July 27, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Filed under Basketball, Jimmy Lane, Union County College
I received the surprising news today that Jim Lane will not be the head coach of Union County College this season. While Lane was announced by the school as its new coach in May, the former Princeton center was unable to work out philosophical differences with UCC before finalizing his contract - despite having already held team meetings, done recruiting and supervising "open gym" scrimmages.
Lane will instead be teaching history at the CREATE Charter Middle School in Jersey City and is looking forward to moving on from this false start.
June 17, 2009 at 8:04 am
Filed under Baseball, Basketball, Chris Young, Jimmy Lane, Princeton, Recruiting, Today's News, Union County College
Jim Lane has signed his first recruit at Union County College - Alex Jones from New Jersey state champions St. Patrick's. Here's the press release from Lane and UCC:
Alex Jones is the first high school recruit to commit to joining the Owls for the 2009-2010, and should immediately contribute to the Owls goal of becoming competitive for the league title. Alex comes to UCC from the heralded St. Patrick High School of Elizabeth, New Jersey program, a perrenial national Top 10 program. Alex was a member of multiple state championship teams and a leading contributor to St. Patrick's number 1 ranking in New Jersey in the 2008-2009 campaign as they won the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions. "Alex raises the bar for future recruits to our men's program and was our immediate top recruit upon seeing him play; I realized immediately that this young man would have averaged a double-double at almost any other high school in the state, and is ready to play at the college level immediately." said Coach Lane. Alex will play at the shooting guard and small forward positions for the Owls in the 2009-2010 season and will be vital in handling the basketball against the pressure defenses in Region XIX.
More bad news for the injury-addled Padres. Chris Young will miss his next start with shoulder soreness and is likely headed to the Disabled List.
A 6'9" center from the Chicago suburbs says he has "scholarship offers from Cornell and Princeton."
Speaking of Cornell, Dick "Hoops" Weiss of the New York Daily News reports that Big Red coach Steve Donahue and former Harvard head man Frank Sullivan are two of the names he's hearing mentioned in the search for the next Holy Cross coach, with Donahue leading the list.
Did you know former Princeton forward Conor Neu has a blog covering finance, the environment, and emerging industries? You can check it out here.
May 12, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Filed under Basketball, Interviews, Jimmy Lane, Union County College
I had a chance to speak with new Union County College head coach Jim Lane '92 yesterday afternoon. Lane takes over as head coach of the Owls after four seasons at Westfield High School in northern New Jersey. A transcript of our conversation follows. - JS
Congratulations.
Thanks.
Tell me about what you've being doing before getting this job. What let up to this?
I've been coaching in the Westfield, New Jersey school system for the past four years. I was actually an assistant to my high school coach [Neil Horne, Jr.], who is not of Coach Carril's notoriety, but he's very well known in New Jersey. He won four state championships with a lot of guys who can't run and jump like me [laughs].
I had been doing that and got to the point where you're either going to step up and become a head coach or not coach. Once you've being coaching with someone who is that strong of a teacher, probably like many of the guys who coached directly for Coach Carril - at some point you've learned what you can learn, you buy into it but you want to put your own stamp on your own situation. Whereas Coach Carril's offensive brilliance, I learned so much from that when I played at Princeton because it enables guys like me that can't really run and jump to play and to compete against much better athletes, what I learned in high school and the last four years of coaching was very man to man defense-oriented. This is the opportunity for me to put those two things together.
I better do it well, because unlike the other people in Coach Carril's coaching tree, they were all really good players [laughs]. I was just a guy who worked really, really hard. Whether you're talking about Chris Mooney or Joe Scott or Howard Levy, these were guys who got a lot of playing time because they were very, very good basketball players. I knew going into Princeton that I was a borderline Division I player - if that - but I knew that in that system, that sort of brought me over the line. Our success in my new situation is going to be dependent on getting guys to buy into that, guys who were stars on their high school teams. I don't think it is going to be that hard to get them to buy in, because we're trying to get from the best basketball high schools in New Jersey, the fourth, fifth and sixth-best players.
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May 8, 2009 at 9:07 am
Filed under Baseball, Basketball, Chris Young, Jimmy Lane, Princeton, Steve Mills, Today's News, Union County College
C. Young (2-1) 6.0 IP 5 H 3 ER 4 BB 6 K 4.76 ERA. 98 pitches, 60 strikes.
Another no-decision for Chris Young, who left after six innings with the Padres and Diamondbacks knotted at three. San Diego won 4-3 in 10 innings.
Former Princeton center Jimmy Lane is the newest branch of the Carril coaching tree. Lane has been named head coach at Union County College. I'll be doing a Q&A with Lane on Monday for the site. If you have any questions you want me to ask, let me know.
Steve Mills '81 is leaving Madison Square Garden to take a position with Magic Johnson Enterprises.
