ERIN QUINN STORY

As Erin Quinn ticked off victory after victory as Middlebury’s lacrosse coach from 1991 to 2006, finally stopping at 202 wins against only 38 losses, one could forgive his opponents if they thought he had been born with a stick in his hand and a helmet on his head. Little did they know that they were getting handed their lunch by a man who had never played the game before he started coaching it.

[SETS UP THE STORY. USES SPECIFICS. HOW MANY YEARS HE COACHED. WHAT HIS EXACT RECORD WAS. THE USE OF “STICK IN HIS HAND AND A HELMET ON HIS HEAD” SUGGESTS A RHYTHM; MUCH BETTER THAN JUST USING ONE OF THEM]

“It was probably cheating that it was lacrosse that I got into because at that point it was a small enough sport that there wasn’t a huge coaching body,” says Quinn. “The sport combines the skills of a lot of different sports. I played football, basketball, baseball and track at the varsity level in high school and a bunch of other sports, like golf and hockey. Even in pond hockey you know that if a guy on your team gets beat, you have to drop down to cover. It’s pretty simple stuff.”

[DIRECT QUOTE REINFORCES THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY. IT FLOWS LOGICALLY FROM THE FIRST GRAF. AND NOTICE THE VERB “SAYS.” DO NOT TRY TO INVENT COLORFUL WORDS FOR “SAYS” AND “SAID.” IT’S NOT NECESSARY.]

But one does not compile a winning percentage because it’s “simple stuff.” What Quinn did—and what he tries to do now in his position as Middlebury athletic director—is build a winning culture, something that is hard to define but sometimes defines a winner.

[NOTICE THE SIMPLE TRANSITION WORD. “BUT.” THAT’S ALL YOU NEED TO TURN THE STORY. THE PHRASE “SIMPLE STUFF” IS IN QUOTES BECAUSE IT REITERATES WHAT IS SAID BEFORE. REPETITION IS BAD UNLESS IT’S FOR A PURPOSE]

That is one of the themes that Quinn touched on during a 40-minute interview at the Virtue Fieldhouse on Tuesday, sketching out a successful career that saw him go from washing uniforms and taping ankles (as a coach at Lake Forest College) to overseeing a 31-sport program at one of the top Division-3 schools in the nation.

[THIS IS WHAT’S CALLED THE “NUT GRAF” OF A STORY. TELLS US WHERE OR WHEN WE’RE LEARNING ALL THIS, WHILE PROVIDING ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. IT GROUNDS THE STORY]

“I could can learn the x’s and o’s,” said Quinn of his lacrosse career. “But over time it’s more about emotional intelligence and connecting the players, bringing them together and creating a strong culture. You do all those things and you’re at a place that supports it? Had I been at a place where those things aren’t supported, my winning percentage would be about 30 percent.”

[DIRECT QUOTE REINFORCES THE POINT ABOVE]

That’s doubtful. Those lessons of culture are ones that the 56-year-old Quinn has tried to spread throughout the Middlebury program.

“It sounds a little trite, but for me it’s always been the people,” says Quinn. “When I was a student here, I loved my experience, the coaches, the athletes that I played with, friends outside of sports. What encouraged me to get into athletics in the first place was my experience here. So I think landing back here was a blessing.”

[EACH GRAF FLOWS FROM THE ONE ABOVE IT. “THAT’S DOUBTFUL” IS ALL YOU NEED TO REFER TO THE GRAF ABOVE AND KEEP THE STORY MOVING]

When he first got the A.D. job in 2006, it might not have seemed like a blessing. The recession hit hard a couple years later, and no institutions, not even a thriving one like Middlebury, escaped.

[WHAT’S THE TRANSITION HERE? REPEATING THE WORD “BLESSING.” EACH GRAF FLOWS FROM THE ONE ABOVE IT.I KNOW, I’M REPEATING MYSELF]

“We were cutting budgets and we had hiring freeze, and if a person left a position you really had to fight hard to get that position back,” said Quinn. “If it was a head coaching position, yes, we’d get that back, but we were chipping away at the assistant positions. If we had a full-time assistant coach, maybe they would come back as a part-time coach.”

[DIRECT QUOTE REINFORCES THE POINT ABOVE]

But Middlebury, like most of its NESCAC rivals, weathered the storm and seems to be humming along nicely with a $6 million budget, about the sum, Quinn remarked wryly, collected by a Division-1 head basketball or football coach.

[ANOTHER SIMPLE TRANSITION; USE OF THE WORD ‘BUT.’ TRANSITIONS ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY BUT THEY DON’T HAVE TO BE COMPLICATED. THE “WRYLY” IS NECESSARY TO GET AT THE NATURE OF QUINN’S COMMENT. HE WASN’T REALLY ANGRY ABOUT IT. HE WAS JOKINGLY POINTING IT OUT]

Quinn’s issues might not be in the same dollar league as athletic directors at major schools. But they’re not all that different either. Dealing with coaches who want to coax more out of the budget for their own sport. Interceding with the admissions department to make some compromises to put representative teams on the playing field in every sport. Negotiating with the college president, on whose desk the buck stops. “On significant issues,” says Quinn, “presidents make the critical call. We [the NESCAC] are a president’s conference.”

[ONE PARAGRAPH FLOWS FROM THE ONE ABOVE IT. NOTICE THE BRACKETS. BRACKETS ARE USED TO INTERRUPT A DIRECT QUOTE WHEN SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE EXPLAINED OR CLARIFIED]

All in all, though, Quinn considers himself lucky to be at Middlebury and lucky to have found something that he did quite well—coaching—that led to something else that he does quite well—leading an athletic department. He didn’t know exactly what to do after graduation. He didn’t want the business world. He thought he might’ve wanted to join the Special Forces but an injury—WE SHOULD’VE FOUND OUT WHAT KIND—kept him out of the Army. He just about stumbled into coaching, and here he is, back where he started, happy and successful, even if he is a little bit more behind the scenes.

[ANOTHER SIMPLE TRANSITION. THIS TIME IT’S THE WORD “THOUGH.” THE SHORT SENTENCES HE DIDN’T KNOW, HE DIDN’T WANT, HE THOUGHT HE MIGHT, SUGGEST A RHYTHM]

“The gratification [of being an A.D.] is a little more second-hand,” Quinn says. “If you see an individual or a team succeed, broadly speaking, it could be on the field with a national championship or it could just be succeeding in terms of how they show up as people and how they grown. When I see that happen and know that I played some small part in it, that’s how I get my gratification.”

And in any case, it beats doing laundry.

[NEXT TO LAST GRAF IS ANOTEHR WAY OF USING A DIRECT QUOTE TO SUPPORT GRAF ABOVE IT. LAST LINE REFERS BACK TO THE FIRST PART OF THE STORY. WE CALL THAT TYING IT IN A KNOT. DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO DO IT? NO. BUT IT’S A GOOD IDEA. A STORY IS A WHOLE ORGANIC ORGANISM. ALL PARTS TIE TOGETHER]