Jon Whitelaw – Big Shoes to Fill
As the Oswego men’s hockey team sets their eyes on next season, the coaching staff won’t have the same familiarity as it did the last twenty-six years. Jon Whitelaw has taken over as the interim head coach for the Lakers after former head coach Ed Gosek ends his historic coaching tenure and ventures off into retirement.
Gosek is leaving very big shoes to fill for Whitelaw. With three SUNYAC Coach of the Year awards and over 400 career wins, as well as an NCAA championship he won in 2007, he has exemplified what it means to be an impactful leader and coach.
“You quickly learn how special this place is and this program… and the role it plays within the community and on campus,” Jon Whitelaw said. “As a player here, I always felt when playing did come to an end, if I was going to get into coaching, I’d love to do it here.”
Whitelaw, who spent the last decade on Gosek’s coaching staff after previously starring as a player for the Lakers from 2010 to 2013, said the opportunity to lead the program has always been a dream rooted in his connection to Oswego.
One of the most important qualities Whitelaw values from his time under Gosek, both as a player and as an assistant coach, is how Gosek preached the importance of treating people the right way.
“It doesn’t cost anything to be nice and to be kind to people… and I think that’s [Ed’s] greatest strength,” Whitelaw said, reminiscing his time under Coach Gosek at Oswego.
In the announcement from Oswego Athletics, Whitelaw’s role was listed as an interim position. This key detail sparks the question of whether the school will let him continue this role throughout the coming years as the head coach, or if they will bring in someone else once they find a replacement. Fortunately, Whitelaw’s resume has all the desirables a team would want. In his seven years as an assistant coach for the Lakers, his contributions helped the team to an overall record of 102-51-9, five SUNYAC championship appearances in six seasons, as well as a SUNYAC championship title and an NCAA Tournament appearance in the 2024-25 season.
While the Lakers have seen conference success in recent years, the Lakers have not seen national success since the 2006-07 season where they won the NCAA tournament. However, Whitelaw believes the team is knocking on the door of the national tournament.
“I think for me it’s really been these past two years that I’ve seen us grow and start to make ways back towards getting, you know, being a national contender,” Whitelaw states. “This past year, although we didn’t win the SUNYAC, we actually increased our wins by three and just missed out on the tournament… we have the right pieces in the room, or at least a solid foundation to continue to build on, and now we just got to find the building blocks through recruiting to push us over that hump.”
Having worked under what many consider the greatest head coach in Oswego State men’s ice hockey history, he has seen what it takes, both on and off the ice, to be an impactful and successful head coach, and he is confident that he can lead this team to success.
As the new head coach said, “I want this program to continue to be, what in our opinion is, the best place to play Division III hockey in the country.”