Cormier: Committed coach

Kids who spend most of their time indoors playing basketball are known as gym rats. So what do you call a coach who makes the gymnasium his second home?

Whatever it is, Paul Cormier is one of them. The first-year Dartmouth men's basketball coach admits to being a workaholic. Most mornings he arrives at his Alumni Gym office before 8:00, and he usually doesn't shut the lights off until 10:30 at night. "I've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time," he says. "When you finally get an opportunity like this, you don't want to leave any bases uncovered."

For Cormier and his staff (assistants Dave Faucher and Frank Dobbs, along with volunteer assistant Jay Lawson), there is no such thing as a day off. Even during the off-season, they've been known to spend three or four hours in the office on Sunday. "There are no shortcuts to success," Cormier says. "We've got to put in as much time as it takes to get the job done. It's the type of occupation where time can't be a concern."

When he isn't putting in 14 hours a day at his Alumni Gym office, Cormier is traveling across the country evaluating and talking to recruits. Cormier, 33, and Faucher, the first assistant, were attending basketball camps every single day during the month of July. From September 1 to October 10, he was in the living rooms of 30 different high school players, selling Dartmouth College to the kids and their parents. This summer, Cormier and his staff started out with a list of 250 recruits. They narrowed the list down to a "priority list" of 30 players before November. He's done a lot of recruiting in the Chicago area. Although he won't know until next spring how successful a recruiting year it hag been, Cormier has already proven he has no lack of determination.

It was determination that got him the head coaching job at Dartmouth in the first place. An assistant at Villanova for four years, Cormier was a finalist for the Dartmouth position last year but lost out to Reggie Minton. When Minton resigned to take the head coaching job at the U.S. Air Force Academy this spring, Cormier applied once again. This time, Mike Steele of De Pauw University in Indiana was hired. But when Steele had second thoughts about coming to Hanover, Cormier was the man picked by Athletic Director Ted Leland.

Cormier came highly recommended by K.C. Jones, head coach of the NBA champion Boston Celtics. A 1973 University of New Hampshire graduate, Cormier lectures at Jones's basketball camp in Vermont each summer. "Paul is one of the finest young coaches in the country as far as I'm concerned," Jones says. "I've known him for a few years and he's a class person. He should fit in well in the Ivy League." Cormier has moved his wife, Susan, and their three boys to Hanover, where they have bought a house. He signed a five-year contract and plans on putting some roots down at Dartmouth. "I can see myself being happy here for a long time," he says.

That's just what the College wants to hear. Stability is something the men's basketball program has been lacking. Cormier is the third coach in four years (not counting Steele, who was coach for only three days) for the troubled program, which had its last winning season in 1978-79.

Cormier says he has made a commitment to making Dartmouth a force in the Ivy League. Commitment is a word he uses often. "The players probably think that's the only word in my vocabulary," he notes. "We expect the kids to be committed in the classroom and on the basketball court. If they're not committed to the classroom, we tell them they shouldn't be at Dartmouth. And if they're not committed to our basketball program, they should be playing intramurals. We need more of a commitment now from everybody to get us out of this hole and get us even with everybody else in the league." Although he thinks he can turn Dartmouth's basketball fortunes around, Cormier doesn't pretend to be any kind of miracle worker. The fruits of his staff's labor may not be seen until three years from now. "We're not going to be able to measure success right away by wins and losses," he emphasizes.

This is because the key to any successful college basketball program is recruiting. Cormier's recruiting missions in his first six months at Dartmouth have taken him from Tennessee to California to Ontario, Canada. His biggest obstacle so far has been trying to overcome Dartmouth's "image problem." The College's frequent coaching changes and losing seasons have given other Ivy schools plenty of ammunition. Why would you want to go to Dartmouth? That's the question the other Ivy League coaches are asking when they hear high school players are interested in coming to Hanover.

Cormier has the answer: "I've talked with President McLaughlin, and I firmly believe the commitment to men's basketball by the administration has been made," he says. "I'm fortunate to have come in at a time when the alumni and the administration are aware of the problems with the basketball program and want to make changes."

Men's Basketball Coach Paul Cormier

Jayne Daigle '86, right in the fray under the basket during one of last year's games, willbe a key member of first-year coach Jacqueline Hullah's 1984-85 squad.