Coach Pressler signs contract extension

SMITHFIELD, R.I. - Bryant University Director of Athletics is pleased to announce a new, four-year contract extension for head men's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler. The announcement was made today by Smith and Bryant President Ronald K. Machtley. Pressler, who just completed his second year at Bryant, has three years remaining on the five-year contract signed at the time of his hiring in August, 2006. The new extension will keep Pressler at Bryant through 2015.

"Coach Pressler has done an exceptional job with our men's lacrosse program in his two seasons at Bryant. Under Mike's leadership our lacrosse program achieved unprecedented success both in the classroom and on the field. We won two consecutive NE-10 Championships and excelled in the classroom as demonstrated by the highest ever team GPA. Because of these factors and many others, I am pleased to announce this contract extension which will keep Mike Pressler a member of our Bulldog family well into the future. I would not want any other coach to lead our men's lacrosse program into Division I."

On the heels of winning the program's first Northeast-10 Conference championships in 2007, the Bulldogs posted a school-record 14 wins in 2008, capturing another Northeast-10 Conference title with 5-4 win at Le Moyne in May. The Bulldogs were rewarded with their first NCAA playoff berth. In two seasons, Pressler is 25-8 overall at Bryant.

"Coach Pressler is not only a highly successful coach, but an accomplished and respected educator," added President Machtley.

"The high standards that he demands from his team will not only translate into success on the field, but in the classroom and in life. We look forward to many more years of Coach Pressler guiding the Bryant men's lacrosse program."

Bryant University will begin its first year competing in Division I in 2008-09. The Bulldogs will not be eligible for postseason play for two years during the school's reclassification. Upon completion of the transition, Bryant will become a full member of the Northeast Conference in all sports, including men's lacrosse which was recently added as a championship sport by the NEC earlier this year.

Bryant will open the season February 15, 2009 at Virginia. Bryant's complete 2009 schedule is expected to be released in the next couple of weeks. Bryant University

Bill Anderson, Blog Hooligan extraordinaire, posted this on the LS forum.

"So much for the notion that Mike Pressler is waiting for the plum job somewhere. I think that we need to take stock of what has happened, for it has been phenomenal, in my opinion.

First, here is a man who two years ago was out of work, humiliated in the press, was called an enabler of "rapists," was regularly receiving death threats, having his property vandalized, and his children threatened by a Duke student who was honored by the Duke administration.

He and his family literally were driven out of Durham, and all because a prostitute told a lie, and Durham and much of Duke University chose to believe it, even though the lie was absurd on its face. People committed felonies against him, yet there were no prosecutions, which says everything we need to know about Durham, North Carolina, and the atmosphere that exists at Duke University today.

I cannot imagine a person in a situation like this. It is hard to relate to a situation that seems absolutely desperate with no way out, and I imagine that he and his family were thinking that he very well might have to go into another line of work.

Second, Bryant at the time was hardly a powerhouse in lacrosse, and that is putting it mildly. Think of Coach K being forced out of his job and then turning up at Carson-Newman or Presbyterian. Here is a guy who is one of the best coaches in the country, and he could not even get an interview, all because Richard Brodhead decided to believe a huge lie, a lie that he would have rejected had the racial situation been different.

So, a program with a substandard lacrosse history took a chance and hired him, and now he already has transformed the program in two years. What he has done there has been phenomenal, and it speaks very well to his character and abilities.

It also speaks well of Janet Pressler and the entire Pressler family. I also would like to point out the support that many of the Duke lacrosse families gave him. There were good people elsewhere who did not abandon him, unlike the people employed at Duke University. (Chris Kennedy and Kirsten Kimel did not abandon him, but people like that were quite scarce at the Harvard of the South.)

So, I think this is a great moment for the Presslers, but also for the people who stood up against what the people of Durham and Duke University did to the lacrosse players and their coach. The people at Bryant apparently are more astute to the truth than the people at the university and the city where it is located who believe that truth is something to be discarded whenever it is convenient to do so." LS Forum

William L. Anderson, Ph.D. teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He also is a consultant with American Economic Services.

Past articles by William L. Anderson are at LewRockwell.com