Never Too Late

Would you mind telling me a little bit about how you got to where you are today?

 

Yeah, so I didn’t start playing lacrosse until college, but I kind of always knew I wanted to. Played on the club team here at Michigan, was a history major, thought I was going to go to law school, came a couple weeks away from going to law school and then bailed on that idea because I was only going to law school because history majors typically do.

 

 

Okay

 

And started, I knew I loved athletics first and foremost, and so my first real job was here in the athletic department in the development office fundraising but also doing special projects for the AD at the time Joe Roberson?? Did that for 4 and a half years and then ya know I had been doing development so my next job was to do development in the University for LS&A and at the same time the club coach here stepped down, he had been here 33 years, and I grew up with his sons which is how I first knew about lacrosse and the team asked me take over. And so I did it on the side along with my development job and 2 years later I was quitting development and coaching full time and I had just gotten married when I started doing this part-time and my wife was the one who allowed me to leave a pretty good career track, although not something I loved doing, and coach full time. And we were kind of taking a leap of faith to see what would happen coaching a club team. Did that for 14 years, 12 of them full time and then was probably in my last year of doing that because we had kind of decided we had taken the club team as far as we could and I began looking for something else when Dave Brandon became AD and we became a varsity program and he hire me. So, here I am. 

 

 

That’s pretty amazing, so you say that your wife really supported you, would you say there were people who didn’t support you or someone who really inspired you to take that leap of faith?

 

My parents have always been the kind of parents that were really supportive of my brother and I no matter what we were doing, as long as we were doing something. They really always preached, find what you like to do and pursue that. And so, I think that a lot of my willingness to take some risk and take a leap of faith about this came from that upbringing. But you’re right, I couldn’t have even started doing it if my wife, she had a really good career going and still does and if she hadn’t supported me leaving a very safe career track to do this. She knew that’s what would make me happy. 

 

 

That’s awesome. I love that story. Can you explain a little bit about how you feel towards what you do, what you get to do everyday, would you say that you’re happy, that you’re at a place where this is what you wanted?

 

I think ultimately I wanted a job where I could have a real influence on people and their development as people and that probably would’ve ended up being some kind of teaching or coaching a combination, I mean coaching really is teaching. So that’s why I enjoy this job and that’s what I most enjoy about it. It’s a little ironic because the higher level you go in any sport and the higher position you attain as the head coach, the less of that you get to do, because there is so much other stuff you have to do but it’s still what I love about this job. It’s the fact that we get to help young men, first we get to give them the opportunity to be here at Michigan and be a part of this program and secondly we get to help develop them during the four or five years you’re here as men and then continue that beyond their time here and that’s what gives me the most satisfaction. 

 

 

Alright that’s awesome. Would you mind saying if there was a time I guess going after what you wanted became too difficult between a sacrifice or just being difficult to go for or a big struggle?

 

There were a lot of those times. I never really had a vision of being a Division I Varsity Head Coach, my goal when I took over the club program was to build the best club program that we could period. And if I could turn that into something that would also create a paycheck and help support my family, that’d be great but at first that wasn’t a priority it was just build a great program. There were a lot of times during that whole process, during those 14 years that I had to step back and say can I really maintain this? When you’re doing something were you have to generate all your own funding and you’re kind of depending on, we didn’t have a budget system like we have here where you know the program is going to be supported, so that was the stress of the program. It kind of wasn’t about winning and loosing, it was about can we maintain this at this level year in and year out. There were certainly times when I was thinking man I don’t know if I want to work to maintain this year in and year out because that wasn’t the part of the job I enjoyed that much. We really got to the point where my last year coaching the club program we had decided that it was going to be my last year here and then this all came together so we got lucky too that the timing and the right AD all came into place at the same time. 

 

 

Wow that is pretty lucky. You talk a lot about how you have a passion for developing people, so the audience for this project is gunna be college seniors who are confused and just looking for advice, so just kind of just to end do you have any advice that you’d want to share with people that are thinking about what to do with their future?

 

Well I give this kind of advice all the time to my players and my advice is always the same: find a way to follow your passion. First, find what those passions are, really think about what makes you the happiest to do day in and day out and find a way to follow that. It might not mean your job is going to be that passion, but finding a way to tie that passion into what you’re doing I think gives your career more meaning. Now that I’m at the age I am and I’ve been working as long as I have looking back, I’m so thankful I did approach it that way. I have so many friends with careers where all they’re trying to do is keep a paycheck coming so they can continue to support their family and they don’t necessarily love what they’re doing, they’re outlet is everything they are doing away from work. That’s where they really enjoy their lives, with their families and vacations and everything else they do and I’ve been able to do that and enjoy my work. I just think that’s so valuable. That’s the advice I give everyone.