ESU Game Notes vs. Pace

see also:
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Morning Call: Giglio hoping for strong finish to career

By Mike Kuhns
Record Sports Editor
September 3, 2010

EAST STROUDSBURG - It was September 1974, when Denny Douds walked into East Stroudsburg University's Eiler-Martin Stadium as a head coach for the first time.

That afternoon was the first of the 375 games he's coached to date. He remembered his running back taking the ball about 65 yards for a touchdown against Slippery Rock. Then Douds paused and smiled, looking like he was back in time 37 years.

He remembered something, something funny.

"Probably the worst thing that happened that day was after our warmups, going into Zimbar, and so was Slippery Rock," Douds recalled. "In the steps there was a beehive and it must have stung about 15 of their kids.

"Listen, one of the things you don't want to do is wake the sleeping giant. The bees stung them and upset them and they took it out on us."

The Rock won, 47-20, that day.

And now 37 seasons later, Douds, the winningest coach in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference history, will take his 226-143-3 record to Pace University (N.Y.) on Saturday at 1 p.m. where he'll meet up against Chris Dapolito in his first game as a head coach.

The Setters were 1-9, while the Warriors were 8-4 last year, reaching the NCAA playoffs before bowing out in the first round.

Douds knows just the kind of things that will be going through Dapolito's mind. Dapolito is a 2005 Duke graduate, who played quarterback under Jim Pry, a former ESU assistant coach.

"Early you learn the responsibility of being a head coach," Douds said. "You don't think of I or me, you think of we and us."

Life as a coach, veteran or rookie, can be bumpy at times. Especially on the road where long bus trips are involved.

Douds' road trip policy is pretty simple: the bus leaves at a specific time with or without you. Douds remembered an opening day road trip to California, Pa., where things didn't go quite as planned.

The team bus had stopped at a rest stop so the team could eat and stretch. Using the buddy system, they thought they had everyone accounted for as the bus pulled back onto the Pa. Turnpike.

"Three hours later the state police pull up and say, 'Hey, did you lose this guy?'" Douds said. "We left a guy there."