If Mark Mazzoleni were an SEC football coach, he would’ve appeared with his family at a neatly-organized press conference this summer, enjoyed a made-for-TV handshake with the athletic director and smiled in front of a dozen microphones. He would’ve told the hundred or so people assembled in a thick-aired room that this was, without a doubt, the place for him to be.

“I’m very pleased to sign this contract extension,” he would say before a smattering of flashbulbs.

But Mazzoleni isn’t in his glory on autumn Saturdays in Tallahassee or Tuscaloosa. He’s a hockey coach. Our hockey coach. And at Fair Harvard, athletics news that might be trumpeted at the Michigans or Stanfords of the world gets little play—or none at all.

Here in Larry’s Learning Land, the buzz centers on what could happen on our property in Allston, rather than what has been there for a century (like that Coliseum-looking thing you might’ve seen before).

So it is only now, months after the terms were finalized, closed-door meetings concluded and the last i dotted (literally), that we learn this: This summer, with Harvard’s 10,000 scattered to their respective corners of the nation and world, Mazzoleni agreed to a multi-year contract extension. Both Mazzoleni and athletic director Robert L. Scalise declined to enumerate either duration or dollars, but it is clear that the deal will keep him as Harvard’s head hockey coach for at least the next several seasons.

“It’s a commitment both ways,” said Mazzoleni, who will likely win his 300th career game this season. “I’m very happy to be here, and the school has been very supportive of the hockey program. And they must be happy to have me, too.”

From the athletic department’s standpoint, the move was a no-brainer. This season would’ve been the fifth and final year of his initial contract, signed in July 1999.

It’s standard practice to give a coach who has performed well a vote of confidence, in the form of an extension, going into the final year. And with back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances, an ECAC title and a 20-win season in the past four years, Mazzoleni had clearly earned that.

“We’re proud of the progress we’ve been making with the men’s hockey program,” Scalise said this week. “Five or six years ago, we were in a turnaround situation, and now we’re competing regularly for the ECAC championship, which is very encouraging to us.

“The program seems to have gotten a lot of support on campus, and it’s instilling a lot of spirit and pride in the Harvard community.”

Mazzoleni’s previous head jobs numbered six years (Wisconsin Stevens-Point) and five years (Miami). The renewal will likely make his tenure here longer than both of those.

A Different Sort of Campaign

Another important news item somewhat lost in the shuffle of the new season: the NCAA Division III Presidents Council voted last week to keep a piece of legislation in its reform package that would end the ability of its member schools to “play up” to Division I and offer athletic scholarships.

If this legislation is supported by a majority of the Division III membership in January, eight schools will be affected. Four of them play Division I college hockey, and three of them—Clarkson, Rensselaer and St. Lawrence—are in the ECAC, along with Harvard and the other hockey-playing Ivies. (The fourth team is Colorado College of the WCHA.)

This would be bad, bad news for these institutions and the greater good of college hockey, a closely-knit, tradition-rich sport that has shown a maternal instinct toward these embattled hockey programs.