Head Coach

Loyola sophomore goalie Jack Runkel has been a pleasant surprise this season, starting 14 of 16 games. He is 14-1 and has a goals-against average of 7.75 and a .536 save percentage. But on a team which has the best starting talent of the four semifinalists, how Runkel will hold up this weekend is the major question for the No. 1 seed Greyhounds, who will play No. 4 seed Notre Dame in a semifinal game on Saturday. Fortunately, Runkel has Charley Toomey as a head coach, a former All-American goalie at Loyola.

Loyola sophomore goalie Jack Runkel has been a pleasant surprise this season, starting 14 of 16 games. He is 14-1 and has a goals-against average of 7.75 and a .536 save percentage. But on a team which has the best starting talent of the four semifinalists, how Runkel will hold up this weekend is the major question for the No. 1 seed Greyhounds, who will play No. 4 seed Notre Dame in a semifinal game on Saturday. Fortunately, Runkel has Charley Toomey as a head coach, a former All-American goalie at Loyola.

Pro basketball Shuckers promote Topp to head coach The Bay Area Shuckers named assistant coach Bob Topp their new head coach Monday. Topp, a longtime coach and nationally recognized shooting coach, brings experience at the middle school, high school, community college and professional levels. He takes over the Atlantic Coast Professional Basketball League team after the resignation of Pete Corriero last week three games into its inaugural season. "With the majority of our schedule left to play, we wanted to act quickly, and we're happy that we have our best option right here on our staff," Shuckers general manager John Wolfe said.

Jesse L. Thomas, a Baltimore Colts defensive back in the 1950s who then spent four decades at Morgan State University, serving for several years as its head football coach, died of dementia complications May 16 at his Columbia home. He was 83. Born in Guthrie, Okla., and raised in Flint, Mich., he was a much-praised athlete at its Central High School, where he was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame. He was Flint's 1945 Athlete of the Year and held letters in basketball, baseball, track and football.

“Wow. It has been a whirlwind. Words can't describe the emotions that I'm going through right now and the feelings. Coming off probably the most devastating loss that I've ever been a part of in the AFC championship game and to go in that locker room and see those faces and we all know how hard it is to get to that stage and to see the tears. It's an all-time low, and the last thing I ever expected came across my table and now I sit here at an all-time high. " Those were Chuck Pagano's first words after he was introduced as the next coach of the Indianapolis Colts on Thursday, four days after the Ravens' season ended with a crushing loss to the New England Patriots.

In his first season as an NFL defensive coordinator, Chuck Pagano has the Ravens tied for third in the league in average points allowed (16.9) and ranked in the top five in categories such as total yards (third, 287.9 yards), rushing yards (second, 90.0), passing yards (fifth, 197.9) and third-down efficiency (first, 30.4 percent). Which is why suggestions that Pagano could be a candidate for a head-coaching vacancy have already begun to circulate in media circles. But Pagano deflated that trial balloon during his weekly briefing Wednesday.

Colleges Former star catcher Mumma named UMBC baseball coach UMBC has promoted Bob Mumma from assistant baseball coach to head coach at his alma mater. The Rising Sun native played catcher for the Retrievers from 1990 to 1992 and is the school's all-time leader in home runs (42) and tied for second in RBIs (152). He spent two seasons in the Chicago White Sox organization, then returned to UMBC in the fall of 1996 as an assistant. He succeeds John Jancuska , who coached the Retrievers from 1978 to this year.

Truth be told, life didn't change all that much for Dave Cottle in the two years after his last game as Maryland's men's lacrosse coach. It just became somewhat inverted. With his schedule suddenly open, sure, he finally got to see his son, Sean, play more of the sport he coached for nine seasons in College Park and another 19 at Loyola. And, yes, he can speak from experience these days when he jokes about knowing what it's like to go in for a Saturday morning oil change. (“I've never done that, that whole weekend thing,” he said.)

Former Chesapeake assistant coach Bernard Williams was named head coach of the school's baseball team Friday morning, replacing third-year mentor Bob Dill.Dill, whose record was 5-8 after a 12-11 loss to Severna Park on Tuesday, had no comment on the sudden coaching change when reached at his Pasadena home on Friday.Chesapeake athletic director Al Grau said, "The only thing I can say is that Williams will coach the remainder of the season. This is an in-house matter, and I'd rather not say anything about it."

Richie Meade is back with Navy lacrosse, this time as coach.Meade, who spent five years as a Navy assistant under Bryan Matthews in the 1980s, then coached on the staffs at North Carolina and Army, yesterday was named the sixth coach in Navy's 86 years of lacrosse.Meade, 40, replaces Matthews, who resigned last month to become athletic director at Washington College, his alma mater.After being turned down by big-time coaches such as Loyola's Dave Cottle and Johns Hopkins' Tony Seaman, Navy trimmed its list to Meade and Matt Hogan, an assistant on Matthews' staff.

Each week, The Baltimore Sun publishes a Q&A with an area college lacrosse player to help you become more acquainted with the player and his/her team. Today's guest is Towson junior midfielder Kelly Custer from Aston, Pa., which is south of Philadelphia. As the Tigers prepare to host Penn State on Saturday in the first round of the NCAA tournament, Custer is tied for the team lead with 33 goals, but she contributes all over the field, leading the Tigers with 41 draw controls and ranking among the leaders in ground balls and caused turnovers.

The season didn't start the way Bel Air baseball coach John Swanson hoped. But maybe it will end more to his liking. By the time the Bobcats could catch their collective breath this season they were a 3-8 team. But what Swanson has discovered is that he has capable leaders in senior captains Zack Stout and Tyler Riedal and junior Tyler Norcross. They showed their character by leading their teammates through the building process. Now, Bel Air is 9-11 heading into the Class 3A postseason, which begins this weekend (MPSSAA brackets are expected to be unveiled Wednesday)

Tony Seaman compiled a record of 263-166 in 30 years as a head coach at Johns Hopkins, Towson, Penn and C.W. Post. In one of his many current roles, he serves to chair the selection committee tasked with filling out the 16-team field for the upcoming NCAA tournament. Seaman discussed the deliberations over the No. 1 seed, the rationale for Massachusetts not getting a top-four seed, and thought process behind inviting Princeton over Penn State. Loyola coach Charley Toomey, who is a member of the selection committee, said he recused himself for 40 minutes from Sunday's meeting before learning that the Greyhounds would be the No. 1 seed.

Baltimore Ravens Offensive Coordinator Cam Cameron was a young coach at the University of Michigan when his then head coach Bo Schembechler noticed a spot on his back. The spot turned out to be a malignant mole and Cameron was diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma. Melanoma is the most lethal form of skin cancer. Cameron was treated and survived and is now speaking out about skin cancer. He will be featured in a 30-second public service announcement for the Joanna M. Nicolay Melanoma Foundation, a national nonprofit headquartered in Maryland that promoted melanoma research and prevention.

Indiana has hired Towson assistant coach Kenny Johnson to fill a spot on its basketball staff. Towson head coach Pat Skerry confirmed the hire in a Tweet saying, "Congrats to coach kenny johnson and getting the job at indiana. He helped lay a strong foundation this year and will do great things at IU" Johnson is a 1999 graduate of Maryland whose playing career was cut short by an injury when he was in high school at Oxon Hill. He was a head coach at Paul VI High School in Fairfax, Va., and began his collegiate coaching career under Skerry at Towson.

As the Washington Capitals sat in the dressing room at their Arlington, Va., practice facility ahead of a flight to Boston for a final showdown with the Boston Bruins in this Eastern Conference quarterfinal series, the mood was noticeably loose. Players lobbed well-intended jabs at one another, exchanged jokes with reporters and seemed relaxed to the point that an uninformed observer might not have believed the team will be fighting to keep its season alive tonight in Game 7 at TDGarden.

Former Salisbury State College football coach Mike McGlinchey, who guided the Sea Gulls to a 44-11-1 record in five years and the NCAA Division III title game in 1986, is expected to be named head coach at Division III Frostburg State College today.McGlinchey resigned as head coach at Central Connecticut State yesterday, telling his players in a 3:45 p.m. team meeting that he was "leaving to accept a position at another institution."McGlinchey's wife, Marylane, said last night that her husband was offered a head coaching job Friday at another school "in the East and had to be there tomorrow morning [this morning]

The New Jersey Devils yesterday ended months of speculation on who would become head coach and retained Tom McVie.McVie, 55, guided an inconsistent team to a 4-5-4 record after being named interim head coach on March 4, replacing John Cunniff. The team played its best hockey of the season in the first round of the playoffs, losing to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in seven games."I feel I'm the man for the job," McVie, 56, said in a conference call from his home in Portland, Ore. "I felt when the evaluation was done and everybody sat back, I was the man for the job."

The 108th meeting of a Maryland-Johns Hopkins series featured an appearance by a pair of NFL coaches. The Ravens' John Harbaugh and the New England Patriots' Bill Belichick stood on the sideline of the annual clash between the No. 10 Terps and the No. 5 Blue Jays at Homewood Field in Baltimore on Saturday night. Both coaches were positioned along the Johns Hopkins sideline. It's well known that Belichick and Blue Jays coach Dave Pietramala have become close friends. Pietramala attended the Patriots' win over the Ravens in January's AFC championship as the New England coach's guest.

Joe Vitt went directly from the football field at Towson State to his first job in the NFL as the strength coach of the Baltimore Colts in 1979. A little more than 30 years later, Vitt finds himself in the middle of one of the biggest stories in the league's recent history - and one of its biggest scandals. Though the 57-year-old New Orleans Saints assistant coach has been suspended by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for the first six games of the 2012 season for his role in an illegal bounty system, Vitt was named interim coach Thursday by the Saints.