When hockey coach Doc DelCastillo resigned two weeks ago, much of the Fairbanks community was shocked. DelCastillo only had charge of the Nanooks for one season.

Then, a week ago, women’s basketball coach Lynne Andrew resigned after five seasons with the Nanooks.

Luckily, for the athletic department, coach selection committees are being formed and they are working hard towards finding coaches for the two teams.

The hockey search committee consists of the same six members as last year’s group, who found Doc DelCastillo to replace Tavis MacMillan, and three new faces: athletic trainer Mike Curtin; Kim Anderson, the assistant athletic director for finance and business operations and player Dion Knelsen, a sophomore.

The returning members are Kirk Patton, a former Nanook defender and current general manager of the Carlson Center; Michael McDonald, a Superior Court judge; Steve Shuttleworth, the president of the Nanooks’ boosters, the Faceoff Club; Mike Sfraga, the geography program director for the statewide University system; Todd Henderson, a former Nanook goaltender who is currently the Vice president of a local civil engineering and marine services company; and Ben Roth, a former Nanook goalie who is a local financial analyst.

“I thought that after putting in that huge commitment last year, that maybe some of them would be hesitant to do it again,” said Athletic Director Forrest Karr, of the committee, “I’m certain that they’re the right people; the people that I want. And I called every one of them and every one of them said ‘tell me when the first meeting is, I’d be honored to do it again.’”

Of Knelsen, Karr said, “Dion is an extremely intelligent young man. He is also an exceptional communicator… He is a true leader on and off the ice.”

As for the new additions, Karr said that the people with the most direct contact with the coach were not formerly a part of the selection process. “It was just a realization that those are people that should be involved in the process, and they weren’t last time, and I learn like everybody else, and I think that it would have improved the last process,” he said.

Karr said that many coaches had expressed interest, and some had already applied. He stressed the concept of a wide open search being able to bring in the best candidates to Alaska. “There’s no predetermined favorite, there’s no frontrunner,” he said, “We think that the (wide open) search process is the way to go, and I think it’s proven itself in a lot of our jobs.”

As far as what kind of coach Karr is looking for, ethics and the ability to teach ranked high on his list, “I’m looking for a well-rounded person that can teach the ethical lessons learned through sports. The ideal candidate must demonstrate the ability to inspire a cause greater than self… I expect coaches to be competitive, but even an unexceptional record can be offset if the coach is an exceptional teacher, if the experience conveyed to his or her players is a positive one.”

This year, the timing for DelCastillos’ resignation seemed to work out better. Karr said that the resignation being announced just before the NCAA’s Frozen Four playoffs has helped generate talk about the position among coaches, and since the job description was prepared last year, it was able to be brought together quicker than last year.

“We’re really a few weeks ahead of where we were last year at this time,” he said. Karr also said that the process being a few weeks earlier makes it easier to involve student-athletes in the process, as much of it will take place before the semester ends.

The women’s basketball selection process faces a bit more of a time crunch.

“The thing that kind of is the bummer about this is that basketball is in their signing period right now, and that’s not good,” said Pamm Hubbard, “we’ve got to hurry up on our end so we can give this coach a chance to actually recruit some kids that aren’t going to turn out to be just disasters later on.”

Hubbard is the Associate athletic director for compliance and the senior woman administrator whose duties include supervision of the women’s basketball and rifle teams. She is in charge of the coach selection committee for women’s basketball.

The selection committee isn’t finalized yet, she said in an interview on Friday, but she said that her goal was to have three males and three females on the committee. Five had confirmed as of the interview.

“In a general sense what I’m looking for is a couple of booster club members, a faculty member, a formers student-athlete, somebody else from the other side of campus, so I’m trying to make it more broad-based than what we’ve done I think in the past.”

Hubbard also took some cues from the players themselves. She gave the team a “homework assignment” to come up with some of the qualities they would like to see in a coach. Some of the responses were: that they value personal growth and strive for team success, give and demand respects, committed to the team and to UAF overall, and “is intense and hard, but positive at the same time.”

“They’re really looking for somebody to challenge them and somebody to push them, but in a positive way. They want somebody that’s got good knowledge of the game,” Hubbard said, “Somebody that’s dedicated to both them and the team and the department overall and UAF overall.”

There are a few things that Hubbard is looking for in a coach as well. She has a preference for a female coach, but that’s not a deal-breaker, neither is never having coached for the NCAA before, though it’s definitely helpful, as coaches have to pass an NCAA rules test before they can begin recruiting. She said that some of the coaches that have expressed interest are other Division II coaches, NAIA coaches, and even some high school coaches.

“I’d want somebody that is going to be willing to work with the community a lot,” she said, “I think that was one of coach Andrews’ biggest strengths. Is that she was really great in the community.”

Also high on Hubbard’s list was recruiting, dedication to player performance both on the court and in the classroom, and character, “I want somebody that’s still going to be able to recruit kids that are going to be able to do good things here, both on and off the court,” she said, “They have to have high character, high moral standing, be able to get out there in the community and get dirty and hang out and make some friends and really pump up Alaska athletics. Really pump up both the athletic department and the University overall.”

The hockey coach position is already posted online on uakjobs.com, the basketball coaching position is expected to be up by the end of the week.