Jim Engles was being spun in so many directions, smiling and shaking hands and small-talking with so many different people after being introduced as Columbia’s new head coach.
It was “incredible” and “surreal” for the Staten Island native — an assistant coach with the Lions from 2003-08 — who described conflicting emotions while visiting Levien Gymnasium twice as the opposing coach with NJIT this past season. He still felt like part of him had never left Morningside Heights.
On Thursday, the Manhattan campus unearthed even more memories, the familiar faces making it feel more like a reunion than a welcoming.
“This is the job I’ve always wanted,” Engles said.
After stops as an assistant at Wagner and Rider, Engles originally joined the Lions after the worst season (2-25) in school history. In his first head-coaching opportunity at NJIT, he took over a team that had been in Division I for two seasons and had just gone 0-29.
Now, for the first time, Engles inherits a team that has enjoyed success. Under Kyle Smith — who left for San Francisco after six years at Columbia — the Lions just won a program-record 25 games, along with the CIT championship.
Major challenges remain, though, beginning with the departure of four starters. Then, there is the task of winning their first Ivy League title since 1968, five months before Engles was born.
“They expect Columbia to challenge for Ivy League titles and that’s the next step,” Engles said. “In the past I never spoke about winning … because I had inherited a team that had never won, [but] I’m excited to take these guys to the next level. … We’re not going to shy away from that.
“Now it’s about dealing with expectations. I went through it this past season and I’m prepared for that now.”
How Engles ever elicited expectations in Newark ranks among the most miraculous coaching achievements of the past decade. Forever humble and grateful after spending 18 years as an assistant, Engles got his first chance as a head coach in 2008 with what then may have been the worst job in the country.
When he left, Engles had earned consecutive 20-plus win seasons — including an upset at Michigan — and the credibility to get the nation’s only independent school into the Atlantic Sun Conference, as well as into a new arena currently under construction.
So, even when the dream offer came from Columbia, it wasn’t easy for Engles to walk away after constructing the first 40 stories of a skyscraper by hand.
“We spent so much time building that thing up, it’s like raising a child and then they’re going to college,” Engles said. “It was hard. It was hard when I said goodbye to everyone [Wednesday], but I just feel comfortable with it. It really is like coming home.”