Dader Back as Coach for Swarm

September 11, 2014

From 2006 - 2009, many Swarm fans who met Rory McDade would say he was quiet, levelheaded and in great shape. What no one thought at that time is that McDade would be the first former Swarm player to be officially announced as an assistant head coach for the Swarm. That happened today to the 33 year-old former Swarmer as he joins Head Coach Joe Sullivan's staff for the 2015.

McDade was signed as a free agent leading up to the 2006 season and in his four years with the team, McDade played in 18 games with 5g 25a 30 LB. His best season was 2008 when he had 4g 13a 11 LB in eight games. He played in two Swarm playoff games in 2006 when he got a goal against Buffalo and in 2008 against New York in the Swarm's first ever home playoff game. His best game statistically was in the Swarm final game of the 2008 season when he had a goal and four assists in Chicago in a win against the Sharmox, which turned out to the be the last game in that team's history.

As he Swarm and NLL playing career ended in early in the 2009 due to injury, he had a very good career in the summers in the WLA for the Burnaby Lakers from 2003 - 2012 where he had 95 goals and 167 assists in 114 games. With Burnaby struggling in his last years and rebuilding, the Lakers turned to their favorite son, took him off the floor and put him on the bench to take Lakers to the next step. It was a very surprising announcement to me at least as this was his first ever shot at coaching as such a level and at such a young age. In his first year, the Lakers went 10-8 and McDade was named the WLA Coach of the Year but his team was swept in the first round of the WLA playoffs. He returned in 2014 and the Lakers improved to 11-7 and they won two games in the first round before losing out to Maple Ridge.

If he continues to improve like he already has and at such a young age, expect McDade to be a NLL Head Coach sooner than later.

From what we can tell, the Swarm right now will go with three assistants in 2015 as McDade will join Bobby Keast and Aime Caines in assisting Sullivan. If all three are indeed in place for 2015, (today's news didn't say yes or no for either Keast or Caines but presuming no news in this situation is good news for them) this will be the first year that the Swarm will have three assistant coaches. They have always had two in each of their first ten years.