi. Burch had his share of worshippers too, but only 13 winning seasons in 32 years at the helm of the men's basketball team.

What's startling is how much Friday obviously did care for the program he now leaves. Enough to procure sports psychology help for his team this past season, and, according to some around the program, pay for an expanded media guide out of his own pocket. Enough to bring quality people into his program — whose character I can vouch for first hand.

And yet he left for a struggling D-1 program that he has no real connection to, other than living in the same state. A program in a crossroads town much smaller than Williamsport, with nearly a decade of losing in its immediate past under departed coach Bobby Jones.

If you knew his lust for the game, or if you saw his eyes brighten when talking about Pat Flannery, you knew he always wanted bigger and better things. And I won't argue that St. Francis, as far as the tangibles, is certainly a move up as far as level of competition and payscale.

But if Williamsport's basketball history and Lycoming's atmosphere can't tempt a guy of Friday's passion and appreciation for life's smaller details to stay, i wouldn't expect the next Lyco institution to be built for a while.

Nor the Kohl's.