Less than a year after he was hired to coach the fledgling women’s lacrosse program at Niagara County Community College, Brendan McDaniels has resigned from the position for personal reasons.
McDaniels, who is also a local media personality, said Sunday he plans to move to Rochester to be closer to his 4-year-old son. He informed athletics director Lee Wallace of the decision on Thurdsay.
“I think Lee knew it was coming,” McDaniels said. “He wished me the best and said he understood that it was a family decision on my part.”
NCCC will begin playing men’s and women’s lacrosse in March. Niagara-Wheatfield graduate Rich Kilgour, a former Buffalo Bandits captain, has been hired to coach the men’s team. McDaniels said he did not know if an interim coach would be named for the women’s program, or if the position will remain vacant until a full-time coach is found.
When McDaniels was introduced as coach in January, he was already a full-time employee in NCCC’s public relations department. In March, McDaniels learned that he and public relations director Michele Schmidt would be laid off effective Aug. 31. Since then, McDaniels had been working on a series of one-month extensions.
“When this month-to-month thing started going down I said to myself, ‘What am I doing here? I need to be with my son,’” said McDaniels, who grew up near Syracuse and attended St. Bonaventure University.
McDaniels had considered commuting from Rochester to NCCC so that he could continue to pursue his coaching ambitions, but after making the 83-mile trip to pick up his son from preschool after work last week, he decided it wasn’t feasible.
After talking to Wallace, McDaniels had to tell the eight locals he had recruited to play for him that he wouldn’t be there when they played their first game.
“It’s hurtful to me and I think it’s hurtful to them,” he said. “I look at it like those were my adopted kids. I said them, and it was very hard for me to do, ‘It’s breaking my heart to have to do this to you guys, but when you become parents, you’ll understand what I’m doing.’”
Sports
November 1, 2009
WOMEN'S LACROSSE: McDaniels resigns from NCCC
Family ties convince coach to leave before first season
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