From a local perspective, hiring a head coach with no prior experience as the boss in the big leagues is nothing radical. The Cowboys have won three Super Bowls with coaches who went from college to the NFL. For that matter, the Mavs' Quinn Buckner hadn't coached anywhere before. Or since.
But no organization likes to break in new head coaches like the Stars do, a trait Jim Nill picked up after going old school on his last two hires.
Jim Montgomery, of the University of Denver, may be the first Stars head coach to go from the NCAA to the NHL, and just the fifth in league history, but rookies weren't so rare before Nill arrived.