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At age 58, most people don’t get the chance to be excited again, said Bill Tierney.
This is one of many reasons why Tierney decided to accept the position as DU’s new head lacrosse coach.
Tierney replaces former head lacrosse coach Jamie Munro, who resigned abruptly at the close of last season after coaching the Pioneers for 11 years. Denver had a rocky year after dismissing three players mid-season for misconduct and finishing with a 7-8 record.
On the other hand, Princeton’s Tigers, where Tierney coached, finished last season in the NCAA Division I quarterfinals, losing to Cornell.
After 22 years and six national championships with Princeton, Tierney finally made the transition to the West.
“I’ve always thought about coming to Denver or Colorado upon retirement,” he said. “I wanted a new challenge. I wasn’t looking for a job or to get out.”
Vice Chancellor for Athletics, Peg Bradley-Doppes, contacted Tierney and asked him to come out and see what everyone had to say.
“It was one good thing after another and just really exciting,” he said. “It’s a place I wanted to be. It couldn’t have turned out better.”
The move also was spurred because his son, Trevor, has been living in Colorado for eight years. Trevor is now an assistant coach for the Pioneers lacrosse team and formerly played for his father at Princeton. Tierney’s other son, Brendan, also played for the Tigers. He will be closer to both sons, as Brendan lives in Portland, Ore., and works for Nike.
“It’s great to be reunited with my son, who I’ve basically seen once or twice a year for eight years,” he said. “And a chance to do what is my passion, which is to coach lacrosse at a great institution like this and be in a place that I wanted to be in anyway.”
Coaching is a large part of the Tierney family. In addition to his son, both his daughters are coaches. Courtney, is the head girl’s basketball coach at Pennington Prep in New Jersey, while Brianne is the head women’s lacrosse coach at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania.
Tierney is originally from Long Island and landed his first college coaching job at Rochester Institute of Technology.
He spent three years coaching there and took the school to its first two NCAA tournaments.
The position of assistant coach at John Hopkins University in Baltimore followed, which he describes at the “Mecca of lacrosse.”
When Princeton was looking for a coach in the end of the 1987 season, Tierney had just won a national championship at John Hopkins.
“So I was kind of in the spotlight at that point and got a chance to go to Princeton and the rest is history,” he said.
At Princeton, Tierney turned the program around. In the 20 years before his arrival, Princeton did not win an Ivy League Championship or play in a NCAA tournament.
Throughout Tierney’s time there, the Tigers won 14 Ivy League titles and went to 16 NCAA tournaments.
His career collegiate record is 272-93 and he was inducted into the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2002.
