Sometimes you can go home again. After men's hockey head coach Roger Grillo resigned last June, Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger turned to former defenseman Brendan Whittet '94, who'd been toiling as an assistant at Dartmouth for the past eleven years.
Whittet enjoyed great success while playing for Coach Bob Gaudet's Bears from 1990 to 1994, during which time the team won an Ivy League title, traveled twice to the ECAC Final Four in Lake Placid, and earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
"My vision," Whittet says, "which I know is going to be reality because I lived it as a student-athlete, is to have a program that is about excellence in everything. Brown University is one of the best academic schools in the world, and I want to see the correlation with the men's ice hockey program."
"Brendan is a great guy and an excellent coach," Gaudet says. "He had a wonderful experience at Brown as an undergraduate and cares deeply about the school and the hockey program. He wants to be there, and that passion and pride he feels for Brown and Brown hockey will be transferred to his players. Brendan will develop a team that alumni, students, and people in the community will be proud of."
As an assistant to Gaudet at Dartmouth, Whittet helped the Big Green earn the 2006 ECAC regular-season championship and the 2007 Ivy League championship. A perennial top-twenty team, the Big Green enjoyed seven straight winning seasons from 2000 to 2007 and advanced to the ECAC semifinals in five of those years. Prior to his stint in Hanover, Whittet was an assistant at Colby, where he helped the Mules capture the 1997 ECAC East playoff championship. Earlier at Brown, Whittet was an assistant on the 1995 Ivy championship team and on the 1998 team that finished fourth in the ECAC.
"I am confident," Goldberger says, "that Brendan will bring excitement and enthusiasm to College Hill that will be contagious. We are in for a wonderful new era in Brown hockey."
