LEAVING A MARK
The fourth NCAA championship is nice, but as long as Mark Johnson can make an impact on athletes’ lives, he will be right at home — and on the ice — in Madison
by MIKE LUCAS
UW women’s hockey coach Mark Johnson, for one, thought it made sense. “Sometimes I think we over-coach and that can be a hindrance,” said Johnson, a four- time American Hockey Coaches Association Division I Coach of the Year. “If you have a good group of players and they’re in a good place, sometimes you have to get out of the way because the only thing you’ll do is screw it up.” He was poking fun at himself, which is easier to do when you’re Mark Johnson and you’re sporting a 210-39-22 (.815) career record and coming off a fourth NCAA title in the last six years.
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Coaching some national teams was a great blueprint for Johnson, who returned to the Badgers last season after serving as the 2010 U.S. Olympic women’s coach for the Vancouver winter games.
s it ever fair to ask a coach – especially an elite head coach who has won multiple national championships – if his greatest achievement might have been coaching less, not more?
