Tom Gilmore at Wake Forest

My best wishes to Coach Gilmore for success at Wake!

Good luck to FCTG and best wishes after his promotion.

Know thyself....I think TG could be a very good DC at the FBS-level...he was just not the right guy as the HC head guy in this era imo.

I know he hasn't....his ceiling would be an FBS defensive coordinator imo....good defensive football mind etc but just an awful head coach for a scholarship Holy Cross as we saw the last 5 or 6 years...just not his fit/milieu

Ironic that you used the term monster!  After having spoken with a couple close relatives of former coaches, I can tell you that according to them, he was very difficult to work for, almost impossible.  He had some very good coaches come through, few lasted more than year.  That often left him wth either young, inexperienced, or journeymen coaches.  Other than that, nice guy!

4crusader3, did you play for Tom?

Whoever 4crusader3 is, he's insane if he thinks Chesney's going to replace his OC after taking over in May and having coached 4 games, especially given the talent level he was given.

Even a disaster like Sean Kearney got a full season and firing him did not help the College (or in this case it would be Chesney and the College) at all.

Losing Liam Cohen hurt long term. There are no quality QBs on this roster. Josh McDaniels could be the OC...same results. There is a lack of talent and that is Chesney's first and biggest challenge.

Spoke with 2 football alums at a Holy Cross alumni/ae event on 9/20. Both had good things to say about FCTG. Both echoed the comments of 6sader7 about his “old school” approach.

Might I suggest that you ask the players who quit? And why did the same team that never got off the bus in New Haven beat the stuffings out of a better UNH team? 

I didn't know TG as my "coach," just as someone who was always gracious and responsive to me and my wife for over a decade. He greatly appreciated the support he got from us for coming to games both home and away (even lousy Hamilton!); football events; financial support of the team; and moral support for him and his players. I know that there are some posters here who he also greatly appreciated for many of the same reasons. He, indeed, was the hardest working person on campus. He loved (still does) Holy Cross and as I posted many months ago, I have little doubt that had his Irish immigrant upbringing been such that he knew more about colleges and universities when he was in high school, he would have preferred to go to Holy Cross than UPenn, which he thought was Penn State. He loved the mission and purpose of Holy Cross and the values it instilled in its students. I also have little doubt that he hoped his kids would go to Holy Cross.

As Tom would joke with me over the years about my asking him in his first Holy Cross public forum if he was "intense" (but he preferred to describe himself as "focused"), that solidified our relationship. He never forgot that I had the temerity (stupidity, "guts"?) to ask him that. He hated to lose at anything and had high standards and expected that of everyone including his players and his bosses. 

If Tom felt like he had obstacles to the team's success, he did not make it public. But we all know that Holy Cross was initially very reluctant to take the full complement of football scholarships and there were ongoing issues with admissions. Holy Cross also seemed to want a steak but was only willing to pay for a hamburger including assistant coach salaries. As posted above, not everyone, especially in this day and age, wants to play on a team with the kind of old-school philosophy Tom had. 

As for quitting, I can tell you that the one person who never quit was Tom Gilmore. He will succeed elsewhere. 

And that said, I hope that Coach Chesney has great success at Holy Cross. Tom Gilmore hopes the same thing for his successor. 

sader1970, Great response and well said. I played for Dan Allen during my freshmen year (2003) and then was part of the Gilmore era from 2004-2006. During that time period, we went from 1-11 to 7-4 (really should have been 8-3 and a PLC, however, we missed two, 20 yard field goals in the final game of the season).

In regards to quitting, the majority of our class didn't make it through 4 years and there was the "great purge" in 2004 that weeded out the weak. Over the span of 4 years, I had 4 different position coaches and 4 different defensive coordinators. We bought into the Gilmore philosophy and saw great results (we also had phenomenal assistant coaches at the end which included Richard Rodgers, Chris Pincince, Mark McDonough, etc)

Only explanation for Yankee Stadium (and it's a weak one) is injuries that had left the roster pretty limited at that point in the year.


Re: Yale, there was something fishy going on with Brian Rock at that point in the season last year.