Paul van Ass (born 16 August 1960,

Bergschenhoek 270px, Town sign Bergschenhoek () is a town and former municipality in the municipality of Lansingerland, in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is situated roughly 10 km to the north of Rotterdam. The town had a population of 18 ...

) is a Dutch

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

coach. After coaching for the Dutch club

HGC HGC can stand for: *Harvard Glee Club *Hercules Graphics Card *HGC (field hockey), a Dutch field hockey club located in Wassenaar, South Holland on the border of The Hague *HGC Global Communications HGC Global Communications Limited, formerly k ...

, he became the coach of the

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

, managing them at the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

in the men's tournament. After his contract expired in 2014, he was declared the coach of the Indian team in 2015.

Career

Club career

In his first major coaching position, head coach of the men's team of

, van Ass managed to save the team from degradation and lead them to a championship final in 2007, which was credited to his "opportunistic" style of coaching. HGC lost that game to

HC Bloemendaal Hockey Club Bloemendaal (), commonly known as Bloemendaal, is a Dutch professional field hockey club based in Bloemendaal, North Holland. It was established on 26 April 1895, and is one of the oldest field hockey clubs in the Netherlands. Originall ...

. Van Ass's HGC reached the final of the

Euro Hockey League 2007–08 The euro (symbol: €; currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the euro area or, more commonly, the eurozone. The euro is divided into 100 ...

after beating HC Rotterdam in the semi-final, but lost to

Uhlenhorster HC Uhlenhorster Hockey-Club e. V. (also known as UHC Hamburg) is a German professional field hockey and tennis club based in Hamburg. It was founded in 1901, since 1923 their home ground is located in Hummelsbüttel, Wandsbek. Uhlenhorster HC is one ...

in overtime. In the 2008–2009 season, he coached ''Jong Oranje'' (the men's under-21 national team) and was assistant-coach for the Netherlands national field hockey team; he returned to coach HGC (which had a disappointing season under Alexander Cox) for the 2009–2010 season. That team reached the final in the national championship, losing again to Bloemendaal, and qualified for the

Euro Hockey League 2010–11 The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

National team

Despite having limited international experience, van Ass was appointed coach of the national team in June 2010, after was let go. The appointment came as a surprise: van Ass got the position in favor of

Marc Lammers Marc Lammers (born 15 March 1969 in Oss, North Brabant) is a Dutch former field hockey player and head coach. In the past, he led the Spanish women's national team from 1999 to 2000 and the Dutch women's national team from 2000 to 2008. Under his ...

or another international top coach.

Olympic selection controversy

Besides not having a coaching certificate, van Ass did not select seasoned internationals

Taeke Taekema Taeke Wiebe Doekes Taekema (born 14 January 1980) is a Dutch field hockey player and drag flicker (penalty corner specialist) who won the silver medal with the national squad at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Born in Leiderdorp, he made hi ...

and

Teun de Nooijer Teun Floris de Nooijer (born 22 March 1976) is a field hockey player from the Netherlands, who twice became Olympic champion with the Dutch national squad, in 1996 Summer Olympics, 1996 and in 2000 Summer Olympics, ...

(nicknamed "T&T"), the country's best known hockey players and icons of the sport. He cut the two from the national selection in January 2012. To justify his choice criticized them in an interview with ''

de Volkskrant ''De Volkskrant'' (; ), stylized as de Volkskrant, is a Dutch daily morning newspaper. Founded in 1919, it has a nationwide circulation of about 250,000. Formerly a leading centre-left Catholic broadsheet, ''de Volkskrant'' today is a medium- ...

'' a few days later, for which he was accused of

character assassination Character assassination (CA) is a deliberate and sustained effort to damage the reputation or credibility of an individual. The term ''character assassination'' became popular around 1930. This concept, as a subject of scholarly study, was origi ...

, and he later apologized for his words. After a public backlash Van Ass apologized to T&T at the end of January and took them back in March, his credibility having suffered greatly, but cut them again in July.

2012 Olympics

The Dutch team played their opening game in

Group B Group B was a set of regulations for Grand tourer, grand touring (GT) cars used in sports car racing and rallying introduced in 1982 by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Although permitted to enter a GT class of the World S ...

against

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, beating them 3–2, and rallied against

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

in their second match to beat them 3–1, thanks to

penalty corner In field hockey, a penalty corner, sometimes known as a short corner, is a penalty given against the defending team. It is predominantly awarded for a defensive infringement in the ''Field hockey pitch#Penalty circle, penalty circle'' or for a de ...

specialist

Mink van der Weerden Mink Alphons Louis van der Weerden (; born 19 October 1988) is a Dutch former field hockey player who played as a defender. He started playing hockey at HCAS and has since also played for Oranje Zwart and Oranje-Rood. He joined Rot-Weiss Kö ...

. The team reached the final by demolishing Great Britain 9–2, but lost to Germany, 2–1.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ass, Paul van 1960 births Living people Dutch male field hockey players Dutch field hockey coaches People from Lansingerland HGC (field hockey) coaches Field hockey players from South Holland Coaches at the 2024 Summer Olympics 20th-century Dutch sportsmen