Ed Robson Arena, on the campus of Colorado College, is a long way away from the Dublin, Ohio, yogurt shop that Tigers associate head coach Paul Pooley once ran with his brother.
Life’s funny like that.
When Pooley’s pro hockey career wrapped up in 1987 with the minor-league Fort Wayne Komets, the Ohio State graduate thought his professional life going forward would revolve around dairy. Instead, he went with something else best served cold.
Assistant coaching stints at Ohio State and then Lake Superior led to Pooley becoming Providence’s head coach from 1994 to 2005, winning a Hockey East playoff title in 1996. He then spent 20 years as Notre Dame’s associate head coach, and although Fighting Irish coach Jeff Jackson retired last spring, Pooley, 65, was nowhere near ready to hang up his skates.
He knew he would be leaving Indiana once more, and in May, it was announced he would continue his career in what had once been a fertile recruiting ground at his previous stops. Although, it wasn’t so much so for his initial Notre Dame team. He recalls the Irish’s 3-1 loss to Colorado College in October 2005, at the Tigers’ former Broadmoor World Arena home, as a game to forget.
“I called my wife after the game and said, ‘I don’t think we’re going to win a game all year. We didn’t touch the puck once tonight.’” Pooley joked, ish. “We continued to get better from there, and we also played a NCAA regional out here, but when I was at Lake Superior, we also used to come recruiting out here when there were events at Air Force. My wife and I would come out here for four or five days, and even back then, I knew that it would be a neat spot to work.”
In an interview last Monday, Pooley described Colorado Springs, Colo., just as he would’ve back in the 1990s when he was working out of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
“I wanted to stay involved with coaching (after Jackson’s retirement) because I still feel that I have more to give, and when that opportunity opened up here, I still remember that Jeff said, ‘You might want to give (CC coach) Kris (Mayotte) a call,’” Pooley said.
“I really like Kris, there’s a lot of resources here and obviously it’s a great area. You wake up every day with a postcard with the mountains and the weather, and it’s a great school here. Those were all things I was looking for, and they have a rich tradition of hockey here, and we want to get this to the highest level possible.”
Looking at his résumé and his job titles over the past 37 years, it’d be understandable to wonder why Pooley went from two assistant coaching jobs, to one head coaching role, then two more assistant positions. But, in the shrieking cluster that college sports can feel like these days, having more of a behind-the-scenes gig is where he best operates.
“We talk about connecting and relationship-building and things like that, and there are different ways that people do that,” Mayotte said. “Some people do it through their vulnerability, some do it through constant communication through technology, some people do it face-to-face, and Paul is very much a conversation, face-to-face, grab-coffee person, but not just grab coffee when things are going poorly.
“It’s a genuine sense of care about you, not just your performance, that drives his relationship-building, and in some instances, that isn’t the case with people. Some young coaches, it’s so technology-driven that that misses on some things, so Paul brings a completely different form of relationship-building and a different form of values in those relationships. It’s just much deeper than just doing it so that he can coach you. It’s so that he gets to know who you are.”
Pooley works with Colorado College’s defensemen, as he did for 18 years at Notre Dame, and also coordinates CC’s power-play units. But to hear him say it, his job description gives human-resources vibes, too.
“Ultimately, I like developing young men,” Pooley said. “I think it’s about life, where you take guys who come in as freshmen, young men, and hopefully leave as men ready for the next challenge they’re about to face, whether that’s pro hockey or getting into the job market. I think the relationships are good, because you can impact people, and that’s kind of what I’m all about.
“I feel like I’m a teacher and a developer, versus, ‘Hey, we want to win hockey games.’ That’s the business we’re in, but for me, it’s about trying to develop and help young men become the very best at what they do, and school’s a part of it, making good decisions is part of it and playing hockey is part of it.”
Hockey, and any other sport you’d care to name. Pooley draws heavily on experiences with his children Scott, a former Holy Cross hockey standout, and Taylor, who played for Ball State’s women’s soccer team.
“I know what they’ve gone through, be it success, injuries, wanting to play more, just the ups and downs,” Paul said. “I think I’m a better coach because I understand what Division I athletes go through, because I’ve had those conversations with my kids, and I still have that with my son, a seventh-year pro in Sweden.
“I understand what these guys are going through: the pressure, the expectations, all those things, and I think I can help a little bit with that because I kind of know what they’re thinking without them telling me at times. That’s where I feel like I’ve grown as a coach, just through my kids.”
And, it turns out, sharing that experience without also having to spin quite so many plates.
“I find that I can dig into the details more so in the position I’m in now,” he said. “I know the head coach has a lot of administrative issues to handle and deal with, especially nowadays with NIL, scholarships, direction and all those things, and Kris does a great job with that, but I’ve found that I can get on the ice with the kids when they need extra skill development, I can meet with them and I can just dig into the hockey side.
“It used to be about coaching and the opportunity to play at a high level, then it became about facilities and who has the new rinks, who has the resources, and now it’s evolved into your facilities but also the NIL money, how many scholarships you have, the amenities for the players, and it’s kind of gotten away from just a player and coach relationship. It’s a lot more expanded now into other things.
“Athletics, in any sport, it’s an arms race with those things, but for me, it comes back to, are you helping your kids get better, are you teaching life lessons through hockey and do you have a relationship with them so that they can trust you? There is that side of, ‘What do you have to offer (financially),’ but what about the education, what about the personal growth, what about the development, what about all the things that go along with where you finish playing? Do they support you with alumni relations, and if you leave early, do you come back and get your degree? Those things are what’s really important in life.”
As for where he sees Pooley’s career going forward, Mayotte said that’s entirely down to his associate head coach.
“When I hired Paul, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t just coming out here for a year, and that if we could at least get him for three, that was my ideal situation and then we’d figure it out from there,” Mayotte said. “He was on board right away, and he still has the energy to do it.
“The way he runs a drill, the energy he coaches with, the energy he builds relationships with, the energy he has from a competitiveness standpoint, that’s all elite. It’s not just elite after a 40-year career, but elite-elite.”
That isn’t to say going into a non-hockey business wouldn’t have panned out for Pooley. But nearly four decades later, there’s no question whether he’s now in the right line of work.
“I opened up that store with my brother in Dublin, back in 1987,” he said. “My brother and I wanted to be entrepreneurs, yogurt was just starting and there was a great store on campus at Ohio State where my brother’s wife said, ‘Hey, you guys should look into this,’ but then I volunteered at Ohio State, (former Buckeyes head coach) Jerry Walsh offered me a job my second year out, and I said to my brother, ‘We both don’t need to be here. I can help in my free time.’
“I stood behind the bench that first game, and that’s when I knew what I wanted to do.”