William G. Tierney (born September 26, 1952) is an American

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

coach who currently heads the men's lacrosse team at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private university, private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Mountain States, Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is ...

. Tierney is the first college lacrosse coach to win an NCAA DI Championship west of the

Eastern Time Zone The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small por ...

. He has coached seven NCAA DI championship teams, including six at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

and one at the University of Denver. Tierney's teams have had a combined winning percentage of .750.

Personal life

Player

Tierney played collegiate lacrosse at

Cortland State Cortland may refer to: Places In space * 27776 Cortland, an asteroid United States * Cortland, Illinois, a town * Cortland, Indiana, an unincorporated community * Cortland, Nebraska, a village * Cortland, New York, a city * Cortland, Ohio, a city ...

where he was also a member of Delta Kappa Beta fraternity. In 1973, he played on the

USILA The United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association is an association of member institutions and organizations with college lacrosse programs at all levels of competition, including the three NCAA divisions and non-NCAA schools, at both the vars ...

national championship team. This was the small college, non Division I national tournament, prior to the splitting of Division I, II and III national tournaments. In 1972, Tierney was a member of a seminal Cortland NCAA Semifinal team that upset Navy. Following college, Tierney pursued a master's degree at

Adelphi University Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York. Adelphi also has centers in Manhattan, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County. There is also a virtual, online campus for remote students. It is the oldest institution of higher ed ...

, and coached high school lacrosse at

Great Neck South High School William A. Shine Great Neck South High School (commonly Great Neck South, South High School, or GNSHS) is a four-year public high school located in the Lake Success village of Great Neck, New York. The school serves students in grades 9 through 1 ...

, then Levittown Memorial High School.

Coach

In 1982, Tierney's took his first collegiate coaching position with the

Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in the town of Henrietta, New York, Henrietta in the Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degree ...

. He took the team to its first NCAA tournaments in both 1983 and 1984. In 1983, he earned the Division III Coach of the Year. Following this success, Tierney joined the

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

Blue Jays as an assistant lacrosse coach (winning two national championships), and also served as head coach of the soccer team from 1985 to 1987. In 1988, Tierney accepted the position as head coach of the

Princeton Tigers The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 35 varsity teams in 20 sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, three in women's lacrosse, six in ...

. He acquired a program that was underdeveloped, and quickly turned it around. Tierney's Tigers won six NCAA championships (

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, and

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

) in nine years, and have appeared in eight NCAA championship games, nine NCAA Final Fours and 11 Ivy League championships. In 1992, Tierney was awarded USILA Coach of the Year honors. Internationally, Tierney coached Team USA to a Gold Medal with a 15-14 OT win over Canada in the 1998

World Lacrosse Championships The World Lacrosse Championship (WLC) is the international men's field lacrosse championship organized by World Lacrosse that occurs every four years. The WLC began before any international lacrosse organization had been formed. It started as a ...

In 2002, Tierney was inducted into the

National Lacrosse Hall of Fame The National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Museum, is located in Sparks, Maryland at the USA Lacrosse headquarters. Prior to moving to its present location in 2016, the hall of fame and museum was located in Baltimore, Maryland, on the Homewood camp ...

with the distinction of being "a truly great coach." In 1998 and 2001, Tierney and his sons

Trevor Trevor (Trefor (disambiguation), Trefor in the Welsh language) is a common given name or surname of Welsh language, Welsh origin. It is an habitational name, deriving from the Welsh ''tre(f)'', meaning "homestead", or "settlement" and ''fawr'', ...

(a goaltender) and Brendan (midfield/attack), became the first father-sons combination to win an NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship together. His daughter Brianne Tierney, a former player at Loyola of Maryland and Colgate, is currently the women's head coach at Kent State, which will begin varsity play in the 2019 season; her husband Dylan Sheridan is the assistant coach at

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

and was the men's head coach at Cleveland State. Coach Tierney began coaching the men's lacrosse team at the University of Denver on July 1, 2009. Coach Tierney called the change a "wonderful opportunity to start this new chapter in my life." On May 25, 2015 Coach Tierney led Denver to the team's first National Championship. They beat Maryland by a score of 10-5. Denver was the 10th different school to raise the trophy and the first team west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Head coaching record

:University of Denver :Princeton University :Rochester Institute

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tierney, Bill 1952 births Adelphi University alumni American lacrosse players Cortland Red Dragons men's lacrosse players Denver Pioneers men's lacrosse coaches Johns Hopkins Blue Jays men's lacrosse coaches Living people Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse coaches High school lacrosse coaches in the United States