Courtesy of Lafayette Athletics Communications

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Susan Kinney was presented with an opportunity that was too good to pass up from a prep school in Massachusetts.
 
She made the move to be the Associate Director of College Counseling at Phillips Academy in  Andover last July.
 
Alexis Kinney, the younger of Susan's two daughters, decided Colby College in Waterville, Maine, was the best place for her to spend the next four years of her life.
 
She moved there in August.
 
That left Joe Kinney alone at his College Hill home to contemplate his next move. Susan's husband, Alexis' father and the Lafayette College baseball coach for the last 21 years felt the time was right to make a move of his own.
 
Kinney announced in December that 2020 would be his last year coaching the Leopards.
 
"We were living apart since July and that was the plan," Kinney said of he and his wife. "But sometime in the fall, we came to realize for a lot of reasons that this would be my last year."
 
Kinney doesn't have a new job lined up at this point. He's not worried about that. What concerned him most was breaking the news to the group of people he put first in his position as Lafayette's head coach.
 

"The difficult job was telling my team," he said. "They had known that my wife moved out and I was two blocks away and then 50 yards away [from my office]. But they knew it wasn't a divorce."
 
"Telling them was an emotional moment."

 
Kinney established a culture at Lafayette built on tough love, but fairness to all – from the freshman bench player to the standout senior. He cared about work ethic and the lives of every player on the team.
 
His relationships with former players speak to that.
 
Ian Law was part of Kinney's team from 2003-06. The wide-eyed freshman turned captain relished Kinney's stern approach to the game and the relationship the two developed.
 
He later became a coach at Moravian College and served as an assistant at Lafayette under Kinney from 2011-14.
 

"It's tough to put into words," Law said of Kinney's impact on his life. "He has been the most influential person in my life outside of my parents.

 
"It's a mentor-mentee situation, then friends as I graduated, then my boss. But being friends will never go away. I'm as close to him now as I have ever been."
 
Law said Kinney's honesty and consistency were important to his ability to reach and connect with Lafayette players.
 
The Leopards' mentor maintained an open-door policy to his office. Players were free to stop by to talk to him about anything in their lives.
 
Baseball was the direct connection between coach and players, but Kinney brought everything back to something in the student-athlete's life.
 
"He cares about all of his players before they are contributing in any capacity," Law said. "He genuinely cares about you, but you have to earn your stripes a little. He's very intense. You got that feeling early on that you must earn everything.
 
"I figured him out. I just worked really hard and if you work really hard, he's going to be right there with you. "
 
There were many highlights for the Lafayette baseball program during Kinney's tenure, including 2007 when the Leopards set a program record with 33 wins (17 in the Patriot League) and earned a berth in the NCAA regionals.
 
The former Navy and Lehigh assistant coach impacted 53 All-Patriot League selections, including three players of the year. He also was instrumental in the renovations to the baseball field as well as the indoor practice facilities shared with the college's softball program.
 
The 2007 Patriot League coach of the year's proudest moments, however, are derived out of his relationships with the players.
 

"It's one job or way of life that you interact with people at critical moments in their life and that relationship evolves," Kinney said. "You start to know guys in high school and it's not meant to be intimidating, but you are a college coach talking to 16- and 17-year-olds.

 
"You are trying to sell them your vision, your education. Then you get them there and your relationship really grows over four years. Then you are still their coach, but their friend, too. Then they get out, and it's more of a peer to peer situation.
 
"There really aren't walks of life where you get to engage with people like that."
 
Kinney came to Lafayette when he was 33 years old. He admittedly toned down his intensity a little bit during his tenure, but always believed that Lafayette College and the baseball program were instrumental in the development of young men.
 
His older daughter, Annelise, believed what her dad had always said. She went to Lafayette and played lacrosse there.
 
She thrived on the personal connections in the small-college setting.
 
"I wanted her to do it for the financial aspect and I wanted to see her play," Kinney said, "but we really tried to let her make her own decision, and she did."
 
With Kinney's wife accepting a new challenge and their younger daughter finding her perfect fit 470 miles away from Lafayette's campus, the writing was on the wall for him.
 
Further complicating things for Kinney was the coronavirus pandemic postponing the 2020 baseball season after 14 games.
 
"Last week was a roller coaster in dealing with our players," he said. "We were the first Patriot League team to decide not to play (because of the coronavirus). It was disappointing to think the season was canceled and how emotional that was for our senior players.
 
"No one wanted it to end like this. I've been through a lot of highs and lows. I've been doing this a long time. It helped put the pain into perspective a little bit."
 
Third-year assistant coach Tim Reilly, a former catcher and assistant at Rutgers, takes over July 1 for Kinney.
 
He believes the night the coaches took the players out to eat after receiving the 2020 season cancelation news was a perfect way to see how Kinney influenced the players' lives. Everyone laughed, cried a little and told stories.
 
"The demanding of the details is really his coaching style and his best trait," Reilly said. "But he really loves those guys. To go out that way, with the way the season ended, I've never seen him that emotional."
 
Kinney heads to New England unsure of what the future holds for him. More coaching? Teaching, maybe? Athletic administration or fundraising? He does not know.
 
But he leaves a legacy of dedication to a College, to a program, and to a group of college-age men that was more about the details of life than a sport.
 

"I don't have enough time now or ever to talk about all the facets of my life that he has impacted," Law said. "He has made me a better professional, better parent, better husband.

 
"We will always have the memories that happened on the field, but that's just a catalyst to the real things that have happened in life."