PDT1081 what was your question?

[freddiethefalconBG]

- First off dennis was not my teamatte. I also did not play for Buddy Powers. All the guys that i knew that had played with Williams said to watch out for him because he is a rat. That is what was told to me going into that season by his former teamattes. My experience of him being a rat was when he was a 2nd Assistant coach for Paluch. Dennis would hang around all of us and pretend to be our friends so that he can get information from us so that he could run to Paluch and rat all of us out and make himself look good.

One example of this is: One monday night a bunch of us went out to dinner outside of BG. we were eating dinner and drinkinga few beers. Nothing crazy, just a few beers with dinner. We were all 21 and over. Dennis Williams had walked in to eat with some people and came over and said hello and we chated for a bit. The next day we were called in to the coaches office and got yelled at for drinking on a monday night. He flat out said that we were seen by a coach drinking.

This is just one example of many. This went on the whole year to the point that we would not even talk to Dennis because all he tried to do was hang around us and see what he could find out to run back to the coaches and rat all of us out. Im sorry but someone who does that is a disgrace. And by the way, when Dennis Williams played all he did was drink and party and that is not all he did, but I would rather not say because im not a rat like him, even thow he does not deserve the respect I will not lower myself to his level.

As far as discipline goes, I graduated with a 3.7 GPA and i never got in trouble for breaking rules ever. I had a perfectly clean slate while i was a Falcon. Yes i drank and partied, but i also did my school work and was always in excellent shape all of my years at BG. This is why i get so angry at the fact that Scott Paluch is a head coach and all of you people think he is so great. Nobody thinks that maybe, just maybe he is a bad coach and ruining guys careers for no reason. Just maybe us former players are telling the truth about him. The majority of the guys that i played with at BG were very dedicated players and also dedicated students and Paluch treated us all like crap. Nobody understands how frustrating it is to play under him and nobody ever will. Continue to back Paluch and you will continue to have a losing program at BG.

[BGFan]

The obvious thing to me as that you are arguing with only a couple of people here. If you've read through recent posts you'll realize that there are many here who agree with you on one level or another, and the season has played no small part in that. What I can't figure out is why you are still arguing with, perhaps, two or three people here who don't share the same view as yours. It seems to me that, except for these people, your argument is moot. Why are you wasting your time trying to convince the 2 or 3 hangers on? Let them have their opinion...they're entitled to it just as you're entitled to yours.

There's only one person that you need to convince, and I think that you may want to talk to him directly, and not through a community BBS. It just seems like a more professional way to deal with it.

[hockey fan]

That's a reasonable response. If that's true, I'll admit to being a little disappointed.

I think a point that some people have been trying to make here is that we understand your viewpoint. I don't necessarily disagree with it. I do think Paluch needs to go and if it doesn't happen at the end of the season, I'll be ticked. The problem is that we're getting rather repetitive with these posts. Rather than bashing the readers over the head with the same thing on every single thread, bring something different to the table.

Also the personal attacks have got to stop. We shouldn't have to read about the personal differences between you and PDT.

[Tech83]

Dennis would hang around all of us and pretend to be our friends so that he can get information from us so that he could run to Paluch and rat all of us out and make himself look good.

And how is this different than any other aspect of life. The world is filled with weasels, once you figure out who they are or how to recognize them, you avoid them. This has nothing to do with Paluch.

One example of this is: One monday night a bunch of us went out to dinner outside of BG. we were eating dinner and drinkinga few beers. Nothing crazy, just a few beers with dinner. We were all 21 and over. Dennis Williams had walked in to eat with some people and came over and said hello and we chated for a bit. The next day we were called in to the coaches office and got yelled at for drinking on a monday night. He flat out said that we were seen by a coach drinking.

Reading this, I am assuming by your own admission that drinking during the season was against team rules. However, Coach Paluch decided to only yell at you and not displine you in any other manner. I hope nobody got their feeling hurt and cried.

I am not condemning anyone for drinking. We all were college students once and we all drank more than we should of, but some of us were not bound by team rules. That was part of your contract for a free education and the chance to play DIV 1 college hockey. If players don't want to be bound by such rules, they can opt for the minors. I had a client who owned a Jr. A team, so I know that many players are either hoping for a DIV 1 scholarship or a minor league contract. You had a choice.

As far as discipline goes, I graduated with a 3.7 GPA and i never got in trouble for breaking rules ever. I had a perfectly clean slate while i was a Falcon. Yes i drank and partied, but i also did my school work and was always in excellent shape all of my years at BG. This is why i get so angry at the fact that Scott Paluch is a head coach and all of you people think he is so great.

Unless I did not read a previous post, I am not sure where this supports your case.

Nobody thinks that maybe, just maybe he is a bad coach and ruining guys careers for no reason. Just maybe us former players are telling the truth about him. The majority of the guys that i played with at BG were very dedicated players and also dedicated students and Paluch treated us all like crap. Nobody understands how frustrating it is to play under him and nobody ever will. Continue to back Paluch and you will continue to have a losing program at BG.

Scott Paluch might not be a good coach.... that seems to be evident in the results. He might not be recruiting the best players (no slam intended on you.... I don't know who you are.... nor do I care), He might not be able to organize and utilize the talent he does recruit (which is somewhat intangible.... We can talk about lines being mixed all the time, lack of a solid plan to have strong special teams play, inability to get multiple personalities to play together as a team).

However, and I may not be speaking for everyone who has come here and supported Coach Paluch, there seems to be a pestilence that has followed this program since the days of Buddy Powers. We all know that Buddy Powers was a player's coach and the players thought they ran the team. To me, this is what has hurt our program equally as much as the coaching ability of Scott Paluch. And there seems to have been a track record of players not willing to play within this coach's system (let's assume he is a good coach for one minute). Thats what bothers me the most. Former players infecting current players, talking down teammates, coaches, fans, the AD, you know it.

A new coach will be coming. He will need to clean house of alot of players. He should ban all former players from having contact with the team. Hopefully he will be a great coach and hopefully he can disinfect the program of this disease, whether it is a minority or a majority of players.

So for me - it is a two-fold problem. We need to replace Coach Paluch and we have to get rid of the pestilence many of you players have created within our program. I am not stating you were/are part of the problem, but I hope you can be open-minded enough to see the problem beyond the coach.

[freddiethefalconBG]

The years that i played for Paluch we never thpught we ran the team. We always listen to what he had to say and obided by his rules. Ofcourse guys would break rules and get in trouble but there is not a team in the world that does not have guys get in trouble from time to time. That comes with being a head coach. We did nothave a bunch of trouble makers on our team. The problem with Paluch was he did not know how to handle certain situations well. When two guys get in trouble for the same thing they should have the same penalty. That was not the case with Paluch he would show favorites and if he did not like you your punishment would be significantly worse than if he liked you. Im sorry but things just do not work that way. That is how you get a group of guys to loose respect for you as a coach.

Us players did not create pestilence within the program. We played for Paluch with every belief that he was a great coach and new what he was doing. Once we realized he was a very bad coach and was just bringing us all down we all lost faith in him and thats when it all started. Paluch is the one that created all of the problems. He is the one that made all of his players hate him. He is the one that proved he can not be a head coach of a hockey team. He lost the respect of the players. You can not expect guys to respect someone whio is incomitent. Nobody ever went against Paluch we just realized we would never win under him. We never quit, we always went out and played hard.

There were so many guys that played under their potential because of the way he handled guys. The problem is he does not know how to handle guys and different personalities. The fact of the matter is Paluch dug his own grave. This mess is his fault and nobody elses. The players are the victims because we had to play under someone that should not have been there. I do not think that all the fans realize how many careers he has ruined. He destroyed guys careers. You don't realize how crucial a players college hockey career is. Than to have someone like Scott Paluch run you threw the mud. take everything you worked your whole life for and step all over it. That is what he did to so many guys. Some guys made it threw But, there were some that did not and that is a tragedy.

so you can say that the players are a big problem but the truth of it is that it all rests on Paluch's fault because he created it. The players showed nothing but respect for him in the begining. He is the one that screwed everything up. We do not bash the coach to the players that are thier now, they are smart guys and can figure out on their own how incompitent he is.

[hockey fan]

Another solid post freddiethefalconBG. I hope the team can finish the season on a positive note and then we can start fresh. A new coach, a new mindset, a new direction. In the long run it doesn't matter who is at fault. It's time for a change.

[Tech83]

The problem with Paluch was he did not know how to handle certain situations well. When two guys get in trouble for the same thing they should have the same penalty. That was not the case with Paluch he would show favorites and if he did not like you your punishment would be significantly worse than if he liked you..........The problem is he does not know how to handle guys and different personalities.

The situation you are describing is that we have a young coach who is struggling with management style. He has created his own problems by not using a management style that is working for his current situation. Some of the examples you and others have pointed out such as dealing with situtations in a uniform manner seem to exemplify the problems.

As far as favorites..... that is life and you will see it again and again. This is not limited to BG hockey. I have worked for several people who were great architects, but lousy human beings. We might have someone who is not cut out being in a management position or it could be he is just a bad human being.

Paluch might leave BG, get a new head coach job, learn from his past failures, change his method of dealing with players, and he could end up being a winning coach.

There also seems to be issues of knowing how to develop a game plan for all aspects of the game and teaching the team to execute that plan. Thus the losing record.

Here is one thing to remember - If we had a winning record, nothing would change. We would have a great coach who is a lousy human being (according to his players).

You don't realize how crucial a players college hockey career is. Than to have someone like Scott Paluch run you threw the mud. take everything you worked your whole life for and step all over it. That is what he did to so many guys. Some guys made it threw But, there were some that did not and that is a tragedy.

Yes we do realize how important a college career is. (Again read my post concerning a client who owned a Jr. A team). You have alumni and fans who have followed BG hockey for years..... 1979 for me. Players either will move from Jr. A to a minor league contract or a DIV 1 scholarship. The success at any level is important to move to the next.

It is pure speculation about players that did not make it. Coaching might be part of the problem, but its also about having the talent and dedication to move to the next level. Something like less than 10% of high school athletes play in college and I think its is about 2% of college players that go to the next level. Out of the thousand of athletes that have played at BG (any sport), very few have gone on to the NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL. I am not discounting your comment, I just want us to be realistic.

[pdt1081]

freddiethefalconBG,

Thank you for your last two posts in this thread. Those are the kind of posts that I have been looking for. They prove that you are not just bitter about your time here and that you can put an actual logical thought in front of everybody. This wasn't happening in your previous posts, which is why I started posting like I did.

I will be the first to admit that I did get a little out of line and for that I apologize to you, the moderators, to Grant, and to everybody here.

As for your comments on Dennis Williams, it's my honest opinion that when he was a coach, he was just doing his job. Breaking the rules in front of a coach, even a grad assistant, should lead one to expect some form of punishment. I don't blame you for having a few drinks with dinner, I do it all the time. But, I'm not part of something that has rules against it.

I do have one (well, actually two) more question for you though. When was it that you guys "realized" that Paluch was incompitent as a coach? Was it just the way he dealt with players or the way he approached the game?

Again, thank you for your insight. There's a right way to bring about change and a wrong way. Your last few posts are the right way.

[freddiethefalconBG]

The thing that was bad about that was that we were not breaking any rules. We were out on a monday night eating dinner having a few drinks. There were no rules against that. That's why we realized he was a rat. There were a lot of other things that have happened. That was just one of them that really pissed all of us off. And made us realize what a weasel he was.

We started to realize that Paluch was incopmitent in his first year here. Not at first but as the season went on we did. a big thing was his coaching decisions during games and how he would prepare us for games. His first year as a head coach we were in a lot of one goal games, i think the most in the nation. We had a very could team that year. A lot of games came down to the wire and he always seemed to panic and make very bad decisions late in the game and we lost a lot of games because of that. Also the way he spoke to guys and treated us. We all realized it and never said anything we just continue to play and try to ignore it as much as we could. By his second year we new there was no hope. The captain's would try and go and talk to him and he would just yell at them and throw them out of his office.


We would have meetings every day that were meaningless. Had nothing to do with hockey or what was going on. His gameplans were always way off. Throughout the course of a game coaches have to make changes when teams are figuring out what you are trying to do especially on special teams. He would never change anything. it would drive us nuts. I dont even want to get into practices because they were terrible. He would never let us just play the game. He tried to make everyone play the same way and that does not work. When you have a guy that is highly skilled and can score goals you can not try to make him a physical player. Yes he has to finish his checks but you have to let him play his game. Paluch does not do that.

It got so bad that we would hold our own team meetings without the coaches to try and keep everybody's heads together. We basically got to the point where we were playing for our school, teamattes, and ourselves. Not the coaches. All the veterans would hold the team together and keep the moral up.

I could go on for days about this, i hope i answered your question. If you want to know anything else i would be glad to tell you.

[Tech83]

Freddie,

I think this is the stuff people want to see. The game stuff........

Most of the things others have brought here were like.... "He plays favorites." "He works us too hard." "Some guys can have long hair." Well that's life and it really sounded like cry-baby crap.

But the inability to develop a game plan, the inability to develop players based on their existing skill sets, the inability to unite the team (other than against himself), these are the issues people can get behind. They can be very intangible to describe, but I think you done the best so far.

Unfortnately, as bgbill stated in another thread, we can't find these things out until the coach gets here. I just hope that we can replace Paluch ASAP and we can get the program back on track. But we could end up with more of the same, unless we can hire someone who has head coach experience either at DIV 3, Jr. A's, minors, or even another DIV I prorgram.

Thanks.

[ShaneFalco]

I just wanted to add on to Freddie's posts, which were very accurate.

An issue that became very frustrating for myself, and many other players, is when we were trying to improve our skills and do whatever it took to get into or stay in the lineup. Players were not bitter when they were not in the lineup (for the most part), but when we would go to his office and ask, "what do I need to work on to crack the lineup?, or what am I doing wrong / where can I improve?". Paluch would avoid this issue at all costs. He would reply with such things as, "you are doing fine, but so and so had a better week of practice" or "you missed a few passes on Wednesday" or "you were out of position in the defensive zone in the Friday game", but when you would ask to go over the game film (for personal improvement) he would not be able to show you these mistakes that he spoke of in the film.

It just became very frustrating. It is hard to improve, and develop as a player without communication and guidance.

[freddiethefalconBG]

Yeah that was frustrating. He would make up excuses why you weren't in the line up but than he could never give you examples of when you made these mistakes. That use to drive us nuts.

I would have rather him said "I just don't feel like playing you because of the way you look, or i just don't like you" I would have much rather him said that to me than make up excuses that were not true.

The most frustrating thing was when you would ask him for some advice and what areas of your game you needed to improve and he wouldn't tell you. He would say "nothing, you are doing fine" I mean come on now. Even if you are the best player in the league there are always things that you need to do to improve and he would never give us advice or work with us. What kind of coach would do that to his players. I have played hockey for a lot of years and i never had a coach that has treated me or any of my teamattes that way.

After i was done with college and went on and began playing at the next level it was amazing. It felt so good to be playing hockey again. It was great playing for a coach that actually wanted to help and see you improve your game. When i talk to my coaches that ive had after college and that i play for now about what Paluch would do to us and how he coached the team they are all baffled by it. They can't believe that he can be Bowling Green's head coach.

If any other players want to talk about some of the things that went on when we were there get it out. What other bonehead things would he do???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[Jacobs4Heisman]

This is the most meaningful and constructive dialog I've seen on the Hockey forum in quite some time. Thanks, guys.

[pdt1081]

Did any of you guys go to the assistant coaches with any of this or did you go straight to Paluch?

The reason I ask is because I know Hills and Wilson did a lot of work individaully with players when they were assistant coaches.