Great post--I do think we need to give a coach a chance &

have some trust in the process as well as Swarbrick, who I think does the best he can with the info an options available. One option is to try get a home run guarantee hire if you can like Clark,& Jackson (both hired by Kevin White), and McLaughlin (by Swarbrick), all experienced winning coaches with long track records. Two have turned their ND programs into top 10 National programs in short order and McLaughlin in his second year seems to be on his way for Voileyball. Yet the downside is all of them were hired in their 50's which questions how long ND gets to keep them in their role. Clark was hired at 55 and we have been lucky to keep him into his 70's as he is in his 16th year. Still it took over a decade for him to win the ultimate prize, a National Championship. Jackson started at 50 and although he got to the NC championship game early at ND he now in his 11th year has yet to win it all. Hopefully soon.

The other option is to go the route Jack did with TR and hire a young up and comer who was a great player with lots of potential. This latter result can lead to hiring someone like Muffet McGraw (by far our greatest current coach) who gives you decades of tremendous results and respect for the university. Stanford has that now in Paul Ratcliffe who's record at St Mary's Moraga was somewhat similar to TR's at Dartmouth. In fact in TR's 3 years at Dartmouth she had 22 losses and 3 ties, and no NCAA appearances which was exactly the same as Paul's 1st 3 years at SMC. Paul's 4th year was great as he made it to the NCAA's but when hired by Stanford he was coming off his 5th year, only a .500 year. I know 1st hand since my daughter was signed by Paul to play at SMC the following year and left signing day to go to Stanford. Now he is considered "the most successful coach in more than 100 years of Stanford soccer, among men or women" (take that Bobby Clark-see link)

The jury is still out on Romagnola but I too agree we may have someone special in her similar to what Stanford got with Ratcliffe. I too was worried at the start of this year given the pedigree of the ND program prior to her arrival and the bad start this year losing to Michigan. Still as I watched this team all year I truly agree with your sentiment about the team and the future upside . In addition to the records and the small school they coached their 1st HC job, the similarity with Ratcliffe and TR are remarkable. They both were PAC10 soccer stars (Paul at UCLA & Theresa at UW), played professionally for a couple years in California (Paul in LA, TR in San Jose), and they both started their second/current college coaching job at similar ages (Paul 33, Theresa 35.) She even worked for Ratcliffe for 3 years (coaching USNT stalwarts Kelly Ohara and Christen Press). It would be great if we see her matching Ratcliffe's tenure of success at Stanford here at ND.

Still we need to understand it wasn't until his sixth year at Stanford (2008-TR's 1st year as a Stanford assistant) ) that Ratcliffe's team made the NCAA College Cup Starting in 2009 they got to the final 3 years in a row culminating in his only NC the year after TR left. He hasn't made the championship game since then and yet he was still named the PAC12 Women's Soccer coach of the Century last year. If ND makes it to the College Cup within 3 years she would be ahead of his schedule.

Here's hoping for a positive future for Theresa Romagnola as a ND women's coach that even approaches what Muffet has done. I am enjoying the ride so far and hope the best is yet to come.

Click here for link at http://www.gostanford.com/coaches.aspx?rc=907