Ralph Romano was an ice hockey

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as the goalie) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays in or near t ...

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

, and

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches and ...

, all with the

University of Minnesota–Duluth The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) is a public university in Duluth, Minnesota. It is part of the University of Minnesota system and offers 16 bachelor's degrees in 88 majors, graduate programs in 25 different fields, and a two-year prog ...

(UMD).

Career

Ralph Romano spent his entire adult career with the UMD Bulldogs, playing for the team between 1954 and 1956. After graduating he was named as head coach in 1959 and shepherded the team while it transitioned from the MIAC (in what would become a

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

conference) to an upper-classification team and eventually join the dominant conference of the 1960s, the

WCHA The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's ice hockey-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated a ...

. Though his teams didn't win many games after it left the MIAC, Romano was well-regarded at the university and was promoted to athletic director in 1969. Romano remained at that position until he died from a heart attack while attending a game against

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

in December 1983. He was posthumously inducted into both the Duluth–Superior Sports Hall of Fame and the Minnesota–Duluth Athletic Hall of Fame.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Romano, Ralph 1983 deaths American ice hockey coaches Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs athletic directors Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs men's ice hockey coaches Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs men's ice hockey players Ice hockey people from Minnesota People from Duluth, Minnesota Ice hockey coaches from Minnesota Ice hockey people from Duluth, Minnesota 1934 births