Patrick Shanahan/University Photography

Former Cornell lacrosse players Bruce Mansdorf '66, Reeve "Ting" Vanneman '67 and Bruce Cohen '65 reminisce during an April 23 reunion of the teams coached by Big Red legend Ned Harkness. The two-sport mentor guided CU to a 35-1 record and two Ivy League titles in three seasons as lacrosse coach.

Even though it’s been 50 years, Bruce Mansdorf ’66 can still recall tiny details of his time as an All-America defender for the Cornell men’s lacrosse team, under legendary two-sport coach Nevin D. “Ned” Harkness.

“He taught me how to stand on a lacrosse field,” Mansdorf said, “so I could see more things – my player, where the ball was, everything.”

Mansdorf and some of his contemporaries gathered on April 23, prior to the Big Red’s game with nationally ranked Brown, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the start of the Harkness era in Cornell lacrosse.

Mansdorf used a description of the noted taskmaster and master motivator – who won 35 of 36 games and two Ivy League titles in three seasons at the helm – that few who knew him would likely choose.

“Nobody talked about Ned Harkness being a warm guy, but he was,” said Mansdorf, who spent time with Harkness late in the Hall of Fame coach’s life. He died in 2008, at age 89.

Provided

From left, Coach Ned Harkness in 1967 with Cornell lacrosse players Peter Peirce ’69, Thomas Quaranto ’67 and Robert Clark ’68.

Mansdorf has fond memories of an aging, mellowed Harkness, but he still recalls the fiery leader who had trouble accepting defeat, and rarely had to.

“He’d tell you you were a great player, or an All-American,” he said. “And all of a sudden, here’s a great coach with a lot of credibility saying that you’re a great player, so you had to believe it and play up to it.”

Harkness, noted for his seven years and two national championships as coach of men’s hockey at Cornell, was also a lacrosse genius who made a lasting impression on the young men in his charge from 1966-68. Seventeen of his former players, now in their late 60s and early 70s, gathered on a blustery Saturday morning outside the Crescent at Schoellkopf Field to swap stories about the man who took players of all abilities and demeanors and molded them into a winning machine.

“We had a great coach, and that’s an understatement,” said Doug Zirkle ’66, who helped organize the event. “We had a few great players, we had some good players, and we had some that weren’t so good, but the whole was greater than the sum of the parts and that was due to Ned.”

Tom Fleischman/Cornell Chronicle

Members of legendary coach Ned Harkness' Cornell lacrosse teams from 1966 to '68 gathered on April 23 outside the Crescent at Schoellkopf Field to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Harkness Era. The famed Big Red hockey went 35-1 in three seasons as CU lacrosse coach and won two Ivy League titles.

More than one player recalled how Harkness – who in 1969-70 coached the only undefeated, untied national champion in NCAA Division I men’s hockey history – knew that his teams were composed of individual human beings and not lacrosse robots.

“He was the most amazing motivator of players and people, because he treated everybody differently,” Mansdorf said. “He treated everybody as whoever he thought they were, and he was usually right in his assessments.”

“He understood everybody on the team and what made them work hard and be motivated,” said Bruce Cohen ’65, whose career was extended by a season after he missed his sophomore year with a broken leg. He was allowed to play in ’66 since he had yet to graduate, and wound up as a first-team All-America attackman.

Even though he appreciated his players’ individuality, Harkness was a taskmaster of the first order. Due to the coach’s hockey obligations, early season lacrosse practices were usually held indoors late at night when snow was on the ground.

Despite being out of the cold, the players had to deal with certain “elements.”

“We’d head up either to the polo barns or to the cow barns,” Zirkle said. “Real exciting venues to play in, and picking up a ball was a lot of fun. You never knew what you were going to get.”

Patrick Shanahan/University Photography

Bruce Cohen '65 speaks on April 23 in the Hall of Fame room in Friends Hall during a reunion of the lacrosse players coached by Big Red legend Ned Harkness. Cohen broke his leg as a sophomore and was granted a fifth year of eligibility in 1966, during which he earned first-team All-America honors in leading the Red to a 12-0 record and the first of Harkness' two Ivy League titles.

But as grueling as Harkness could make preparations for a game or a season, those who gathered 50 years later to remember him did so with smiles on their faces.

“He could bring out the best in everyone,” said Jim Doub ’69. “If he wanted you to run through a wall, you could run through a wall.”

“Ned was just a force,” said Robert Smith ’68, a second-team All-America midfielder his senior year despite having not played before coming to Cornell. Smith was one of several lacrosse neophytes that Harkness turned into contributors in his time at Cornell.

“He was a good man,” Smith said, “a great coach who always had great support for his players, and a good friend.”