BCI 2013 End Of The Year Awards: Coach Of The Year

Today is the first of the BC Interruption End Of The Year Awards, where we decide who was the coach of the year. There are some heavy hitters, and the options all have reasonable rationale to earn your vote. Four of BCI's editors give their arguments. Make sure to vote at the end, and leave your reasons in the comment sections. Go Eagles!

Steve Addazio

I am not trying to be obvious here, but Steve Addazio needs to be at the top of this list. I wasn't a big Dazzler supporter when he started, and still not sure what the long term outlook for the program is, but he infused life, attitude, accountability and a love for Boston College football that didn't exist the past few years. With football being the pre-eminent sport at BC, it is hard to ignore what his efforts meant.

Although this is about coaches, one that is hard ignore is the impact Brad Bates had on the entire athletic department. He has made such an impact both on campus and in his efforts reaching out to the fan base. It looks like he will have another key decision to make with a basketball hire, but kudos to what he has done to date. - Coach JF

Jerry York

Appreciating that Steve Addazio helped turn around the football program this season, my vote goes to Jerry York. While the men's hockey team fell short of annual Boston College-sized expectations, the coach had an extremely tumultuous year including overcoming a couple of health scares and the loss of two of his assistants. The program has rebounded nicely with York replacing Logue and Cavanaugh and reloading with an embarrassment of young talent. Whatever the hockey team did last year would have ultimately fallen short of fan expectations for the defending National Champs, but making the NCAA Tournament a year after winning a title is nothing to sneeze at (ask 2002 BC, 2009 BC and 2010 BU). -Brian Favat

Katie Crowley

If Coach Daz and Coach York deserve consideration, BC women's hockey's head coach Katie Crowley is at least as deserving as either of them.

Consider: The women's hockey team is coming off the best season in program history, at 27-7-3. The Eagles marched into the Frozen Four -- their third straight! -- and took the greatest women's hockey team ever assembled (the 41-0-0 Minnesota Golden Gophers) into overtime before bowing out.

Three Crowley-coached Eagles are representing Team USA in the Sochi Olympics, more than every other Hockey East team combined. Alex Carpenter, still a student who will return as a junior for the 2014-2015 season, is on Team USA's top line and power-play unit.

Coach Crowley has always had a reputation as an exceptional recruiter, and next year is no exception. Three incoming recruits represent the U.S. on the American U18 teams -- a number topped only by Minnesota. With Carpenter returning to the team next year alongside Haley Skarupa and another strong recruiting class, BC figures to be a national title contender for the foreseeable future.

And to top it all off, the 2012-2013 season was BC women's hockey's third straight season with a perfect APR of 1,000.

Coach Crowley has been doing her thing this year in relative obscurity behind the big names of York and Addazio. But make no mistake about it -- she was the best of them all in 2013. - Grant Salzano

Allison Foley

It's often been said that the regular season only matters so much. It serves as a vessel to get you into a playoff hunt, and postseason runs are what separates champions from good, solid programs.

Women's soccer fell just short of the semifinals of the NCAA College Cup, losing in the quarterfinal round to #3 Florida State, 4-0. But in the process, they continued to define BC women's soccer on the national scale. They outscored Northeastern, #10 Nebraska, and Illinois in the national tournament by a 10-2 margin. It was the 11th consecutive year BC appeared in the national tournament, and it was the fifth time in program history that the Eaglettes went to the Elite Eight. Of those five trips, three have come under Allison Foley (‘09, ‘10, and ‘13). Over the course of the season, BC beat ninth-ranked Wake Forest, and went 2-1-1 with three OT games in their last four to seal a tournament slot. They lost to #5 Florida State by only one goal during the regular season (a team that went 23-2-3 and lost in overtime in the title game to UCLA), and they beat #21-ranked Ohio State. McKenzie Meehan had two hat tricks - as a sophomore.

Looking around at other BC programs, it's hard to find (outside of men's hockey) a sport with the ability to compete consistently at the national level the way women's soccer has. Coach Foley has turned BC into a program churning out All Americans, and Kristie Mewis is now playing with the national team for the United States. Under the radar in comparison to the bigger media sports, she's built a contender year-in and year-out and deserves merit as the BC coach of the year. - Dan Rubin