A Dispute Over Player Eligibility at BU, 50 Years Ago, Led to Jack Parker’s Coaching Run
by Belle Fraser/Special to CHN
Jack Parker after coaching his final home game.
This week is the 50th anniversary of Jack Parker taking over as head coach at Boston University. He remains the all-time winningest coach in college hockey history at one school. This is the tale of how it came to be. (This article first appeared on the hockey blog of the BU Daily Free Press. It has been republished with permission.)
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With the ink still wet on his new contract, Jack Parker tread behind athletic director Warren Schmakel and into the Boston University men’s hockey locker room.
“Guys, listen up,” Schmakel told the team. “We fired Leon Abbot, and Jack Parker is your new head hockey coach. Good luck.”
Schmakel walked out, and the Parker era had officially begun — whether the new bench boss was ready for it or not.
“I was almost flabbergasted,” Parker told The Boston Hockey Blog. “The guys were just sitting in their chairs staring at me. I looked at them and said ‘Hey, it’s 9:25 and practice is at 10:00, make sure you’re on the ice on time.’ And I walked out.”
The 28-year-old Parker was called into Schmakel’s office at 8 a.m. that morning – exactly 50 years ago, on Friday Dec. 21, 1973 – two hours before the Terriers were scheduled to practice for the upcoming holiday tournament at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
An eligibility controversy involving Terrier players Dick Decloe, Bill Buckton and Peter Marzo cut Abbott’s BU career short after one full season (1972-73) and put Parker in charge seemingly overnight. While Parker had spent the last year as the head coach of the “B” team and served as an assistant on the varsity squad for the three prior seasons under Jack Kelley, this was an entirely new task.
“I was upset for Leon who, to this day, got absolutely a raw deal at BU, and obviously it was to my benefit,” Parker said. “He was a good guy and a good friend and he got screwed. But I was head coach, and we had to win a hockey game.”
After addressing the team, Parker walked down the hall, into the coach’s room, and began to put his skates on for practice when there was a banging on the tall steel…
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