Put me in coach, I’m ready to ‘ coach.

Tim Schum, who edited a 1998 book entitled ‘Coaching Soccer’ and coached men’s soccer at Binghamton University for 29 years, would like to be back on the sidelines. He left his post as the men’s soccer head coach in 1992.

‘Were I to do it all over again I would have kept coaching. I kind of miss it,’ Schum said. ‘In fact I’m considering maybe getting back into coaching. I haven’t been offered anything with Binghamton University, and you know what, it’s [Paul Marco’s] program ‘ having the old coach look over the shoulder, I don’t know if that’s good. But there are other opportunities.’

Schum said he is very fond of Marco, the current men’s soccer head coach. ‘Oh I think he’s an outstanding coach, and we’re lucky to have him and I hope we’re able to keep him. But he seems very happy here and we’ve been successful.’

Ahead of his time

In 1980, Schum submitted an eight-page proposal to move his BU men’s soccer team up from the Division III ranks to Division I. It didn’t happen for another two decades.

‘I probably sent it up to the presidential level, I probably sent it to people that I knew in admissions, I probably sent it to people who I thought might at least read it and give it an airing,’ Schum said. ‘I think people thought I was some kind of nutcase.’

Though Schum feels Binghamton sports have largely been ‘very successful,’ he does feel there’s room to improve.

‘I think the only thing that I think the University needs to take a look at, is putting undue pressure on individual coaches,’ he said. ‘I think there are some programs that have seen turnover in coaches and I don’t think the coach necessarily [performed poorly] ‘ the difficulty of starting up programs in certain sports are greater than in others.

‘The coaches put enough pressure on themselves. They don’t need to be reminded that their teams maybe didn’t win as many games as some people thought they should.’