If Red Berenson Won't Retire, He Should Be Fired
[Patrick Barron]
So here's a post I absolutely never wanted to write. Despite being an e-site on the internet staffed by basement trolls, historically this space has been very slow to get on a soapbox and say FIRE THIS GUY. I was still barely on board with Rodriguez after his third season and only called for Hoke's firing after the Shane Morris concussion fiasco. Meanwhile other parts of the internet call us Beilein slaps, because other parts of the internet are dirt stupid Rome listeners. And I love not just Michigan hockey but damn the torpedoes, screw your trap, let's score a buttload of goals Red Berenson hockey. Without Berenson it's likely I'm not a hockey fan of any variety.
But I kind of have to write this, because apparently missing the tournament for the fourth time in five years with the worst team Red Berenson's had since the mid-80s isn't enough for everyone involved:
I think Red Berenson will be back for a final season. We'll see what happens with meeting later this week with Warde Manuel. @umichhockey
— George Sipple (@GeorgeSipple) April 2, 2017
George has a pretty good feel for these things. Have been told the chances of him retiring are growing slimmer by the day. https://t.co/1WshrO0XUz
— Michael Spath (@MichaelSpathITH) April 2, 2017
This is why I was fretting about Michigan's post-Frozen-Four decision date on Berenson. If there was a decision to make it should have been made midseason, probably after Michigan handed a Tom Anastos-led Michigan State team two of their three conference wins. If not then, then immediately after the season. And yet.
Red Berenson is no longer a good hockey coach. Michigan's decline has been near-constant for a decade, with two items obscuring that: walk-on goalie Shawn Hunwick turning in two of the program's best-ever years in goal and last year's near-unprecedented pile of NHL talent. While Berenson should get credit for each, those are blips as Michigan hockey slaloms downhill.
Even when Michigan has been at a relative peak during their decline, North Dakota pops up to remind us that Berenson's approach has been lapped by modern hockey coaches. The last two times Michigan and North Dakota have met in the NCAA tournament Michigan has gotten outshot two to one. They won one of those with the greatest single-game goalie performance in program history. Last year they lost, meekly, because they could not even get out of their own zone.
That should have been the last straw. Michigan is no longer a program that can go into any game against a top-end foe and expect to have an even game even if their entire power play should already be in the NHL. North Dakota flat-out embarrassed Michigan in that game, and they specifically embarrassed Michigan's coaching.
It was not the last straw, so Michigan fans were treated to a season in which the only thing keeping them from a single-digit-win season was outstanding goaltending. Michigan finished 57th of 60 D-I teams in even-strength Corsi*. Forgive me if I bring out my inner Jim Rome right now, but that is flat-out unacceptable. Michigan controlled their zones about as well as 5-31-3 Niagara, 7-21-6 Alaska-Anchorage, and second-year independent Arizona State—which is still using club players.
Talent is indisputably down, but not that much. There are nine NHL draft picks on the roster and a tenth player (Luke Martin) will go in the next one. It is distantly possible that you could build a case for Red to return if Michigan had missed the tournament by a hair. They did not. They missed it by a mile, and the underlying numbers are even worse than the record.
Michigan's coaching is not and has not been an asset since Mel Pearson left. Pearson is working with scraps and guys from places so remote that Houghton seems like a metropolis in comparison. He's made the tournament twice in the last three years, and finished in the top five of even strength Corsi all three years. His talent is at best average in the WCHA; he outperforms. Berenson's talent was at worst league-average in the Big Ten; he underperforms.
Meanwhile there are signs every year that nobody's afraid of Red anymore—that nobody even respects him. This year Cooper Marody was academically ineligible for the first half of the year, which hasn't happened since I've been paying attention. Every NHL talent flees the instant it's an option. Jon Merrill missed half a season with personal issues a few years back; things never should have gotten that bad with him. When Andrew Copp jumped to the NHL after his junior season, Red slammed his character and that of his father. When Mike Spath related this, Copp's furious father responded at length, explaining why Copp decided that another year in Ann Arbor would not be a positive for his hockey career.
The year Copp decided to leave Michigan excluded him from the hockey banquet entirely: not a mention of his name. For the captain of the team. Does that sound like a rational person?
[Bill Rapai]
Red Berenson is 77. His hockey team was horrendous this year. He appears increasingly incapable of controlling the kids on his team. He's been on his "final" season for three years now. If he won't retire he is RedPa. Warde Manuel should do him a favor and prevent that from happening.
*[Corsi is your percent of all shot attempts. It is broadly more predictive of future events than actual goals, which are lower in number and subject to goalie vagaries.]
red was and is michigan hockey, and i have mixed feelings about pushing him out. i would like to have one last chance to see him behind the bench, but i get why that maybe shouldn't happen at this point.
i think of bo's last game, tripping on the cords in the rose bowl...that obviously had zero to do with his health, or his ability to continue to coach; the game had not 'passed him by,' to use one of the euphemisms that get tossed around in these situations. nevertheless, that image endures.
it's sad to me that the last game for red berenson will either be us getting our doors blown off in a "big ten tournament" game by a school that didn't play d1 hockey five years ago...or some similar result a year from now.
That's why, as a fan who wants to remember Red's legacy fondly, last year would have been a better time to step away. The CCM line magic would have been an acceptable last hurrah and it's hard to imagine next season or after being that good again.
boo this man.
Hard to believe that anyone in his position would refuse to retire if asked. But you see it in sports a lot. Players who are past their prime who simply don't want to let go. Heck, I see it in my aging father who thought he could drive until he nearly totaled his car (no one was hurt thankfully) and even then, he thought he could still handle it. I'm not there yet, not at the point of having to say I can no longer do the thing that makes me who I am, but I hope when I get there, I can transition gracefully.
The two years before Red arrived was 14-22-0, and 14-22-1. In the 33 years since arriving, (even including going 13-26-1, 12-26-0, and 14-25-1 his first three years) was 835-407-89 through the 2015-16 season, including going 25-8-5 in '15-'16 (all Wikipedia sourced). Granted, this season was horrendous....but aren't we being a bit rough on a guy who has given the bulk of his adult life to the Maize and Blue, and served this University so well?
Neg me all you want...I think the facts say he has been a great coach (this last season excepted).
The issue at stake is not whether Red has been a great coach. There is no dispute about that one.
It's whether he is still a great coach now, in the year 2017. Unfortunately the evidence suggests that he no longer is.
I love the Dude. He can still recruit in context, he should be paid, but let's bring in a new head coach to compete for the national championship and make the operational decisions.
We proclaim leaders and best, thus recent results must count. Brian is painfully correct.
Red has absoutely earned the right to linger around the program in a different capacity - in fact that would be what's best for the program. Sadly, I think it's clear that his best days as a coach are a few years behind him. If he can't step down gracefully, then he'll have to be forced out. "All the wise men know when it's time to go and so I should too"
The CCM line last year was a vintage good time, but North Dakota made it clear how even in highest of up years Michigan will still be second tier until we overhaul the program.
The sad thing is I doubt anyone in the Athletic Department even cares...
Sad thing, but is this the University of Michigan Hockey program or the University of RedfuckingBerenson Hockey program?
Red is not what's best for the program anymore. That is not debatable. So what the fuck are we debating?
We are debating how we treat a man who is a bona fide Michigan legend. A man whose accomplishments probably warrant a 20 foot tall statue, clad in gold, whose luminence would illuminate all of State Street when it's bathed in the moonlight. I don't think there's a person on this board that doesn't think that Red's time has come and we all wish he would see it himself, but count me among those that can't bring himself to endorsing firing him.
We are debating how we treat a man who is a bona fide Michigan legend.
20 foot tall statue, clad in gold, whose luminence would illuminate all of State Street when it's bathed in the moonlight.
debate over. Do this. Red Berenson rink at Yost Ice Arena. Gold statue out front. etc.
but he's done. it's over. Good day sir.
I love my grandpa and will always be grateful for all the wonderful things he did for our family and our country. The decision to move him to a nursing home (contrary to his wishes) is in his best interests. Same here. Keeping Red at the helm is not in his best interests but he's lost the ability to see that clearly.
Username plus heartwarming story about forcing grandpa into a home...
This blog never ceases to amaze.
Has WM moved into his house yet?
but all of them share some fundamental traits: self-confidence, assertiveness (if not aggression), pride, an intense desire to be in control of people and situations, and a hatred of losing. All of these traits require an extremely strong ego and sense of self as a positive force to affect the world around you.
The problem is that spending a lifetime in this psychological space can make you blind to the inevitability of declining capabilities due to aging. And if you're a legend as Red is, it means there are probably very few people around you who have the standing to be able to look you in the eye and tell you it's time to step down—that you don't have it any more.
That's where wisdom comes in. Yes, Bo knew he had a bad heart, but he could have easily coached for several more years and nobody would have said no. But as cantankerous as Bo could be, he was also an extremely wise person who recognized that he was at the end of his own career, and it was time to turn the reins over to a loyal and patient assistant.
Scotty Bowman and Bear Bryant retired at 69, and Bryant thought he'd stayed on too long as it was. John Wooden retired at 65. Fielding Yost stopped coaching at 55. All of them were legendary enough that they could have coach longer, but each of them in their own way understood that their best years were at an end, or very soon would be. Somehow Red has to get to that same place where he accepts the natural order of things, the way the rest of humanity has to.
THANK YOU. I got downvoated to hell yesterday in the Red thread saying that he's our JoePa. Then my comment was deleted by the Moms. Now Brian strolls in and calls him RedPa.
I feel vindicated! Take that, uninformed MGoBloggers.
a Big Ten championship, and the National Championship before he's done....
Hockey is such a cruel sport (2011), I'm grateful to the players & to Red for all the wins, especially '96 & '98.
It's fairly obvious Brian wasn't talking anything Sandusky related. Anyone who thought he was --- come on, OF COURSE NOT.
Anyway, the similiarities:
(1) While PSU football (Michigan hockey) was down in the 2000s (2010-2017 era), they threw in enough near-elite seasons with B1G Championships and Top 10 teams (Frozen Four appearences and Top 10 teams) to partially "hide" the level of decline. The 2005, 2008 and 2009 PSU football teams are fairly analogous to Michigan's 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2015-16 hockey teams.
(2) I swear this has been Red Berenson's last season for about 5 years now. Penn State fans heard that all the time in the 2000-2011 era. Just one or two more seasons and Joe's retiring. Blah blah blah.
(3) The "lack of respect" from the hockey players that Brian references. That's troublesome. Also saw that at the end of JoePa's tenure (more players than usual in academic or legal problems).
(4) A few too many Berenson (Paterno) supporters have the attitude of "he's done so much for our program in the past, he deserves to write his own future." Sorry, but no. There's no shame in growing old. It happens to all of us.
I grew up following Michigan hockey and I like Red Berenson. It's a hard truth, but I do agree: Manual has to pull the trigger. Michigan hockey deserves better than what's going on now.
This is the most telling for me:
“I think we all know that last year wasn’t good enough,” Berenson told the crowd at the Junge Family Champions Center in Ann Arbor. “The culture has to change. Priorities have to change."For a guy who's been head coach for 30 years to change the culture and priorities, he'd have to reinvent himself as a coach. I don't know how well a 77-year-old can do that.
Should have stopped reading this hot take after "I'm not a hockey guy".
Michigan handed a Tom Anastos-led Michigan State team two of their three conference wins.
The last two times Michigan and North Dakota have met in the NCAA tournament Michigan has gotten outshot two to one. They won one of those with the greatest single-game goalie performance in program history. Last year they lost, meekly, because they could not even get out of their own zone.
Michigan finished 57th of 60 D-I teams in even-strength Corsi*. Michigan controlled their zones about as well as 5-31-3 Niagara, 7-21-6 Alaska-Anchorage, and second-year independent Arizona State—which is still using club players.
*[Corsi is your percent of all shot attempts. It is broadly more predictive of future events than actual goals, which are lower in number and subject to goalie vagaries.]
There are nine NHL draft picks on the roster and a tenth player (Luke Martin) will go in the next one. It is distantly possible that you could build a case for Red to return if Michigan had missed the tournament by a hair. They did not. They missed it by a mile, and the underlying numbers are even worse than the record.
I appreciate your willingness to gather this evidence for a post this old. Too few will know of your heroism. Of course he isn't looking for this type of evidence (unless he legit just didn't read Brian's post). He doesn't want results-based evidence, he wants arbitrary "bad coach" traits. Like, did you know that Red doesn't even wear a headset during games?
Even great hockey players get tired and lose their effectiveness at the end of an over-long shift. It is time for a shift change. Past time in fact, but I don't begrudge Red, Warde, fans or anyone for not being in a rush to ask him to step down. He contributed a lot over the years. Still, like Red would whistle a player to come in for a change, if his own internal clock doesn't tell him it's time for a change, someone has to.
It's unfortunate that he couldn't go out with the program flying high, or with a strong HC candidate beside him on the bench. I think he has to shoulder some of the blame for that. But we don't know what's transpired behind the scenes. Maybe he was asked to stay on while the administration tried to line up Mel or another quality coach to take over.
In any case, unless he's asked to continue one more year as part of a "get our guy" transition move, I think he's going to step down. I hope he does it of his own volition, I'd hate to see him be asked to "retire".
Random but perhaps pertinent data point -- I bumped into my favorite hockey coach at the Novi RV show a few months ago. He was with his wife, and his son and his wife. They were looking at the high-end Class A diesel pusher motorhomes. $300K+. That's the kind of thing a person might do as they anticipate the leisure time that comes with retirement.
i love Michigan. I love Michigan hockey! but we are miserable and Reds time has passed. He has had a great career with great numbers but Michigans program has fallen into disrepair, a valley of mediocrity. They were unwatchable.
The story in the News today was sad. He speaks like maybe he should stay unless its bad for the program. Unless? you can t see? it is bad for the program. Dont keep hanging on.
We need Mel Pearson. We need him now. Will he come now if we call now?
Red you groomed Mel, you taught Mel. You made Mel ready for this job.
let Mel take over as its his time to succeed you.
Please dont subject all of Michigans fans to another year of this.
We arent State. Do not take us down any further. Its time for Pearson to coach this team
Please, Red we are begging you. Its time. Retire. For the Team!
If you posted that your big concern is who would we hire who is a good coach, then you have not watched Michigan hockey closely and you have not read the posts on MGoBlog on hockey and i understand. At Michigan Hockey is 3rd behind Football and Basketball, though not as nationally competitive as Softball for 10 years.
We have a great coach in waiting. Michigan Tech head coach Mel Pearson, who coached UNDER Red from 1988 to 2011. thats 23 years!! now hes a head coach for six years, and hes done great. He was Red's right hand man.
Tech knows they are not Michigan. IF Michigan comes to Mel Pearson and offers him the HC job he will say yes and Tech would understand.
So its not that dont know if we encourage Red to retire because we do not know if we can get a great coach? No!! We have a great coach ready to take over in Mel Pearson. Hes 58 now. its time for him to take over. You will see dramatic improvement and the players would love it.
There is no reason for Red at 77 to hang on for another year. He should have retired last year at least.
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/mel-pearson-why-michigan-hockey-was-great
Were we not aware of this? Mel has been widely assumed to be the heir for 20 years now.
But. Mel is currently 58 years old. The time was five years ago.
If Mel's the best guy for the job, you hire him -unless he's specifically said he wants to retire soon.
One of Bo's lasting lesson's is knowing when it is time to move on. If I was running the show, I'd give Red a copy with that chapter dog tagged, highlighted, whatever. Just get the message across to him that it is time for him to move on.
He is getting older and older, and the progam has been losing the temperament like him to win big including titles.
He has built enough legacy, but please don't burn it with his reluctant leaving.
The Hockey program is labelled by Michigan, not his private garden. Not one should keep it like private property buried with his tomb.
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