USA Hockey Magazine

I n 2000 I took over my high school alma mater's hockey team, the Ann Arbor Huron River Rats. (I'm not making that up.) Problem was, the Rats' record the previous year was 0-22-3. (I'm not making that up, either.) Even worse, the guy they picked to lead them, yours truly, happens to hold the school record for most games in a River Rats uniform, 86, with the fewest goals—zero. It's actually a family record, as my brother also played on the team and failed to score. (He likes to point out that he played goalie—but hey, we've all got excuses.) So we were a team with zero wins coached by a former player with zero goals. Perfect! Luckily, I had an ace: Culver Academies' legendary coach, Al Clark, a close friend since I assisted his team back in 1986-87. Clark started the program in 1976 with an outdoor rink and 12 players who had never skated before. When Clark stepped down 40 years later his program had produced more than a hundred Division I college hockey players, 25 NHL Draft picks, nine NHLers, including 1986 NHL Rookie of the Year Gary Suter, and five U.S. Olympians, while winning 1,017 games, the most in the history of U.S. high school hockey. Along the way Clark was named National Coach of the Year in 1994, and started the Culvers' girls' program in 1998. Whether Clark's team was up by five goals or down by five, he looked like a man waiting for a bus in the rain. But he knew the game, how to teach it and how to motivate his players. Years later, when I got the Rats' job, I asked him, "So, what do I do now?" "The first thing you do is make it special to play for Huron. And the best way to make it special," he continued, "is to make it hard." This was the exact opposite of what everyone else had been telling me: players have changed; I shouldn't expect too much; and I have to accommodate them, not the other way around. But Clark had a point. How can the Navy SEALS and the Peace Corps afford to be so picky? Those jobs don't pay much, and the work is bru- tally hard. But the hard part is exactly why the right people apply. They are not repulsed by the difficulty. They're attracted to it. "You need to make players feel like they had to do something hard just to make the team," Clark said, "something not everyone would be willing to do, so they know just making the team means they accomplished something. And once that culture is established, it is relatively easy to maintain because the players, with a little guidance, will do it for you." My ultimate goal was simple, if ambitious: I wanted the players, not the coaches, to run the team. We had only two rules: "Work Hard, and Support Your Teammates." If they did those two things, even if we got blown out, I was satisfied, even proud. If they didn't do those two things, even if we pummeled a lesser opponent, I was not happy—and they would know about it. At our very first work out, conducted just one week after school got out, I told them, "We are going to be the hardest working high school hockey team in the state. You will be the most important team in school history—the one that saves the program and turns it around. Our goal is nothing less than winning the state title." They thought I was nuts, but my vision got their attention. After four-months of grueling off-season workouts, we probably were the hardest working team in the state—and not one player quit. * * * PHOTOS COURTESY OF John Bacon (The following is an excerpt from John Bacon's upcoming book, "Let Them Lead," which is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and available on Sept. 7, 2021.) Whether Clark's team was up by five goals or down by five, he looked like a man waiting for a bus in the rain. But he kn ew the game, how to teach it, and how to motivate his players." SEPTEMBER 2021 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM // 37

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