Tim Benz: Derek Schooley hopes to build Robert Morris hockey from the ground up — again

Here’s a challenge. Recruit for a college hockey team that doesn’t exist.

Here’s another challenge. Do it twice in less than 20 years.

That’s the task facing presumptive current Robert Morris men’s hockey head coach Derek Schooley.

Wait a minute. Is that a thing? “Presumptive current head coach.”

It feels weird to write. And it might look a little long on a business card. But that’s Schooley’s world right now.

Recruiting for a team that doesn’t technically exist isn’t entirely new for Schooley. He did it when the Colonials program was about to become a D-I reality in 2004-05.

But at least then, he knew for sure he’d be behind a bench at the Island Sports Center. Now Schooley doesn’t know if his efforts to rebuild his deconstructed program will ever manifest.

Technically, it’s not really clear if Schooley can call himself the Colonials coach for the time being. After all, university officials cut the men’s and women’s programs just before Memorial Day weekend.

Then they temporarily resuscitated the teams on July 14 with the challenge of a fundraising period.

Only to put the programs on pause until more fundraising can occur in advance of a targeted return in 2022-23 via a head-scratching press release on Aug. 12.

Since that initial dismissal of the teams in late May, Schooley has been working on what amounts to a severance contract with the university. So had women’s coach Paul Colontino before he left for Bishop Kearney Selects Academy in Rochester on Aug. 6.

Now Schooley has to go through the indignity of university red tape to reapply for the job he currently holds.

Just so he can continue to fundraise and potentially recruit on behalf of a college that gutted a team he helped build from scratch. With no guarantee that his efforts will actually result in the team coming back.

He’s got nothing but another one of RMU’s now infamous floating deadlines on Dec. 15.

“I have tremendous pride in our players,” Schooley said during a recent phone conversation. “Our alumni. Our current and past staff. With that, I would relish the challenge of getting us back up into the top 20 like we were last year.”

Should that happen, Schooley at least says there may be a quicker route toward being competitive than the one he began traveling 18 years ago when he was hired to plant the seed of the team.

“It’s a different landscape than it was in 2003,” Schooley recalled. “With the transfer portal. With the free transfers. With the fifth-year players, there are a tremendous amount of people without homes. And it will be that way for a while because of the backup in recruiting.

“It’s a different story. You can be a lot more competitive a lot quicker. I believe we can get back to where we were in a short amount of time.”

Schooley says September is usually a key time for college hockey recruiting. He’s pledged to avoid any promises to potential recruits about the return of the Colonials. Rather this is more of an information-gathering period for Schooley to reacclimate his scouting eye with a recruiting pool he has missed for 18 months due to covid-19 and the dissolution of his team.

“I haven’t been able to really watch a game like that in person since February 2020,” Schooley lamented.

If Robert Morris is at all serious about accelerating the rebirth of the men’s team, it’ll fast-track Schooley’s rehiring through the human relations quagmire and let him go about the business of salvaging the mess its administrators have created.

“I would need to go out and see players to be ready to go when they say ‘go.’ That’s probably something we’d have to discuss moving forward,” Schooley added.

At least RMU athletic director Chris King is on record as saying that Schooley is the “first and only candidate” in his mind.

Great. Then tell the administration to dispense with the rehiring dog-and-pony show and let Schooley get back to raising the funds he needs to resurrect a program that once went to six straight Atlantic Hockey championship weekends.

“There are also numerous events I would like to run to raise enthusiasm, excitement and, of course, funds. There are a lot of things we can do,” Schooley said.

The team’s annual golf outing was scheduled for Aug. 20 and will now have to be rescheduled. He’s also considering a mini-golf outing and a celebrity hockey game, perhaps involving alumni and former Pittsburgh Penguins.

Maybe president Chris Howard’s office can look into partnering with the Penguins to hold the game in Cranberry at the UPMC Lemie …

… never mind. Moving on.

“To be able to raise the amount of money we have ($1.3 million) in the short amount of time that we have has been outstanding,” Schooley said. “And we appreciate the support of the Pittsburgh community, the hockey community and the Robert Morris community. And we hope to continue moving forward.”

Unfortunately for Schooley, moving forward seems to be about moving back almost two decades.

At least for now.