Softball coach heading to Rochester
By: Justin Feil
Cindy Cohen hasn’t stopped doing her job even though she’s decided to leave Princeton University after 18 years as the head softball coach.
It will be hard enough for the 43-year-old to walk away from Old Nassau on July 7, 10 days before she heads north to her new post as associate director of athletics at the University of Rochester. It’s not as though she can just stop coaching now.
“I’m still running (the Princeton Softball) Camp and we’re still going to have a great staff for that,” Cohen said. “I’m in the middle of trying to take care of next year’s schedule. I’m treating this as though I’m coming back. I still want what’s best for the team.”
That made it harder for Cohen to actually tell the team about her decision. Friday, the team gathered on a small patch of grass between Dillon Gym and the Spellman Halls without a clue that it was anything more than an end-of-season barbecue.
“I’m a planner. I didn’t know what to say, or how to start,” Cohen said. “I was talking in circles. I told them how this had been the hardest year of my life with my mom dying in December, and how I’d always loved coaching at Princeton. And somehow I got it out. They were shocked
“It was the hardest thing to do professionally because the kids, they’re the highlight.”
In Cohen’s tenure, there were plenty of highlights — 12 Ivy League titles, 10 Ivy Players of the Year, four All-Americas, 11 Academic All-Americas and victories in the 1995 and 1996 NCAA regionals. She will retire from coaching with 560 wins, the most by any coach, man or woman, in Princeton history. But it is the memories of the players themselves that makes Cohen’s eyes a little misty.
“I love the kids,” Cohen said. “I really do feel fortunate to have worked with some wonderful, outstanding young women, most who have their priorities straight. I’ve been able to establish some great relationships with my players and the administration. I e-mailed and called a lot of alumni, and I found out I touched them. That makes me feel really good.
“Professionally, we went to the World Series, twice. To take a bunch of students, who have no grant-in-aid to that level. That’s something I’ll always be proud of.”
The World Series appearances were the farthest thing from Cohen’s mind when she came to Princeton, a 26-year-old fresh off earning a master’s degree in health education from The College of New Jersey while serving as an assistant coach. Barely older than some of her seniors, Cohen quickly built the team into a regional power. The Tigers won the Ivy League title the first seven years of her tenure.
“When I first came to Princeton, I thought I’d come here, make a few mistakes, no one would notice, and I’d move on and coach somewhere else,” Cohen said. “We had early success though. We got so good so fast that I didn’t have to go somewhere else to compete.”
Cohen’s career success made the last four seasons harder for her without an Ivy championship. The Tigers finished 23-25 this year, 6-6 in the Ivy League.
“I would have absolutely loved to have gone out on top,” said Cohen, whose overall record is 560-277-3. “When I told (PU athletics director) Gary Walters, I told him I wished that I was leaving on top. But he was so sweet. He said I am, that we just set the bar so high. But I don’t feel like that. I would have liked to go out in a regional or another World Series. It’s not why I’m going. The time seems right for me to leave.”
And now that Cohen is leaving Princeton, she’s exiting for an entirely different position at Rochester. She explained it to her team as a new opportunity, and it’s something she’s been thinking about for more than a year since she turned down an offer to coach at a scholarship school and started thinking about what she really wanted to do the rest of her life.
“Not a lot of people know just what coaches do,” Cohen said. “I’ll have that. I’ll have 55 people under me and a $2 million budget. I’ll be George VanderZwaag’s right hand man. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Cohen met VanderZwaag at Princeton, where he served eight years before moving to Rochester as athletics director a year ago. She still left a glimmer of hope for Tiger fans that she could return some day.
“I’d rather do this too soon than too late,” Cohen said. “You see some coaches who hang on too long. I’m giving this a try now. I think they have the talent to win here. I feel like I’m leaving the program in a good place. I feel good about that.
“I could return. The kids are what I’ve always loved. I still love the game and the games. That makes it tough. I’ll definitely miss Princeton.”