Coach Tierney: Like Father, Like Daughter
4/14/2020 12:25:00 PM | Women's Lacrosse
By Elton Alexander
It was a game that had all the makings of a homecoming away from home, then 'the virus' hit and the sports world as we know it came to halt. Including for the still young Kent State University women's lacrosse team.
Head coach Brianne Tierney was anxiously awaiting ?the opportunity to lead her team against rival Akron, on the road at William G. Tierney Field in Baltimore. This is the new 'home' for the sport, a complex for US Lacrosse complete with a 2,000-seat stadium named for Tierney's father, an icon in the sport with a combined seven national championships to his name as coach at Princeton ?and Denver.
For the second-year program Tierney is building at Kent, there was to be the extra bonus of having the elder Tierney, head men's coach at Denver, on hand to speak with the team before the contest, then cheer them on during.
"It was something we talked about for quite some time,'' Bill Tierney said from his home in Denver. "My team was going to be there. We were going to be on spring break playing Georgetown in DC that Saturday. I had my whole team ready to change their colors to blue and gold and cheer on Kent State. We were looking forward to it, looking at the scoreboard and seeing the Tierney name I'm sure would have made her proud.
"But we'll have another chance. We all understand this situation the country is in right now is bigger than all of us, so not a heck of a lot we can do about it."
Kent State's Tierney said she is all for trying to make the reunion happen again.
"Yes,'' she said. "US Lacrosse is kind of our governing body for everything from youth lacrosse to college. They run this facility in Baltimore and open it up for teams to use, if they need a neutral field. So, it's definitely something we can do in the future.''
The more immediate challenge, even as her team likely won't be together again for awhile, is finding ways to build and improve going forward.
"We just finished up our second year of building a program at Kent State,'' Brianne Tierney said. "But there has been work going into this for the last 6-7-8-years. Dr. Beverly Warren, the former president at Kent State, she had put in place that lacrosse was going to be added. She was a huge proponent for that and the sport in general.
"She had put in place all the workings before I even got here, she along with (AD) Joel Nielsen were huge in this whole thing, getting us everything we needed to get started.
"Then I came in and basically got to do all the fun stuff; recruit, design the locker room, schedule and plan. First year was putting the building blocks in place, 24 freshmen, and we focused so much on culture and leadership development. They took it on wholeheartedly.
"This season we were hoping to see some of the fruit of that, but we were cut short before the could happen. Even though there are sad points about this year, I think in the future it provides me with greater gratitude. I'll be excited to have a team in their junior season next year. They'll be experienced, and with another class coming in behind them."
Building a program is nothing new for either Tierney as her father did ?in establishing programs at both Princeton and Denver, and the daughter first as head coach at Division III Lebanon Valley College and now at Kent. The elder Tierney even says he has been learning from his daughter for years.
"I came home one day when she was 7-or-8 years old,' Tierney began. "I was upset. We had not been doing well on our specialty team. She asked me what's wrong and I told her 'I need a man-up play.' She went and drew one out in crayon and gave it to me. She called it 'Purple Tree.' First time we ran it, we scored on it.
"It's something I still use once in awhile. It reminds me as a coach that sometimes, simple is better.''
Brianne Tierney now says her love of the game, and coaching it, is a direct reflection of her father.
"When you grow up around a coach you see all the ins and outs of this thing,'' she said. "I'm so proud of my dad. He has a game face, an office face and a family face. He cares more than anything in the world. That's the biggest thing I've taken from him. That family aspect of coaching a team. And mom right along with him; having teams over for meals and taking assistant coaches into their house. It's more than 9-to-5, it's 24-hour days, seven days a week, especially in times like these when you are worried about kids getting home, being safe and healthy.
"Growing up around it had a huge influence on me, mostly when I was in college. I realized I didn't want to be behind a desk all day. I want to coach.''
And if that is not enough, she is even married to a lacrosse coach, Dylan Sheridan, who built the lacrosse program at Cleveland State before moving on to now being an assistant coach at Ohio State.
As one can see, Brianne Tierney has lacrosse all around her, even as she now calls Northeast Ohio home.
"My husband and I moved here five years ago,'' she said. "While my husband started the program at Cleveland State University, I took a year and a half off (from coaching) but realized I missed it. I missed being on a college campus, missed being around college students.
"So when Kent State opened, I thought this was perfect: my husband and I get to be Division I head coaches. It all kind of worked out. It's been the greatest thing in the world. Now, he's actually down at Ohio State as an assistant coach there. So he's got an apartment there. That makes it a little bit trickier, but for me, my team becomes my family along with my three-year-old (Bodhi).
With Dad being in Denver, and Dylan being at Ohio State, all basically living on the same work schedule, as Brianne said, staying in contact, "makes it tricky." But it all seemed to work out well.
The next trick, will be getting the Tierney family back to Tierney field in Baltimore.
