I wish the end had been better for Phil Estes and Brown and Mark Whipple and UMass.
For Estes, 60, another Ivy League football championship and a retirement gala would have been perfect. A winning season and a farewell press conference would have been fine. Even a 5-5 finish and a quiet good-bye would have been okay.
For Whipple, 61, a conference to call home, a winning season to celebrate and respect as a Football Bowl Subdivision program would have worked.
But resignation by statement (read fired) within 48 hours of each other last week is how the former colleagues left: Estes after five consecutive non-winning seasons, three consecutive losing campaigns, and 15 consecutive Ivy League losses; Whipple after five straight losing seasons.
What a coincidence that they should depart the same week, for they had coached together as assistants at the University of New Hampshire in the mid-1980s and at Brown in the mid-to-late 1990s, when Whipple was head coach and Estes an assistant.
While I wish it had ended better, there is no disputing that each had a great ride in football. Estes coached for 35 years at two schools, UNH and Brown, a run of longevity and stability rare in Division I sports. He raised his family in East Greenwich, put his three kids through college and had his son Brett on the Brown team for four years.
Estes was Brown’s most successful coach of the Ivy League era that began in 1956. Over the course of 21 seasons his teams won 115 games, 76 in the Ivy League, and championships in 1999, 2005 and 2008. His Bears finished second 4 times, third 5 times and fourth 4 times. He produced 12 winning and 4 break-even teams.
Estes coached the best quarterback, James Perry, running back, Nick Hartigan, and all-around receiver and returner, Buddy Farnham, in Brown history. All three were Ivy League players of the year. He was Sean Morey’s position coach in 1997 when Morey, a receiver and returner, was the Ivy League player of the year. He sent players to the NFL and took pride in the Super Bowl rings won by alums James Develin, Drew Inzer and Chas Gessner with the Patriots, Zak DeOssie with the Giants and Morey with the Steelers.
Whipple’s career looks like a travel brochure. He enjoyed success at New Haven, Brown and UMass; served as an assistant at Miami; coached in the NFL with the Steelers, Eagles and Browns, winning a Super Bowl ring with the Steelers, and even coached with the Arizona Wranglers of the old U.S.F.L.
In 1998, his first season at UMass, his team won the NCAA Division I-AA national championship. Two subsequent teams lost in the quarterfinals and first round of the playoffs.
Whipple returned to UMass in 2014 hoping to build a winning program, much as he did his first time around. But success eluded him this time. UMass flopped in the Mid-American Conference and struggled the last three years as an independent. His five-year record was 16-44.
I wish the end had been better for Phil Estes and Mark Whipple, and some day it just might be. As we have seen all to often, old coaches don’t fade away. They wait for another opportunity.
