York coaches with unmatched class

Two national championships. One Spencer Penrose trophy. One Walter Brown trophy. Those are the awards on the résumé. The titles and championships could speak for themselves. You could hold them as the glistening symbols of a lifelong journey to the hockey hierarchy, but that would not be fair.

To know the true person, the true coach, you need to look past the accumulated end results. You have to look past the résumé and beyond the legend that has been created. The awards tell a story, but his career has been so much more. It's been a journey of success and leadership for Boston College head hockey coach Jerry York.

He would have been happy being a high school guidance counselor. Just going back to teach in a local school district and guiding the youth would have sufficed his ambitions. Having graduated from the BC community as a triple Eagle (BC High '63, BC '67 and a master's from BC '69), he was ready to settle down with his master's degree in education and head down the noble path of teaching.

"The BC education offers you the ability to do a lot of different things. I was interested in going into teaching. I really didn't plan on making coaching a lifelong career," said York on the decisions he had to make concerning a career path.

Yet there was something that stopped him from selecting a career as a counselor. It was not a fear of failure or an anticipation of struggling in the profession. Rather it was an opportunity that precluded his visions of leading the youth through the halls in their high school years of life. Instead of meeting with high school students and assisting with their issues, York chose to accept an offer to become an assistant hockey coach at Clarkson University in upstate New York. It was another way of guiding and leading. Better yet, it incorporated his passions: guidance and hockey.

With that acceptance began a career. Thirty-two years later and with the hockey community's respect, York stands secure in the history of BC hockey. From his youthful years on the BC ice as a three-year letterman and a senior team captain, to the past 10 years of planning plays and balancing lines, the coach from Watertown. has offered a paradigm for stewardship here in Chestnut Hill.

"I felt so comfortable, so thankful for the chance to go to BC. The experience here formed a lot of my ambitions. Coaching here provided me with a chance to give back. I saw that I could help someone else. It's a terrific school," he said.

He has 671 wins recorded since he embarked on his head coaching vocation as a 26-year-old at Clarkson University. Since his first appearance behind the bench up through this season, only four other coaches have notched more victories than York. All these years after wanting to be a guidance counselor, York stands in a position to move within the top three lifetime winners.

Not bad for a Watertown native who wanted to go back to the high school ranks.

For such a prolific winner, one might think it is all about the checks in the win column. One may think he goes to any extent to win, but that is simply not his style.

York has never been about the sole art of winning. Over the years he has come to develop young men into star athletes, Hobey Baker Award winners, Stanley Cup holders, and academic all-stars.

"As a coach, there are two important issues. You have to win games and graduate players. The whole job performance can be judged on those two aspects. It's pretty simple and defined," he said. "Academically, we want to graduate our players in four years."

He speaks openly and thoroughly about his role in advancing players from where they are as freshmen to where they are as seniors. With the athletic facilities and academic support system, he expects his players to take advantage of the opportunities afforded them.

When recruiting, York knows that he can impress the young men with the Kelley Rink tour, pointing to the two championship banners, the two Hobey Baker Awards, and the pictures of Stanley Cup winners in the locker room, but he knows there is more.

There is the academic system that will help the freshmen develop into students of game and, even more, students of life. "There are a lot of demands on the players at BC, but we still expect them to use the help that is made available to them. We look for daily improvement on the ice, and advancement in their academics is key as well," said York.

Such a focus on education and betterment has set York apart from other successful coaches. For football fans, he is like a Joe Paterno from Penn State University seeking to graduate his young men within four years. To basketball fans, he can be compared to Dean Smith of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill for focusing on development.

No examples can better display this commitment to excellence in both the rink and the classroom than the Hobey Baker Award winner he has coached. He's had three of them: George McPhee and Brian Holzinger at Bowling Green University, and Mike Mottau at BC.

Yet he does not highlight hockey as their strongest character points, but rather he is quick to point out that they all shared that high quality of class and determination. In the classroom, they received diplomas in four years. On the ice, they all shared the title of best collegiate hockey player for a year, but that was secondary to their graduation in the coaches' eyes.

Having three Hobey Baker Awards under his direction was an accomplishment, and so was winning a national championship at two different schools (Bowling Green in 1984; BC in 2001). Many coaches have been given talent but did not produce championship rings. York knows it can be difficult assembling lines and dividing playing time among his star players, and he recognizes this issue with the theme of "selfless instead of selfish."

"Whether it is chemistry, size, or constant fluid motion, you have to have a clear view," said York. "You have to have balance." Balance and a clear view: Those are two of the qualities that have led Jerry York through his hockey journey. He has the rings, the trophies, and the awards, but more importantly he has the players and successful products of his guidance and counsel.