'Knack for winning' puts Bagnoli at top of the Ivies

The Al Bagnoli era of the Penn football team passed the decade mark this season, and it's just more of the same for one of the most successful head coaches under whom the Quakers have ever played.

Heading into Saturday's Homecoming game against Princeton, Bagnoli is making a decisive run for his fifth Ivy League title.

If he makes it -- and no Penn team which started 4-0 in the Ancient Eight has not claimed at least a share of the championship -- Bagnoli will own one ring for every two seasons he's called Franklin Field home.

"Other than [Florida State head coach] Bobby Bowden, I can't think of another coach in the country who's been able to do that in the last 10 years," Penn defensive line coach Jim Schaefer said.

With a successful end to the 2001 campaign, Bagnoli would not only become the first five-time Ivy title winner in Penn history -- bettering the four straight championships Jerry Berndt won for the Quakers from 1982-1985 -- he would also be the first Ancient Eight coach to achieve the feat in such a short time.

Of course, it's wins that make up those championships -- and Bagnoli has arisen as a perennial winner in a league where, as Penn quarterback Gavin Hoffman said, "'Parity' is the main word."

Coming into Saturday, Bagnoli's 47-20 Ancient Eight career record gives him the second-best winning percentage (.701) in Ivy history. And if the Quakers win their final three games, Bagnoli will notch an unprecedented third undefeated season in Ivy League play.

Plus, counting the 200 total games he's coached at Penn and in 10 years at Union College, Bagnoli ranks No. 2 among active Division I-AA coaches with a .755 winning percentage.

"He has a knack for winning and knowing how to win," said Penn defensive coordinator Ray Priore, who came to Penn five years prior to Bagnoli's first season.

The secret behind Bagnoli's success is a coaching method that makes him deserving of an honorary Wharton degree.

Talk with anyone connected to the team, and they'll marvel about the coach's superior management of the entire program -- his organization, his motivation, and especially his delegation of authority.

"He's not a person that sits over your head and everything else," Priore said. "He allows the coaches and the players to go out there and play and do some positive things."

Bagnoli said those positive things come because of the support staff that he's assembled around him -- not because of any great skill of his own.

"I think one of the real keys that we've had is I've always had a very, very strong group of assistant coaches," he said. "That always makes things easier."

Bagnoli also said he is a fan of delegating responsibility to the people he trusts because, "If you want to micro-manage every single thing, I think that's crazy because you'll be here 20 hours a day."

But coaches who know Bagnoli are quick to add that his style does not reflect a lack of football knowledge on his part.

"He's very in touch with the X's and O's of the game," Yale coach Jack Siedlecki said. "He doesn't just take a role of the team's CEO as some people tend to do. He's still very knowledgeable of the football part of it."

In fact, Bagnoli's ability to win is directly attributable to his football knowledge and instincts about the game.

Case in point is Penn's 2000 Ivy League title. After eight years geared toward a grinding ground game in the Ancient Eight, Bagnoli sensed a new trend in the league.

At the start of the 2000 campaign, he began utilizing an offensive air attack under newly acquired offensive coach Andy Coen -- and the rest is history.

"I think he's done a real good job of keeping up with the game and keeping up with the trend of the game," said senior linebacker Dan Morris, whose brother Nick played under Bagnoli from 1993-1995. "Defensively, I think you see this year how he's been able to adapt and tweak things, and so far we've been able to keep up pretty well."

So what in the world led a coach of this ability, magnitude, and ultimately of this dominance to Penn and the Ivy League?

"It was nothing organized," Bagnoli said.

After playing high school football in his hometown of New Haven, Conn., Bagnoli took his game to Central Connecticut State where he saw only occasional minutes until breaking into the starting lineup his senior year.

Still, he enjoyed a good ride, as the Blue Devils lost only five games of Division-II play in his three years on varsity.

Bagnoli graduated in 1975 with a double major in history and physical education and a minor in psychology, but had no plan for the future.

"I'm like a lot of the kids that you find who don't really know what they want to do coming out of college," he said.

A roommate of his was heading up to SUNY-Albany to become a graduate assistant coach -- paying for a master's degree by joining the Great Danes' coaching staff.

Bagnoli decided to follow him up to New York.

"I thought it'd be good to try to get a master's degree right out of college, so in the event your life did get complicated you already went through the schooling that you'd probably need," he said.

While getting his first taste of coaching at Albany, Bagnoli met and worked with Siedlecki as well as current Penn linebackers coach Cliff Schwenke, current Wagner coach Walt Hameline and now-Dallas Cowboys coach Dave Campo.

"It turned out to be a pretty good staff," Bagnoli said.

He spent one season as a linebackers coach, followed by two years as Albany's defensive coordinator. After receiving his master's in educational administration in 1978, Bagnoli was offered a full-time defensive coaching position at Union -- a fortunate event for Penn.

"Back then... it was much easier to break into full-time employment," Bagnoli said. "Now there's way too many coaches relative to the number of job openings.

"I'm not sure -- if I had to wait five years, I probably would have picked a different career track."

In his first season at Union, Bagnoli shared a house with Siedlecki, who stayed at Albany.

The living arrangement further solidified a friendship that has lasted for over 20 years between what the Yale coach describes as sharp-dressed and organized Bagnoli and laid-back Siedlecki.

"We had a little bit of the 'Felix and Oscar' kind of relationship in that respect," Siedlecki said.

Four years later, in 1982, Bagnoli made his head coaching debut with Union. That year was a foretelling one, as Bagnoli led Union to its first winning season in 12 years. He went on to compile a record of 86-19, leading the Dutchmen to six NCAA playoff appearances.

Then Penn came calling.

Bagnoli had received offers from some Division I-AA schools, but "my things were always to go to a school that's going to give you an opportunity to win, because if you can't win in this profession then it's not a fun profession to be in."

"I looked at the Penn job because I saw what the history books said from '82 to '90 that something was in place through different coaches, different presidents, different ADs -- there had to be something philosophically here to have sports really supported."

Bagnoli uprooted his family -- a thing he's very reluctant to do -- settled down in Mt. Laurel, N.J., and began a dominance over the Ivy League that doesn't look to end anytime soon.

He said he has received inquiries from various Division I-A schools -- "the next logical stepping stone," as he put it -- but was wary about his ability to achieve success in those programs.

Family takes the highest priority for Bagnoli, and with his two sons currently attending Penn and his daughter a sophomore in high school, Bagnoli said he would rather wait on a change in venue than take a job that does not ensure success.

"You don't want to be moving kids going into their senior year in high school so I can be a Division I-A coach at such and such a school," he said. "That to me is not a trade-off."

So there might be a whole lot more of the same in the future of the Penn football team -- unless the biggest programs in the nation come after Bagnoli.

"I guess it would all have to be dependent on, 'What's the offer on the table?' Priore said. "If Notre Dame comes in offering $10 million, [that's] probably tough to turn down. But that would have to be something that would be great for him and his family, because family to Coach really comes first, even before anything else."

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