By Chris Bayee, AFAFlightPath.com Founder

Oh brother, this is a tough act to follow.

There’s no point in starting a story on Frank and Tom Serratore with a clever quip because they undoubtedly will provide more than enough for the entire college hockey world this weekend when Frank‘s Air Force Falcons play host to Tom‘s Bemidji State Beavers on Saturday and Sunday at Cadet Arena.

Don’t believe me?

“He knows what he’s doing. In our business, there’s reasons people have longevity. He’s been around for a long time – he’s really good at what he does,” Frank says of his younger brother, affectionately nicknamed Ernie for his bespectacled childhood resemblance to Ernie Douglas of “My Three Sons” television fame. “He took Bemidji State to the Frozen Four (in 2009). Not Michigan State. Not Ohio State. Not Penn State. He took Bemidji State. There’s a difference. That’s like taking Colorado State to a BCS Bowl.”

Family background

As hard as it might be to believe, becoming hockey coaches was not a foregone conclusion for the brothers. Despite their upbringing in Minnesota’s Iron Range, the Serratores’ path didn’t cross hockey’s until the family moved to Coleraine from the Leech Lake Indian Reservation near Deer River.

“We started hockey at the same time after we moved to Coleraine. The high school had just won back-to-back state championships, so hockey was a big part of the fabric of the culture,” Tom said. “The Caseys lived one block away, and I think Jon’s still the winningest goalie from Minnesota to have played in the NHL. All three brothers, Ray, Jon and David, were close to my age and I hung out with those guys.

“They got me into it when I was in second grade, which is late by today’s hockey.”

Frank, the oldest of four brothers, said he was 13 or so when he started playing. He’d tired of basketball, which middle brothers Tony and Joe continued playing through high school.

“I started late, which is one of the reasons I became a goalie,” Frank said.

Added Tom, “Frank tried out for the Bantam A team and made it. They took second in the state of Minnesota that season.

“Frank was a good athlete and he wanted to try it. Five or six years later he’s playing Division I hockey — that couldn’t happen today, would never happen today. That was the beauty of that day and age. He got an opportunity and took advantage of it.”

In addition to starting younger, Tom had another advantage, Frank said.

“He was the little brother who wanted to play with the big guys, and all four brothers were into sports,” Frank said. “So he developed ahead of the curve. He played with older kids all the time, and our whole neighborhood was a jock neighborhood. We had a baseball field behind our house and we’d play out there all summer. It would freeze over in the winter and we’d play hockey on it. We’d play basketball in the alley.”

Recalling the success of both his brother and Casey, Frank quipped, “I’m not even the best coach in my house. I’m not even the best goalie in my neighborhood.”

The coaching path

Still, they’re in elite company. There are 60 Division I coaches. They are two of them.

Frank is in his 22nd season at Air Force, the seventh-longest tenured D-I coach, and is just 12 wins short of 400 at the Academy. He has 437 overall, counting his four seasons at Denver.

Tom is in his 18th season at Bemidji State and sits just eight wins from 300.

And they’re not just place-holders. Frank has led the Falcons to seven NCAA Tournaments and three Elite Eights, including each of the past two seasons. Tom, meanwhile has guided the Beavers to four NCAAs, bookmarked by that 2009 Frozen Four run.

It makes too much sense that the products of the Iron Range saw their coaching journeys begin at Bemidji State, where both played their final two seasons of college hockey under coaching legend Bob Peters.

Even that didn’t mean hockey was in the cards for the older brother. If anything, Frank thought he was destined to be a baseball coach.

“I coached a lot more baseball than hockey,” he said of his younger days. “I coached youth, American Legion, while I was still going to school and playing, and I was pretty good at it. The teams had good results and I enjoyed it.

“After I graduated at Bemidji, Bob Peters inspired me as a hockey coach. That’s why I chose it. When my American Legion team went to the state tournament, I knew I was going into coaching. I had gone to Bemidji to be a teacher and coach and wanted to be a high school coach. I actually had an assistant job, but the junior team in Austin (Minn.) had a job, and even though it paid one quarter of the high school job, I took that. I was single and it was something I wanted to try to do. I had my teaching degree as a backup plan. I used it to supplement my income by substitute teaching.”

After five seasons and nearly as many titles as a USHL head coach, Frank spent two seasons as an assistant at North Dakota, then lead Omaha in the USHL. He took over at DU in 1990, his first college head job, which lasted four years. After two seasons coaching in the IHL’s Minnesota Moose and another year in the franchise’s front office, Frank was hired at the Academy in 1997 and the rest, as they say, is history.

He counts Peters, as well as his high school coach, Bob Gernander, longtime Minnesota coach Doug Woog, who also was his junior coach in Saint Paul, and Chuck Grillo, who ran Minnesota hockey camps with Herb Brooks, as mentors.

Tom found inspiration closer to home.

“Growing up, Frank was my idol,” he said. “I admired him. All of my brothers followed his path even though I’m the only one who followed him into coaching. We were all really into baseball, if not more so than hockey. We all played amateur baseball together.

“Then Frank and I go to Bemidji State and graduate. Bob Peters’ goal as a coach, and remember Bemidji State was a teachers college, he felt his calling was to produce coaches. There was no better teacher or mentor than Bob Peters.”

Tom began his coaching career as a Minnesota high school assistant and later head coach before joining Craig Dahl‘s staff at St. Cloud State in 1993. In 1999 he joined Peters’ staff, eventually succeeding his mentor in 2001 after the Beavers had transitioned to Division I.

The son also rises

The other common thread in this weekend’s series is Tom’s son Matt, who is one of the Falcons’ three co-captains this season.

On the surface there is the temptation to say it was a slam dunk he’d either play for his dad or his uncle, but that is not the case. In fact, the brothers had little to do with Matt’s recruitment.

“I never got to much involved,” Frank said. “(Assistant) Andy (Berg) saw him play and said we have to recruit him. He made Penticton (in the BCHL), which is as high end of a junior team as they come, and continued to get better and better. I know he could play for any team in the country.

“My only real beef is my brother didn’t have more sons.”

Tom was cognizant of the specter of being a coach’s son that followed Matt, and rather than running interference, he ran a clear-out.

“He’s made a lot of the decisions himself,” Tom said. “The last thing he needs is dad next to him breathing down his neck. I helped him more when he was younger, but as he’s grown he’s had to blaze his own trail. It’s not easy being a coach’s son, so I think you have to watch your relationship.

“Joe (Doyle) and Andy recruited him because of his hockey ability. Frank stayed out of it, as he should, and I stayed out of it.”

Unlike his dad and his uncle, Matt grew up around hockey his entire life, starting to play at 5.

“I loved it from the start,” he recalled. “I played in Bemidji all the way through high school. We had a couple of really good teams and Bemidji captain Dillon Eichstadt is one of my really good friends.

“My dad helped me a lot as a player, teaching me the nuances of the game.”

Matt’s hockey education also was helped by growing up around a college hockey environment.

“Hanging around his guys as I got older helped me see what it looked like at the college level, how those guys prepared and they way they played and competed,” Matt added. “All of that helped me realize my dream of playing Division I hockey.”

One place he knew it wouldn’t happen was at the school that had spawned a generation of coaches in his family.

“Bemidji was never really and option,” Matt said. “We weren’t going down that road of playing for my dad, in my hometown. That was not something either of us wanted.

“I was looking for a school that not only had a good hockey program, a good rink and good resources but a school that would set me up for life after hockey and that would challenge me academically.

“Air Force was the best fit for me. Having everyone on a full scholarship helps. I never really thought I’d end up here, but as the process went on it’s turned out to be the best thing for me.”

Coaching cooperation

Blood is thicker than water … and recruiting.

There are plenty of passive examples of Frank and Tom helping each other on the recruiting trail.

“We will point players out to each other from time to time,” Frank said. “We can’t recruit Canadians or Europeans, so we can help them there. If they find a player who is a good student who wants to go to a high-end school, they’ll tell us. We got Alex Halloran’s name from them.”

If there is an exhibit A for the information sharing, it would be Kyle Bauman, who today is a Los Angeles Kings prospect playing in the American Hockey League but four and a half years ago was ready to stop playing after his junior career at Wichita Falls, Texas.

The brothers were at the annual NCAA hockey coaches convention in 2014 when Tom, whose Beavers were short a forward for the upcoming season, asked Frank if he knew any names of D-I players were still sitting out there.

“Frank said, ‘I like Kyle Bauman. He’s from Apopka, Fla., playing at Wichita Falls. We wanted him but he didn’t want to come to the Academy.’

“So the first thing I did was call Tyler Ledford, a teammate of his at Wichita Falls and asked him what he thought. He said, ‘He’s really good.’ I asked Tyler if Kyle was better than he was and he said yes. Now Tyler Ledford’s a heck of a player.”

After an initial contact with Bauman, it took Tom nearly two months to get him on the phone again. Bauman had decided to go to Central Florida but had hoped to continue playing hockey.

“Four years later he signed with the L.A. Kings,” Tom said. “He was almost out of hockey and then because of Frank’s recommendation he ends up playing four years (at Bemidji State) and then signing a pro contract.”

The stories, and the quips, seem endless.

The same holds true for the brothers’ mutual respect, not a given with the big brother little brother dynamic and seven-year age difference.

“We have a great adult relationship,” Frank said. “We had a lot in common, we went to the same place and got into the same business. He’s pretty much my best friend right now.”

Added Tom, “It’s crazy where Frank and I are right now.”

©First Line Editorial 2017-18