Committed to Excellence: MD1's Gary Astalos Becomes Winningest Adrian Hockey Coach
Hall of Fame NCAA Div. I basketball coach John Wooden is quoted as saying “A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.”
Speaking from experience, Wooden’s words are true of a great coach, and they’re true of a terrible coach but I don’t think that the life changing he’s referring to is the bad kind that a terrible coach can do to a player.
Today I’m going to tell you about one of the good ones, one of what I would like to call the great ones, that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for the last five and a half years.
But first, I’d like to go back in time a little bit. Five years ago nearly to the day, I was sitting in what I imagine was almost the same place (in the scorekeeper’s box of Arrington Ice Arena working an adult league night after a weekend of college games) writing a nearly identical article for my website about MD1 Head Coach Gary Astalos.
A lot of things have changed in those five years, an entire class of players has played their four years and moved on from the program, including Astalos’ first recruiting class. There is an entirely new team full of players on the ice this season that had never worn an Adrian sweater when I sat down to write that first article five years ago. The MD1 team and Astalos have won 170 hockey games and lost only 13 in that time span.
There are a few things, however, that haven’t changed.
The slogan painted up on the wall of the MD1, one that came to be in that locker room with the arrival of Coach Astalos five years ago, is one of those things that hasn’t changed.
Commit to Excellence, a slogan I took and ran with in my last article, much like Astalos did with that slogan in his first season five years ago, now has become the mantra of a program that has become a national powerhouse. Don’t believe me? Look at the engraving on the inside of the not one, but two national championship rings from 2018 and 2021.
I didn’t tell Coach Astalos I was writing an article about him five years ago, mostly because he more than likely would’ve told me not to and that any success the team was having was a team effort not just his own. I didn’t tell him I was writing this one either, in fact I didn’t even tell him why I was writing this article, which is probably what you’re asking yourself now.
After the official end of the first semester of the 2021-22 season, Coach Astalos currently holds a 170-13 record in five and a half seasons behind the bench for the Bulldogs.
Not only is only dropping 13 games in five and a half years extremely impressive, but 170 wins officially makes Astalos the winningest of any Adrian College Hockey head coach in their fifteen season history.
There are millions of stats and numbers that I could recite off the top of my head to try to convey to whoever reads this what a great coach Astalos is, but that isn’t the point of my writing this article. It isn’t the numbers and stats that make Astalos such a fantastic coach. It isn’t even the National Championships he’s led his team to that make him a great coach. It’s the impact he leaves on not just his players but everyone in the program around him in his role as a coach and a leader.
Astalos came to Adrian as the fourth head coach in the MD1 team’s history in May of 2016 after coaching for four years in the GMHL in Canada, putting together a record of 137-29-2. Prior to coaching, he spent three seasons playing in the now-defunct Northern Pacific Hockey League before attending Eastern Michigan University where he spent two seasons on their ACHA MD1 team, serving as an assistant captain in his first season and captain in his second.
When he began his first season with Adrian, the MD1 team was ranked #10 in the country. That season, Astalos led the MD1 team to their first National Semifinal appearance as they finished their season a fourth in the nation after finishing the regular season as GLCHL Regular Season champions and finishing as the playoff runners up.
In December of 2017, Coach Astalos won his 50th game in his 54th game behind the bench as he won 50 games faster than any other Adrian College Hockey coach for any of the seven teams. When I asked him about it while interviewing him for the documentary I put together that season he brushed it off and said it wasn’t about him or the number of games he won but about the team and about their ultimate goal to win that last game of the year.
Winning their final game of the year was exactly what they did that March as Astalos led his team to their first ACHA D1 National Championship and won the ACHA Coach of the Year award and his second GLCHL Coach of the Year nod.
The following March, he would win his 100th game behind the bench before the Bulldogs would fall in the national quarterfinal game to end their season.
The next season, dubbed the revenge tour by the players, would be cut short by COVID sweeping the globe in a cruel fashion. The Bulldogs finished out the uncompleted season as the #1 team in the nation for seventeen consecutive weeks.
The following season would come with many unknowns and an entire first semester with only two non-exhibition games. I wrote a two part series about the Bulldogs playing through a pandemic last year and the struggles of all seven teams to stay on the ice during the first semester last year. Astalos once again credited the work of his players when I asked how he managed to keep them game ready during the unknown of the first semester.
The ending to that season, however, would make it all worth it as Astalos led the Dawgs to their second National Championship in his fifth season as bench boss.
The Dawgs first victory at the National Tournament gave Astalos his 150th win as Head Coach in his 159th game coached as he once again reached another coaching milestone in fewer games than any other Adrian College Hockey coach.
And now, after his 168th victory against Arizona State last month, Astalos takes sole possession of the record for wins behind the bench at Adrian College.
In those five and a half seasons, Astalos’ Bulldogs have outscored their opponents 942-213. They’ve won 61 straight GLCHL games, a streak dating back to 2016-17 when they dropped their only league game since Astalos’ arrival. The Dawgs have also won five straight GLCHL regular season titles and four straight GLCHL playoff titles while Astalos has picked up three GLCHL Coach of the Year awards to go along with his 2018 ACHA MD1 Coach of the Year honor. The Bulldogs have produced 14 All Americans in the last five seasons along with one ACHA Rookie of the Year (Marcus Rose 2017), one Rookie of the Year finalist (Jordan Oshowy 2018), one ACHA Player of the Year (Brad Kobryn 2018) and one Player of the Year finalist (Austyn Roudebush 2018). Four MD1 alumni have also gone on to play professional hockey in the last five years since Astalos took over as head coach.
It takes a great coach to turn a team into a national powerhouse and it takes a great coach to turn a team into a good group of people too, which is exactly what Astalos has done off the ice as well.
“Gary is one of the most dedicated and passionate coaches I’ve had the privilege of being around,” says MD3 head coach and MD1 assistant coach Doug Raymond, who played junior hockey with Astalos, “The success he has had these past six years comes through hard work and consistency, especially through player recruitment. That is the key to his success; bringing in the best players from their prospective junior programs and getting them to buy into our culture and the way to play Bulldog hockey. Gary has a way of not just getting the best out of all his players, but more importantly, develops these players into successful people once their time at Adrian comes to an end. He’s a relationship first coach and I’m extremely happy to not just see his success, but to also be a part of what he has built here with the D1 ACHA program.”
“This achievement goes deeper than just the victories and championships on the ice. It speaks to how invested Coach Gary is into this program and us as players,” says senior captain Tyler Fyfe, “He’s worked so hard to develop and maintain a winning and professional culture around here, and his ability to have everyone buy-in to the system and everything we stand for is exceptional. This program is truly a loving family and a lot of that is thanks to the commitment that G has to each and everyone of us. We’re all very grateful to be backed by such a great coach and even better person. He’s very deserving of this success.”
You can take away the awards and accolades, the championship rings and banners and his former players and assistant coaches and anyone who has worked with Astalos will still tell you that he is not only a great coach but a dedicated leader on and off the ice. He cares for and takes care of his team and those involved with it like family. For those of us lucky enough to be a part of his team, he has shown that he is a remarkable leader and human being.
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