COUGHLAN: Roberts’ career holds its own against any and all at BU

1985 is not a year that I can claim to remember, but neither can the vast majority of undergraduates who are calling Boston University their home this semester. Most of us only go back to the early 1990s, back when the Terriers were still sharing Nickerson Field with a Division-I football team and the men’s ice hockey squads were poised to rattle off a record string of six straight Beanpot championships.

You know, the glory days.

Nevertheless, back up five more years and you will find that 1985 proved to be as integral a year as any in the development of one of BU’s athletic programs as it marks the first season that men’s soccer head coach Neil Roberts took the reins of the program.

Twenty-six-and-a-half seasons and exactly 300 wins later, the teams and the students have changed, but Roberts still remains, roaming the sidelines and calling the shots.

With his team’s come-from-behind 2-1 victory over the University of Massachusetts on Sunday, Roberts became the 11th coach to eclipse 300 wins with the same team at the Division-I level in NCAA men’s soccer history.

Roberts now holds a career 300-149-70 record since 1985, with No. 300 coming against an intra-state rival that his team had been winless against since 2005.

The road to 300 was hardly uneventful. Nor was it undecorated, as 25 of the 26 teams Roberts has coached have posted winning seasons, with 13 of them earning NCAA Tournament berths, seven advancing past the first round, and the first one (the 1985 squad) reaching the quarterfinals.

While men’s ice hockey enjoyed Beanpot after Beanpot in the 90s, men’s soccer experienced similar regular season success under Roberts’s direction, posting a 28-0-1 conference record over a four year span and a 16-0-1 regular season record in 1994.

Roberts remains the winningest coach in BU soccer history, and has been recognized for his coaching talents 14 times over his career.

While the Terriers only boast a 2-4-0 record in 2011 with conference play less than two weeks away, fans and students can rest easy knowing that Roberts, complete with his 27 years of coaching experience and 300 wins, will have something to say before the season is all said and done.

Of course, Roberts’ tenure is hardly unique or even uncommon when compared to other coaches at BU. With Carl Adams and Sally Starr both entering their 30th season leading the wrestling and field hockey teams, respectively, and Jack Parker on to his second heart and thirty-eighth season as bench boss of the men’s ice hockey team, Roberts takes the back seat.

It is clear, then, that the department of athletics at BU spares no expense in bringing the best and brightest to coach and to assure long-term success. Roberts’ 300th win is the most recent but certainly not the least or the greatest in a long list of milestones achieved by BU coaches.

But just where exactly does Mr. 300’s bevy of wins rank when compared to the slew of other individual accomplishments we have witnessed in Boston’s recent history?

What with Boston Red Sox knuckler Tim Wakefield having recently secured his 200th career victory, former men’s basketball forward John Holland notching his 2,000th point last season and Parker wrapping up his 800th win in 2009, Roberts’ 300 seem to pale in comparison all of a sudden.

Or do they?

Consider the fact that at the beginning of the academic year, Roberts’ 298 wins had come over the course of 26 seasons while Parker’s 834 had come in 37. Add the reality that, in the regular season, NCAA soccer teams play roughly half as many games as hockey teams (17 to 34 in 2011), and do a little math.

Come on, it’s not that bad.

At the rate Roberts is coaching, he averages about 11 wins per season (rounding down for the skeptics). In 11 years, if that rate stays the same, Roberts will have as many years of coaching experience as Parker has now, and will have 121 more Ws under his belt. That’s 419 in total. Since Parker gets twice as many chances to win than Roberts on a yearly basis, it seems only fair, for the sake of comparison, that we double Roberts’s 419 to achieve, gasp!, 838.

Help me out with the last step here. Nope, you didn’t forget how to subtract, that is indeed four more than the immortal bench boss whose name the Terrier faithful chant at the end of player introductions on a weekly basis. Who knew?

Now, I’m not trying to suggest that Roberts’ accomplishments to this point in his career can be compared to Parker’s with any sense of accuracy. The fact that the two final win figures are so close relies heavily on the assumption that Roberts will maintain his current rate of success for 11 more seasons, not to mention the ludicrous idea that the weight of a hockey game is exactly equal to that of a soccer game. (It’s a watered-down version of saying that a win in the National Football League is of the same importance to a team as a win in Major League Baseball.) Toss in the fact that Parker has won three NCAA championships and coaches a team in arguably the best NCAA hockey conference compared to the mediocrity of the America East Conference in which Roberts coaches, and Parker’s 834 victories certainly retain their value.

Still, the fact that the numbers are so close remains relevant. By comparing Roberts to Parker and realizing that the calibers of their coaching are even remotely similar, Roberts’ immense value to the BU soccer program can be put in perspective.

With that assurance in hand, BU fans can attend men’s soccer games with the belief that their team will execute a well-coached game plan akin to that of their hockey brothers.