Cornell announced Thursday that men’s hockey head coach Mike Schafer will retire following the 2024-25 season.
Concurrently, Cornell announced that Schafer will be replaced by current Clarkson head coach and former Cornell assistant Casey Jones.
Jones will join the Big Red coaching staff this year as associate head coach before taking the reins next spring.
“I’ve had a 38-year coaching career in college hockey – 33 of them at Cornell,” said Schafer in a statement. “It’s been a tremendous experience helping the players and teams over the years to reach their goals while helping create Big Red pride and building spirit through Cornell hockey. I feel now is the perfect time for me to begin the transition into retirement.
Schafer is a 1986 alumnus of Cornell, while Jones graduated in 1990.
“Mike Schafer is a legend in the world of college hockey and is on a very short list of the most impactful people in the history of Cornell athletics,” Cornell athletics director Nikki Moore said. “For nearly four decades as a player, captain, assistant and, ultimately, head coach, Mike has poured his heart and total effort into the success of the program, and more importantly, into the individual student-athletes who have played for him and have flourished on and off the ice thanks to his mentorship.”
In his 28 seasons behind the Cornell bench, Schafer has led the program to 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, including a trip to the 2003 Frozen Four.
Following the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, Schafer was named co-recipient of the Spencer Penrose Award, given to the nation’s top head coach, sharing the honor with the University of North Dakota’s Brad Berry. Cornell was 23-2-4 and ranked No. 1 in the nation when the season was halted in mid-March.
Schafer has been named ECAC Hockey’s Coach of the Year five times (2002, 2003, 2005, 2018, 2020) and Ivy League Coach of the Year four times (2018, 2019, 2020, 2024) since the award was established in 2016.
Under Schafer, Cornell has claimed six Whitelaw Cups (ECAC Hockey tournament titles), surpassing the legendary Ned Harkness for most in Big Red history. He has also guided Cornell to six Cleary Cups as the conference’s regular-season champion, including three over the past seven years, and 13 Ivy League titles.
A defenseman during his playing days, Schafer was a four-year letterman and a two-year captain. He appeared in 107 games for Cornell, scoring 70 points (10 goals, 60 assists), and capped his collegiate career by leading the Red to an ECAC Hockey championship and No. 5 national ranking as a senior.
Early in 2022, Schafer fought a serious case of COVID-19 and then received a cardiac stent.
“When Coach Schafer approached me this past spring about his desire to retire, his focus was to support the current student-athletes and to make sure he left the program in the best possible position,” said Moore. “Casey emerged as the right successor for this esteemed program.”
Jones, a finalist for the Spencer Penrose Award in 2019, has spent the past 13 years as Clarkson head coach.
“This is a really exciting moment for myself and my family – returning to my alma mater, the place where I met my wife and where I spent the best four years of my life,” Jones said. “Mike is a great friend and someone I have unlimited respect for, and I’m excited to celebrate what he has helped build before accepting the challenge of leading Big Red hockey into the future.”
“I would personally like to thank Casey for all that he has done for the men’s hockey program and Clarkson University,” said Clarkson athletics director Laurel Kane. “He has led this program with the utmost integrity and has always had the best interest of the program at heart.”
A national search to replace Jones at Clarkson will begin immediately.
