In his column last Friday, Alex Sherman wrote that, “Harvard can do a much better job of promoting sporting event...the lack of athletic support from the College is scandalous.”

I think Alex has a great point. Just like Alex, I have always personally been shocked by the lack of publicizing of Harvard athletics.

But it’s not just recognition that needs to be increased by the Harvard athletics administration.

It’s accountability.

When was the last time the coach of a major sport was fired by the University? It hasn’t happened in the two years I have been at Harvard, and I can’t remember any specific instances in the recent past.

Harvard’s two most popular and most widely publicized sports—by almost any definition—are men’s hockey and football. And conveniently, there are recent examples in both of these sports wherein the University was complacent and allowed coaches to wallow in mediocrity for too long.

After winning the Ivy League Championship in 1987, ex-football coach Joe Restic was unable to provide another winning season in Cambridge for the remaining six years he remained at Harvard.

Now, Restic was, in many respects, a legend.  Besides the 1987 Ivy Title, Restic’s teams won or shared the Ivy League Championship on four other occasions. In addition, despite his sub-par record during his final six years, Restic finished with an overall record of 117-97-6 during his 23 seasons as head coach.

So perhaps the athletic department and the administration were hesitant to fire Restic after the enormous contribution he had made to Harvard football. Fine. The University let Restic continue to coach and he retired in 1993.

However, since Restic’s departure, current head coach Tim Murphy has done a remarkable job reviving the program to prominence. Murphy’s teams have posted two undefeated, untied Ivy League records on their way to Championships in 1997 and 2001.

But there is much less of an excuse the athletic department can make in the case of former head men’s hockey coach Ronn Tomassoni. Tomassoni was a longtime assistant coach under the legendary William J. Cleary Jr. ’56, and he was on the bench when the Crimson won its only National Championship in 1989.

After taking over for Cleary in 1990, Tomassoni had four great campaigns in a row, as his teams posted winning seasons in each of his first four years. This fantastic run culminated in the excellent 1993-94 season, in which Tomassoni led the Crimson to the Frozen Four and lost a heartbreaker 3-2 in the semifinals to Lake Superior State, who would go on to defeat BU 9-1 in the national championship game.

Clearly, Tomassoni had a great run in the early ‘90s. Yet his teams quickly went on a downward spiral.  After the ‘94 campaign, Tomassoni’s squads posted five straight non-winning seasons, a first in Harvard men’s hockey history. Still, Tomassoni was not dismissed.

He finally resigned in 1999, at which point current coach Mark Mazzoleni took over.

After a couple of tough seasons in his first two years at Harvard (which can be partly traced to the fact that he was using Tomassoni’s recruits and not his own), Mazzoleni has led the Crimson to three straight National Tournament berths.