A Jersey Guy: Not Many People Know His Name, But They Should
Even among his brethren, all 347 of them in Division 1--he is merely another face in the crowd.
Billy Coen isn't a "win the press conference'' type of college basketball coach.
No jazzy soundbites through a career at Northeastern that is well into its 15th season.
No controversies.
What Billy Coen's teams do each year is produce a quality product which wins more games than it loses and plays sound, fundamental basketball
Coen has turned out solid (249 wins) Huskie teams, who reside in the mostly obscure mid-major level of the Colonial Athletic Conference in a city (Boston) where college athletics is seldom the main event.
And while Boston (and Massachusetts) have been the coaching launching pads for such major figures as Rick Pitino, John Calipari, and Jim Calhoun, Billy Coen has never really come close to a spotlight dance moment.
What he has done is run a clean, successful program year in and year out, facing each challenge, including this season's COVID-19 train wreck.
Other local schools such as UMass and BC both have had opportunities to elevate their programs with Coen as their coach and passed.
That was their mistake and both programs have been mired in mediocrity for much of the past decade, while Northeastern and Coen have succeeded--if you take the smallest of goals---a winning season--as a true measuring stick.
Northeastern has had seven straight winning seasons and is currently sitting in an unexpected first place slot in the CAA standings with three weekends remaining in the regular season.
""Never seen a season like this,'' said Coen earlier this week when we caught up with him in a phone (not zoom) chat. ""It's been crazy. I come to work each day, not sure of anything, of who can play, if we will play, or whom we will play. There are absolutely no certainties.''
Coen, who came to Northeastern in 2006 as a long time assistant to then BC basketball coach Al Skinner, deals with that reality, but quickly puts it into the proper perspective.
""I do that, and then I come home and have to reconcile it to the fact that 500,000 people are dead because of COVID,'' he said.
The CAA like all conferences has had to make scheduling adjustments to deal with the pandemic.
Their solution is to play games in weekend clusters where teams play both of their round robin league games on the same weekend, in the same city, rather than the traditional home and home rivalries spread over a few weeks or a few months.
"It's a challenge from a physical, mental and emotional standpoint,'' said Coen. ""You have a lot of strange things happening, like winning by 20 points one night and losing the next. The emotional aspect of beating a good team twice in a couple of days has been a great challenge.''
The Huskies (7-1 in the CAA) have avoided any weekend sweeps thus far going into this weekend's trip at Towson.
Northeastern has had its share of postponements and COVID-related issues but has remained focused.
Coen's daily routine is filled with waiting for the unexpected--a last minute cancellation and a scramble to find opponents.
""Scheduling used to be done well in advance,'' said Coen, with a laugh. "This year it was like, "Hey, are you free tomorrow?''
At 59, Coen is no longer the promising coaching prospect who can move to the next level.
But he is hardly a Jurassic Park candidate either.
When coaching openings occur--and that is almost a dead certainty to happen again at BC in the next few weeks--his name should be on most lists.
Certainly BC, where Coen developed his coaching skills on Skinner's staff from 1997-2006, would make sense if that does happen as expected.
But Coen no longer worries about the next stop.
He has found a niche at Northeastern which is comfortable. If calls come, they come, but he doesn't dwell on what might happen.
In a period where there are few certainties about ANYTHING in life, one fact stands out:
Billty Coen can flat out coach as well as represent a school with class and dignity.