International and DII Lacrosse Combined

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of In the Crease with Danny and Kevin, a coast-to-coast discussion of D2 Men's LaCrosse. I'm your co-host, Kevin Stenham, and with me as always is the big kahuna of D2 Men's Lacrosse, Danny Moran. How's it going, Danny? There we go.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Kevin Stenchum, just back from the beautiful state of Hawaii, had to send me pictures. I'm at work. He's sending me pictures of the sunrise.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Good. So, you know, you're right. I've been in Hawaii. I just got back after a couple weeks, and kahuna means a wise man or shaman in Hawaiian. What does it shaman mean? Kind of like uh you know, like a wise priest, you know, you're you're up there, you're in the deity almost. You're almost a deity.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

So I thought I'd bring back a little aloha spirit to you. Awesome, awesome, awesome, excellent. And while I was there, I got to find out that Hawaii has a youth lacrosse program. Really? Yeah, it's called Aloha Youth Lacrosse Association. So a shout out to Paul, Jude, Dan, and Kate for enlightening me on that. They're their sons, Dan and Jude. Dan and Jude played this past year, and and the boys went brought an extra stick, and I got to play catch with them right there on Kailua Beach Park.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Just wow, what what are the odds of that? That's that's amazing. That's great news. So Hawaii is uh even bringing the sticks out. That's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah, that's great. So now we we must move on. You know, it's been about a month since our last podcast, and that one was on mental health and the student athlete. And I'll tell you, if you if you have not listened to that, I highly, highly recommend it. I know it's not directly related to D2 teams, uh, but you really don't want to miss what Dr. Schofield and Thomas Galgano had to say and share. What do you think, Danny? Uh that was one that's probably my favorite podcast so far.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

And you know, and that the Tom Postel and and that podcast as well. Those two are my favorite, but it was a really interesting podcast. I actually listened to Dr. Schofield several times after that just to listen and hear all the little things that she had to say. And and she was just remarkable. She was a great guest, and I learned so much from her. And then, you know, Thomas Galgano, you know, and playing with Rob and everything at Binghamton that went on. So it was an interesting podcast. And um, yes, if yeah, if you haven't heard it, listeners, it's definitely worth the blessing.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah, we love talking about D2, but that episode was definitely much bigger than D2. And yeah, I I I can't say it enough how important, you know. I know you and I both think mental health with the student athlete and mental health for everyone is. It's such an important topic, and I I just hope that uh more and more people listen to it. If you liked it, make sure you share it. Um, if you thought there was good messages there, please share. So, but let's move on. There's a lot of deep to lacrosse news that has happened since our last podcast. Really, it's a lot to do with coaching changes. So I thought we'd kind of go through that. Maybe people have heard about it, but I thought we'd just share it. The big one, probably the biggest one, is that coach Jordan Levine has left Mercy to pump become the head coach at LIU.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, um, um definitely surprised. I know that the players were surprised. Um we had Coach Levine on. What a great guy he is. He's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

We I actually we wish him the best. I mean, he just he was a great ambassador uh not only for D2, I mean, he told us that he and his team were fans of In the Crease. Whether that's true or not, it made me feel good. So I I just wish him the best. I think that's he he definitely will elevate that program without a doubt. Yeah, we're gonna miss him in the D2 ranks, as some of the other coaches will talk about. With uh, but you know what's interesting, Danny. I kind of went back through the timeline really quickly with this one. So the former head coach was Eric Wolf. He left and took the job at NJIT, yeah. That created the opening. Now that was announced by NGIT on Friday, the 24th of June. LIU wasted no time because on Monday the 27th, they were announcing Coach Levine.

unknown 5:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

So I I I would assume that as soon as that happened, they were reaching out to him. He's a Long Island guy, Long Island Island native.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, Beth Page High School. Where Thomas Galgano went to high school.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

They went to the same high school. So uh just I I we wish him the best. That's all I can say. And and we'll wait to see what Mercy, who mercy hires.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Uh, you know, he did a phenomenal job at Mercy. We we we knew what he was doing last year, Kev. We were talking about it, and COVID hit him, and we had to have Coach Levine on, and he was such a gracious guest and just really just cool, kind of down to earth, man. You can see how his players just loved him. His players just talked so highly of him. And you know what? It it makes sense. You know, he took his he took a small school. Mercy's a small, uh, tiny little school up in Westchester uh county in New York and not far from Manhattan, you know, 45-minute drive from Manhattan. Um but it makes sense for Coach Levine to make that step to Division I. It it really does. I mean, he took Mercy to a much better place. And uh and and and Mercy's gonna be in a good place to continue because Coach Levine has left it in a good place.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Exactly, exactly. So uh the next uh coaching change is that Lees McCrae. So uh the assistant, Josh Singleton, was announced as the new head coach taking over for Brad Dunn. I've reached out to Coach Singleton, uh, and he hasn't obviously he's very busy. Um, and hopefully he'll be able to get back to us and and we can get him on. But you know, I I loved Coach Dunn. He was just so damn passionate about Lee's McCrae and the school and lacrosse. And you know, I think he's done a lot for that program, getting it going. And and Josh Singleton, Coach Singleton, he's been his assistant for a couple of years, so I think that is a great transition uh for them.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Yes, you know, um I we we have we have talked about Coach Dunn off the air, just how he struck us, you know, what a great guy he was, and inviting us down to you know to come down to Banner Elk and hang out with him. I mean, I really enjoyed him. I wish him the best of luck, but that program has you know it got better and better with him there and now. Got another alumni with a couple of years' assistants under his belt. So the program will have a nice smooth transition. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

The last head coaching job that I know of that's uh changed or is that coach Michael Herring of Young Harris stepped down as the head coach and he's cited personal reasons. That's all the the press release said. You know, he got to them in 2020 to try to rebuild that program when they started and playing in 2022. I thought he really did a great job of helping them get back. Maybe that did not show in the final record, they were like one and 14, but it did show in how in their fight on the field how they kind of competed and how they carried themselves. I mean, I watched several of their games and they did not give up. In fact, their team earned the Peach Belt Team Sportsmanship Award for Men's Lacrosse this year. So Coach Harry had them on the right uh track. There's no new head coach announced yet, so we'll have to wait and see how that goes. But it wish Coach Herring all the best.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, same here, Coach Herring. Uh whatever whatever you decide to do in the future, good luck to you. Um you did a great job there. It's under, you know, under some pretty crazy circumstances there. They shut the program down for a year there and then built up, you know, they lost some players and whatnot. So he didn't have it easy there.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

So yeah, so it looks like we'll definitely have to do another episode or two on coaching changes this this season, like we did last year, which will be fun. We get the coaches on, it'll be a lot of fun. But finally, we have to give a shout out. One of the players that we had on, Kendall Collins, defender from Limestone, was hired as an assistant at his alma mater. So I think we he deserves a shout-out and congrats, Kendall. That is awesome to see.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, congratulations, Kendall. Good man, good job. You good you'll do just fine there, man. It's gonna be uh a little different being on the other side, especially if you played with some of those guys. You know, now you gotta kind of like can't hang out with those guys anymore, you know. But good for him. That's gonna that's a great, I'm very happy for him.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

All right, Danny, as you know, a lot of international lacrosse has been going on the past few weeks. The USA women just won the World Lacrosse Women's Championship against a field of great international teams, and now the world games are going on in Birmingham, Alabama, featuring lacrosse in the sixes format. The USA men, as a matter of fact, as we're recording this, they go for gold tonight against Canada. And the women started today as well. I was watching their game against Australia, so it's really fun to watch, it's really cool to watch international play because the rules are different. So I don't you have to bend your mind away from the D2 college rules and figure out how to go. But what's really interesting, Danny, when I was watching the U.S. play Great Britain, I saw a familiar face on the field. Who was that? That's Will Baxter, limestone goalie. He's playing goalie for Great Britain in the in the sixes.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

That's fun, that's phenomenal. That's great stuff. You know, here we go, talking about D2 again. Now we're talking about D2 internationally, represented internationally.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

So, as you and I talked about recently, we thought it would be great to bring on a D2 player who has also played internationally and to see how those paths cross, right? I think that's gonna be really interesting. We just talked about one of the things is the rule differences. I'm curious to hear, you know, if that's tough to go from.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Well, Kev, I got I gotta be quite honest with you. I don't know a damn thing about international across. I really don't, but I think it's cool. Like, like I like the premise of the growing of the game. And here we are, you know, we talk about growing the game inside our borders. Now we're talking about growing the game outside the borders. And and tonight we have a a cool guest, I think. I think the uh listeners are gonna be uh pretty uh pretty excited to hear what my man's got to say tonight about international across.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

His name is Mike Connor, he's a native of Stockport, England. He played goalie at Wingate, graduating in 2017, but he also was a member of England's U19 team and played in the World Games in Turku film then. So that's a lot of really good stuff to unravel as we go through this.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

That's awesome stuff. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

That's so let's just welcome him in. Hey Mike, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 12:37

I'm good. How are you guys doing?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Hey Mike, thanks for coming on the uh in the crease podcast with the two knuckleheads. Uh, we really appreciate you taking the time.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

He's laughing at laughing because he knows that's true. He's like the only one that probably knows that's true. I just want to start off. I kind of want to hear your lacrosse journey, you know, growing up in England and then coming over to play D2 lacrosse in Wingate. Can you just give us give us kind of the background of how you started, uh, what you did and how you got to Wingate, which to me, coming from England, I my son just graduated from there. I thought it was a long trip from from Northern Virginia, never hearing of the school, but going right from England, that's even crazier.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

Yeah, um, it really is. Um, I kind of go start back at you know how I got into lace. Um, for me, you know, I always played football, soccer for the American audience. Um, and one of the guys on the Great Britain team right now, Ryan Hans. Um, if you this kid was the epitome of like a college lace player. Um, he in against Australia in the World Games, he actually scored a one-handed goal from like 14 yards out. Just he's just one of those players that should have played in America. He just had no interest in going to school. Um, but his dad played for England and coached a local team. And while I was playing football at the same time, when you kind of get to the age of like 13, 14, you kind of switch to play Sundays. So I kind of had Saturdays wide open. Um, and in England, the lacrosse series is just all done on Saturdays, so I didn't start playing until I was probably like 12, 13 years old. Wow. Um, and at that point for me, it was just it was just something to do. I never really had any kind of mindset on anything. Um, but I just took to playing and I enjoyed it. Um, I ended up playing semi-professional football at the time, all the way until I was like 17 years old. So lacrosse was just a backslide kind of just hobby to play along with at the time. Um, and then you know, as I got older, so in England you play through age groups at every two years, so you play U10, U12, U14, U16.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

And then after you're 16, you go up to the big boys. Right. And that's kind of where I made my pretty quick jump was, you know, as I got to 16, guys started talking. You know, I started playing at a much higher level. And by the time I was 17, I ended up playing at the highest level in English Across. Um, and you know, English Across is so wildly different in terms of not just the game, but it's a very much of a social sport, so is many of other sports in England. Like, you know, everyone goes and plays, and then right after every like lacrosse clubhouse has a bar in it, like and it's like you know, everyone goes in there, there's like the rugby teams, the cricket teams, the lacrosse teams, like everyone's in there after a game. So, you know, that kind of just kind of drew me along to just kind of being part of that. Um, so like I said, as I kind of got to that age of 16, 17 where I started to play, you know, for the higher levels, I got at the 2010 World Lacrosse games, so 12 years ago, so I would have been 16. Um, they were hosted in Manchester, England, which was about 15 minutes from my house. And, you know, that was the first World Games that they really extended the reach of the number of teams that came. So I think it went up to like 30 teams that year, and you had, you know, the Japanese come over play. Um, it I don't know if you remember this, but it was the year that the Iroquois nationals weren't allowed to come over to England because of their past sports.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Yep. And you know, I was sat there watching, you know, Paul Rabel play. That was one of his you know, younger years of playing in that level. John Grant Jr., I remember watching him play, you know, five, six games where he was just, you know, standing on the crease and just dishing out just probably like 10 goals a game. I think he ended up being, you know, all world team, first team, um MVP of the tournament, broke the goals record in the that that year. Um, so I think that kind of was the real big turning point for me where I was like, actually, this is pretty cool. So at the same time as that, they ran a tournament for um international teams. So I got played picked for the England under 16 team at the time and played there. And then there was just a bunch of different schools come over, play that you know, from Canada, from America. I remember one clearly, um, they were called Mimiko. Um, and they just had a bunch of Canadians who played. And there's a kid called Joe French who played. You might know Ben French who played at Sansa. So Joe was his older brother who ended up finishing his career down at UVA. Um, and he was someone, you know, I played against him and was like, wow, I've never seen this level of lacrosse ever. And those were the things that you know kind of shaped the place. Because then after that, I stopped playing football. Um, and then kind of lacrosse took over. It was then came around the 2010 U19 World Games, and literally right after the 2010 championships, it started with straight away. It was like, here's the picking of the like the team starts, you know, you go to just an it's not like America where you get invited to a tryout, you pay your money, go to a tryouts, and 200 kids, and you kind of just start making the list down. Um, right, and from there, you know, my coach at that time was Matt Madelon, the Princeton head coach. Okay, yeah. He was the USA USA, he was the England's goalie coach at that time. Um, and then Eric Koch, who was the former Washington and Lee coach. I think he's now head coach of Dickinson, maybe uh in D3. Um, but so those two guys were kind of the start of it all. Um, you know, kind of seeing that level, being associated with you know, Matt Madelon, who was playing for the New York Lizards at the time, was coaching down at Roanoke, and that kind of where it began. Um, so as we got closer to the world games, just goalies started knocking off, and you know, I started seeing my chances on the doors, and you know, three became four, and then so right the way through to the world games, I didn't find out till the week before if I was gonna be in the top two goalies, if I was gonna be a reserve travel in. Um, and that's kind of the way it is. Um, and the biggest difference, you know, for that we always say is the biggest difference between English cross, American lacrosse, Canadian lacrosse is English lacrosse is a purely funded individual sport. So we had to raise money. We were doing that's why we start so early. We were doing fundraisers like every week to try and pay to go to Finland, and Finland is not a cheap place to go.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

No, okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

So I don't know that for context, it's like eight euros for a pint of beer, so it's like it is expensive.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

There's a lot of fundraising going on for the club afterwards, Danny. That's what he's saying.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

That's interesting stuff, though. That's interesting. Go ahead, keep going. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

So I remember, you know, it kind of got to the last couple of weeks, and one thing that kind of hurt me at the time was our defenders, defensive coach was the other goalies dad. Um so I knew the first spot was kind of locked, so it was really just one other spot that was kind of waiting there.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Um how many goalies were were were at the tryout?

SPEAKER_03 21:09

We probably started with about 10, if not more. Wow, well, okay, quickly went down. Um I think we were at four within, I think probably two, three weeks after the first tryout. And you know, you can't just go to a field in England and find a lacrosse call there. Like every you it's not as simple as just do is doing that, and you're right competing with football everywhere. I mean, right trying to find just places to practice. Like now it's a significantly different place, like it's you know, there's more availability to that stuff. You still won't find a lacrosse call just out in the open, but right um, you know, just purely going being at that point where you're practicing once every two weeks, maybe once a month with. These guys, it's it's a big difference to the US team where they're doing you know three, four, five-day camps, they do it, you they're playing at this college level every day. Like even in our regular practice, we're practicing once a week. Like it's a completely different aspect of the game, but kind of sticking to the 2012 war games. So I finally found out, you know, that I was making the team and I was one of the two goalies. Um, and then you know, there we go on the way to Finland. Uh, we stayed in this huge, it was actually a rehabilitation center. Um, and they actually had four teams there. It was us, the Australians, the US, and I cannot remember who the four team was. Um, but it might have been no, it was the Finnish team, so it was all four teams there. We have a huge rivalry with Australia. We kind of wipe the slate with Canada and USA because it's like, you know, those games are really close. Yeah, so we don't even worry about that one, whereas Australia is our big one. So I remember playing. Uh, we opened up with the Iroquois Nationals, and you know, that was the biggest shell shock I think I've ever had in my life. Because you know, you're playing against uh what a lot of people forget about in the world games is you're playing against uh especially with the nationals team, is you're playing against a lot of guys who have never been to college, never been to Juco, most of them don't even finish high school, and these are kids that are just phenomenal players. Um and you know, we played them, and this is with Ty Thompson, Lyle. Um those are the two main guys that you just in a starting attack for them. Um and funnily enough, Lyle, the 2008 world games, Lyle was 15 years old and played as a face-off for the Iroquois Nationals in the 2008 unit ridiculous, it's ridiculous. So, you know, I remember clearly the Lyle caught the ball on the crease and just faked like I've never seen a fake before. And you know, you turn around and breaking the ball out of the net, and there you go. So, I mean, those games for us is just you know, you're getting ready for a shell shock. Um, and I was finishing most games above 50 percent. Um, and but I was letting in 15 goals. Uh, I think against the Iroquois we were like 15-1 down at halftime. Um, and then I got to play the second half, and you know, the biggest kind of disappointment in that whole tournament for me was against the Australian team, we beat them 10-9 in the last seconds of the game. Um, but I didn't play a minute. And so it for me, it was like I've always questioned whether or not it was because of the other goalie's dad being there, or whether it was because of purely performance, because on a performance aspect, a lot of people were asking for me to play. So it's just one of those things that it happens, it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

You go with the flow, it's part of life, you deal with it, you you know, there's the little speed bumps in life that you deal with, and you just move on. So now you finish listen, you finish high school.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

How the heck do you get to Wingate University?

SPEAKER_03 25:44

So in the world games, we played Canada, um, and their head coach was Taylor Ray. It was supposed to be Brody Merrill, but the due to the MLL and NLL commitments, he couldn't make the tournament. And so Taylor Ray took over. Taylor Ray is the head coach of St. Joe's in Philadelphia, Division One. So we played them, and I think I had like 19 saves and like five or six goals against against Canada. Wow. And he then watched me play against the USA team, who I think we were 19-1. We were like, I think we ended up at one point, it was like 20 to 1. But I came out of the game at halftime, having given up 11 goals and had 27 saves. Um and he's a lot of shots, man. That's a lot of shots.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

I was just gonna say, did England did England have the ball?

SPEAKER_03 26:41

Uh no. So I the first shot, the first shot of that game was from Connor Busick.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

If you oh boy, yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

And it hit me directly in the thigh, and I don't think I felt my leg for like the rest of the tournament. But you know, like after that game, Taylor Ray came and spoke to me and was like, Have you ever thought about playing in America? And I was like, No, never, never, it not even crossed my mind. And you know, as we kind of we got really close with the USA under 19s team because they were literally right below our rooms and we were avoiding the Australians completely. Um so we were talking with them all the time. It's you know, a lot of these guys were freshmen or going into their freshman year of you know, UVA, Hopkins, Cornell, all these major schools. And I was like, you know, it sounds pretty cool. Um, and I'd actually just decided on my university in England um where I was gonna go. And my plan was to go and do law and become a lawyer. So those things kind of quickly changed. Um, so I started talking to Taylor A when I got home. And you know, the first thing he said was, you know, we'd love to give you an offer or this. Um, and St. Joe's is one of the most expensive schools in lacrosse. It was about $80,000 a year. So I was like, uh, even if you give me, you know, 50% scholarship, it's not gonna be feasible. Um I was I didn't qualify for loans, I didn't qualify for anything, so there really wasn't an opportunity for me there. Um so what he did was then was like, hey, I used to coach at Queens and I know the guys there. So here you go. Passed my information on, said I watched him play, etc. All this time I'm like working on a highlights tape, I'm like getting all my world game saves together, you know, trying to find these things. I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm like, I don't even know the recruitment process. Um, so we get to that point, and you know, it basically just ended up being just passing my name along. Um, and you know, I was looking at Mount Olive was one of the main schools because Mount Olive had a 50% international um program at the time where even just enrolling, you got 50% scholarship.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Um that's interesting. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Then the years were you know, the last I would say not really now as much, but like five, six years ago when I was in school, that they had six, seven Canadians on their team. Um they had a couple, they had two Australians at the time on their team.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

So, you know, that kind of where the ball got rolling, and it honestly just me fell into the lap of Wingate. Um, kind of my name just kind of dwindled down through places, and Wingate was, you know, at that time, they Mike Lawson just came in as their new head coach. He kind of trying to change things, so you know, we ended up with that year just kind of fast-forwarding is we ended up with 28 freshmen that year, so it's like it was a heavy recruited class. Um, and you know, I got a really good offer that my parents basically said to me if I can get university for cheaper than I can in England, then I can go. And you know, I made it my plan to do it. And you can ask Coach Boyle this story because he likes to tell it all the time. But they would be at like coaches' conferences and they would all get emails from Mike Connor. Um, and you know, for me, it was like I always sent an email to every single coach in NCAA um from division one to division three, and because of time difference and I was trying to time it up to do it, I was sending these emails at you know 10 o'clock at night, um, 11, 12, whatever time it was. And I was just like, you know, hey, did you get my email? Like I was sending them religiously, like it was probably I was sending probably six hundred emails like like a week just trying to get my name out there, and you know, it ended up with places filling up, and because it was so late at that time, yeah, I'd missed a lot of the recruitment classes. So the higher levels, um, you know, the programs that had already recruited goalies for two years in advance, three years in advance. Um, that kind of made me focus on attention towards division two. I quickly realized that you know division one wasn't really going to be re like reasonable. Um, so I was speaking to Limestone, Mount Olive, Queens, and Wingate at the time. And, you know, like I said, Wingate really just gave me a good offer. I committed, I you know, I signed my NLI and committed, never saw the campus, never met any of the guys, knew nothing really about the school. I'd done research, I'd kind of seen what they had to offer, but I'd never been there. Um, so what I ended up doing was I finished high school in 2010. I went to what we call college in England, which is another two years uh before you go to university. And so I finished there in 2012 before I went to the World Games. So I had a year in between and I could have started university right then and there. And I decided to take a year off just basically because I want I now decided that America was my kind of goal. Um, and I know Danny, you've met me, so you know this, but um, I'm a very stubborn person, so when I kind of have my mind to something, I kind of typically want to make sure that happens. So I took a year off and you know, basically worked for a year and spent every night emailing coaches just trying to find a place that kind of wanted me. Um, and it wasn't really much more than just kind of going off some highlights, and that was it. I didn't go to prospect days, I didn't go and travel. Um, I never had that opportunity to go do that. Um, so we kind of I was in that place where no coach really had anything on me. Um, they had some film from a world games, which honestly, being a goalie, the easiest way to make a highlight stape is get rid of all the goals and make all the saves. So it's like you make a save a game and you'll be okay getting through. Um, you can fill out five minutes of a highlight step pretty quick.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

So it really just kind of dwindled down to you know, I had a few options, um, but wing eight was just, you know, I had an opportunity to go play. I didn't really know what to expect, I had no idea of the what kind of what college lacrosse was. I you know, my freshman year, I walk in the first day and I don't even know what a class credit was. So it was pretty quick to figure out things that were going on.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

You know, when you think about it, when you when you when you get to the nuts and bolts of that, it's a pretty ballsy move, you know, like it's a pretty, it's a pretty, you know, that's something that uh not too many 18, 19-year-old kids are making that type of decision. You know, they're they're wondering if they're gonna go 300 miles away from home and as opposed to 3,000 or 6,000 or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

I was just gonna say, like, one of those things that you know, going back to being stubborn, is people told me I wouldn't make it past the fall semester and I'd be home by Christmas, and that kind of spurred me on.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Yeah, so what was I want to get back to the uh you know the difference in rules and kind of difference of the the culture and the game again between the two? But I'm just curious, like what was that cult culture difference? Was it was it a culture shock, or were you just kind of heads down like now you're gonna just get through this? But what were I mean, how difficult was that first year of transition from being in England going down to you know, Wingate is in a very small town, there's not a lot going on until you get to Charlotte, which is about 30, probably for you before they had the they didn't even have the uh the toll road there. It was 45 minutes to get to Charlotte, a bigger city. So, what was that like? Different.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

Um it was a culture shock for sure, you know. Being in North Carolina, being in Wingate, North Carolina is a big difference than you know, being in Stockport, England, you know, everything from the weather through to the laws, everything is just crazy different. So, you know, it's just it's one of those things that I think if I didn't have the class around me that I did, um, I had you know two Canadians in the same class as me who, you know, Tyler Antrim and Austin Murphy, who I came super close with. Um that kind of really made life a lot easier. Uh, and don't get me wrong, there were times where I could have easily got on a plane and gone home. Um but for me, it was just I wanted to be there. Wingate is a very good atmosphere for you know being close to other athletes, all that stuff. Right. Um, and that kind of just kept it feeling homely for me. Um, and I was just content of you know, trying to prove my worth and trying to get through it and trying, I wanted to do something different. I hated, you know, just people have mindsets and say, you know, this is what you're gonna do. And I just sometimes like to go the opposite way and be like, hey, this is what I'm doing, I'm creating my own path. And you know, I had writing on the wall for me back home, but I was like, this is kind of my goal now, this is my dream to do this, and I'm gonna achieve it.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

So that's awesome, that's awesome. And he did, and he did. So now the world game since you've played has taken on a little different now, wouldn't you say? The the the way the international games are played these days.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Yeah, it's definitely grown a lot. Um, you know, back in Israel in 2018, um I tried to play in that, but due to my commitments with Wing Gate, it just wasn't feasible. Um they it was like they wanted me home for practice like once a month, once every two months kind of thing. So it was like it just wasn't realistic. Um, but there were 46 teams that played in the world games in 2018. Uh, and this is the full senior men's team. You know, you had a country like Uganda who went and played in there, um, Colombia, China, all these teams that were playing in world games that probably three, four years before never even knew what lacrosse was. Um, and you know, the biggest thing for me is people hear that I'm from England and then they're like, Oh, you played football at uh university, and I'm like, No, I played lacrosse, and they're like, How does that happen? Um, and you know, it's the biggest shock because even people in England that that I that live 20 minutes away from where I lived don't know what lacrosse is. Um, yeah, and it really is just Manchester, where I lived, was such a hard culture of lacrosse in terms of it grew up that like it would been around for there's they were playing it back in you know 1900s, like early 1900s. Um so it'd been around there, it just never really kind of took off like the other sports. Um, so then kind of when the world games played there in it played there in 78, 94, and then 2010. Um, and like I said, the 2010 games was really where I saw that big international stage um setting up the big stadiums to try and play to play in the world games in and watch the major championships. So at the time is the blue division, which is you know the Australia, it Japan, England, Iroquois didn't make it that year, so it was Canada, England, Iroquois, Japan, Germany, and the US team. Um, and you know, seeing that game and then kind of has it's transitioned even in the last 10 years, and seeing more and more of these developing countries playing lacrosse, um, it's just it's a cool thing to see. And you know, given the opportunity that I had, um, it's really cool. Um, you mentioned before about having Will Baxter playing the in the world games right now, uh down in Alabama.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:45

And you the thing you'll see next year at the men's senior world games is because there's a lot more countries playing, is how many Division II athletes will be playing. Um, you'll see them play at I saw I remember in 2018 there was guys playing for Puerto Rico, Colombia, right, like Belgium, Czech Republic, all these countries that people have grandparents that came to America from and they're now eligible to play.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

And he's is that the cry is that the criteria they have to have at least one in the one grandparent. One grandparent. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

And okay. You these countries seek out these guys. Guys like who barely even know they are Puerto Rican, for example. Like they find they get cut contacted because someone hears that they have a Puerto Rico passport or that they're eligible to play, and they come through. Um I actually know a guy, Steven Jahalka, who played at Harvard and played for the US under 19 team the year that I played. He got contacted by Czech Republic out of nowhere, and they were like, Do you want to play? And he's like, How did you even know that I was eligible to play? Um, and like this happens. Um, wow, you know, and the World Games actually put a uh ended up having to put a cap on the amount of non-born um players that were playing for those countries. So yeah, because you know, in this is in the 2010 World Games, there was teams who were just rolling divisions because they would have had 10 Americans play on that team, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

In the States we call them ringers, bringing in them ringers, man, you know. So yeah, so they had to put a gap on that, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:31

Yes, and the thing that sucked was like I said, like all everywhere except for USA and Canada is all you know funded, so is self-funded. So a lot of these guys have been going for a year funding themselves to play in this tournament, and then these 10 Americans walk in and just play the tournament. It's like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Yeah, um, yeah, it kind of stinks in a way, you know.

SPEAKER_03 41:53

So yeah, I mean, it's gonna be cool. You know, the next one is gonna be next summer. I think it's it's been relocated like four times. I think it's now in San Diego, California.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Yeah, I think that's where it's gonna be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Because I know it was supposed to be in uh British Columbia, it was supposed to be in uh Coquitlam. Um, and then it got moved to it got moved to it got moved to the West Coast originally here, and then got moved up to San Diego after a third time of you know, with the pandemic and everything. They're actually putting it out there to try and develop the Olympic side of the sport is to try and grow the game in terms of you know, people recognizing the sport. You know, a lot of people on the east coast always rec already recognize lacrosse, at least you know, you look at places like Minnesota, um, you know, those Midwest teams that have really, really started to grow in terms of club lacrosse and younger and youth lacrosse. Um, so I think the West Coast is still that you know, you see players now from the West Coast who are phenomenal players, but I still don't think there's a lot of people that know what lacrosse is. Um so I know one of the biggest pushes was we're gonna go out west um and try and get that market to help push for the Olympic Games.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Yeah, and then the other thing that they're doing from the and that's why the World Games in Birmingham are doing the sixes format, because I think that's where they're gonna get into the the Olympics that way. I don't know if you've watched any of that, Mike, but it's been really interesting because it's it's eight-minute quarters, yeah, it's a running clock, yep, and it's five on five and a shorter field. In fact, my son in this area in Northern Virginia, every fall, they've got a a fall ball tournament where it's all the local high schools from all over Northern Virginia, even some in Maryland. They do all you do youth all the way to to high school, and it's that format. It's a sixes format. It's just just short, quick, you know, the the you don't don't do face offs fall. Goes in the goal, you just the goalie takes it out and you start from there. Basketball, like basketball. So it okay. I I've been watching it and it's fascinating me because it's so fast and so quick, and it's a little bit different. It's not that you're not usually the same setups when you're seeing 10 guys on the field. It's a lot more like basketball, a lot of sense of how you're gonna move, rotate. Um, you're all playing, it's all middies, basically. You know, so there's no poles, there's no polls. No poles. You gotta go both ways, baby.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

There's poles playing, but they're all using short sticks. It's just back, it's like the box across kind of thing where all the poles are using short sticks.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Okay, okay. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

England are actually playing. Oh, Great Britain. Sorry, I gotta get used to saying that.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Uh they're playing Japan right now for the bronze medal. Um, they're actually losing 9-6.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Oh, are they? Are you watching it right now?

SPEAKER_03 44:53

I got it up on the screen. I'm just trying to I yeah, so they Japan beat the Hondanese or the you know, formerly known as Iroquois Nationals, they beat them 20 to 14 the other day.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

How many Long Islanders are on the Japan team?

SPEAKER_03 45:08

Surprise, you know what? I remember I will never forget watching the Japanese team in 2010 World Games. They played a close game against you know, I think it's they played the Canadians close, and really they didn't have a single American on that team, not a single Canadian. They have that's amazing. And just their speed that they played was just insane.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

They had quick hands, too. That's what I've noted. Japan played US in the semifinals, and it was a close game. Yeah, 17-12 in the the final, but it was close all the way. And as a matter of fact, when the US played Great Britain, I was watching that game, it was tied four and half.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

Oh, four, four at half. Yeah, I know it was tied at halftime.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

And it was almost because you're the teams are figuring out eat the other team during that first quarter to second quarter. It's it's a running eight-minute clock, Danny.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Wow, wow, so you know so there's no shot clock.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yeah, there is 30-second shot clock.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Yeah, there's a 30-second shot clock, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

Up and down. It's just and like you know, I remember in the USA game. Uh, my friend Ryan Huns um picked up the ball from he's good, man. He picked the ball up from the goal line and just threw it to the crease from the far side to one of the other English attackmen. And it's like that, you know, a guy just kind of sat there and waited for the US to go down. They picked the ball up and just launched it full field. And it's like it was just quit going. There's no way, there's no wait to like get the other guys back, it's just straight go.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

What is what is it on? What what are you watching it on?

SPEAKER_03 46:48

It's on the Olympic champions website, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

So, I mean, it's just a different format, it's weird.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

It is to me, like it is weird. It takes a while to get used to, it takes a long time to get used to. It's something totally different, even but to me, and I just want to just to close uh uh for you, Mike, uh kind of like what last question, but even when I watched the 2018 games and the international play and going from what using usually seeing a shot clock to now having no shot clock and having no time really to get over the the midline, and I understand that from the the totally different levels of play between countries. So that took me a while to get used to to watch that as well. For you as a player, going back and forth between playing college in the US and then also playing internationally, does that like screw with your mind going back and forth? Or are you are you pretty more well-versed than international? Was it tougher for you to come to the US and play the NCA rules?

SPEAKER_03 47:52

Yeah, yeah, it was harder for me to go that way. Yeah, um, but the thing, the biggest thing is that you know, in the last, you know, the four years that I was there, I think the clear-in rule changed five times in the time I was there because it changed from like, you know, get over in 30 seconds, get over in a minute, get over in 20 seconds, now we're gonna have a shot clock, and it's like okay, it's forever changing. But you know, I was actually speaking to Danny about this last night, and it's like we would play the Americans, and you know, when we in I remember this in the 2012 World Games, the first shot of the game that they had, they you know, they I made a save and I just stepped out the back of the crease and I just stood there. I had the ball for like a minute and 30 seconds, and I'm like, the only way we're gonna play this game close is if we keep the ball. So we're like, Well, you are not getting the ball. Um, and it's a it's a hugely different aspect because it's like you know, like you said, there's no clearing clock. The one big thing that you see a lot in the international game is how much a goalie carries the ball over, because you don't have attack a lot of attackmen don't press you. Um you're carrying you end up just like walking up the middle of the field and just I've walked across the midline with no one near me because we separate the field because the field's typically bigger in international lacrosse. Um it's normally a lot wider because a lot of these a lot of these sports, like a lot of the fields that we're playing on are football fields. Um, so it's like they're they are set up to be a lot wider than a standard lacrosse field, so you know, you you spread completely wide and goalie just walks up the middle, and it's like, okay, now what do I do? But you know, the other big thing is you know, you can call timeouts anywhere on the field, so you get in danger at any point, timeout, you're good to go. Start up a clear again. Um, but like I said, you know, as I mentioned earlier, like the big thing was is you know, at the English across, even at the highest level of English across when I was playing, we only had 13 guys on our roster. That was just standard. We had three subs, we played on a mud-soaked field, the ball didn't bounce. So as a goalie, it was phenomenal because bounce shots never went in. And but like it's like you know, everyone played everywhere. Faceoffs had to play, like there wasn't there's no such thing as a face off, right? Yeah, um, right, and you know, you're you've got midfielders always having to play two-way. Um, you're and it's just you know, I went back and watched a game this past December uh while I went home and visited. And it's like I'm watching it after you know, coaching the fall at Wingate, uh getting ready for the spring, and it's like I forget what this game is like because it's like you know, the ball just slowly moving around and there's no set plays, it's just kind of like, hey, we'll dodge if someone slides, we'll kind of just find the open guy and we'll kind of go from there. But it's like the game just gets over and it's just it's it almost stops death. Um, and it's just like you know, a practice six is almost that's kind of the best way I can describe it. It's just so much slower. Um, and even when you go all the way to highest international level, it's just a different level of pace. Um, obviously, you still have the Americans who push the ball, the Canadians play the box across, the Iroquois um still play the box across and field across. You still have that level of speed, but then you know, especially when you go to the lower teams, it's just such a slower game. Yeah, you you there's no forced possessions, it's very much tactical. Like, like I said, the only way we were ever gonna beat the Americans was just keeping the ball away from them having it. So it's like, you know, for us, for us, it was just like, you know, we're gonna sit with the ball in possession, they can come out and get it. You know, Americans were able to do that because they were guys who were all Division I committed lacrosse players, yeah, who they just came out and we were like, okay, what just happened?

SPEAKER_02 51:52

Um, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

So it doesn't really work, but it's like we just know that if we try it, we we run and gun with the American team, it ain't gonna go well. Um so I think you know, it's the level of speed is the biggest thing. Um, like you said, the there's no shot clock. Um guys are just kind of holding out, and even at the international level, you don't have the number of plays like you do in the college lace game. Uh, even all the way down to division one, division two, division three, all through. Like you see plays being set up, you just don't really have that same kind of intensity. Um, believe me, the level of abilities, even you know, at the English level, I can't say that there's a guy on Team England that probably couldn't play at the college level. Um, they are great players, and a lot of those guys have played at college. Um, some of the guys, there's several guys who have been and played D1. Um, you got someone like Will Baxter who played at D2. You've got guys before me who played at several D2 schools. Um, and that kind of just was the you kind of got used to, you know, as the college game grew and kind of it really sped up, I think. The world games didn't really do the same. And that's one of the reasons why the sixes has kind of been introduced because what a lot of the American audience don't understand because of they watch college lacrosse, not a lot of speed, yeah. So, and you don't really see a lot of Americans knowing much about the international lacrosse game, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:26

Um I know nothing. I mean, I I freely admit it, I know nothing about the international game.

SPEAKER_03 53:32

But the it that was one of the reasons why lacrosse was never considered an Olympic to be an Olympic sport because it was too slow. And when you watch the college lacrosse game, you're like, How is this too slow? Right, it's like you're forced to go to goal all the time, but because of the international rules, there wasn't that same level, you know, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:50

And then and then and the same thing with the sixes format, you can build a team quicker, yeah, because you only have you have a smaller roster, yeah. And so you you know it it it probably levels the playing field for most international teams, most uh nations quicker than if you're you're playing 10, you know, 10 on 10. Um but yeah, this has been Mike, this has been phenomenal having you on and getting your perspective of the not only the international game, but you know what you went through in D2, what you did as a as a youth to get to play international and and d2, which is I was really interested in. I had like five questions, you answered all of them. I didn't even have to ask one. So we really appreciate you coming on tonight. It's just been a real treat.

SPEAKER_03 54:38

Absolutely. It's been uh it's it's I like I like telling my story. Um, I think we'll see more lacrosse players coming from international levels, and hopefully, you know, this time next year, um, when the World Games is about to start for the men's championships, you're kind of talking the same thing again about you know how many Division II players at that time are going to be playing at that level because I think you'll see a wide, much wider range of kids playing at all these different teams. Um, and you know, hopefully you kind of get that aspect of I'm sure Will Baxter will still be playing at Team England at that time, but you'll be getting guys playing for Ireland, Scotland, yeah, you know, Czech Republic, Puerto Rico, like I mentioned before. It's like you'll see that level of um those kids playing there. And it's I think it's really interesting to see because it's not just the big name Division I schools, you're now getting guys playing from you know small time Wingate University in North Carolina through to you know Lee's McRae in Banner Elk, North Carolina in the middle of nowhere, and these kids who you know they're never gonna have a chance of coming close to playing for the US team, but given the opportunity to go play in you know different parts of the world as these world games kind of grow. You like you said, like last one was in Israel, you've been to England, Canada, Australia, all these different places. It's you know, you're now getting opportunities to go and travel and play lacrosse. And you know, I I love kind of seeing the growth of the game in the last you know 18 years that I kind of sat and watched the 2010 World Games in Manchester, England, just kind of seeing that growth is exponentially getting bigger every year.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

Yeah, what a great story, right? And what a great story. I it's very interesting to me just how you started with lacrosse and just how you got going with it. It's kind of like you said, there's no fields. I I live in Long Island, Mike. There's a there's a there's a net every 60 yards, you know, and I'm saying that they're all over the place. So, like I get it when you say, you know, we don't even have a field to to really practice on because everybody's playing football, you know, and it's just really cool story. Uh, I I met Mike, Kevin, I met Mike six years ago. He was a junior at Wingate, and I started talking to him, and one thing I noticed about him was his maturity right away. Yeah, and he he had a mature way about him. And he was only just you know, still a junior, but he was in college. But he was the best teammate you could ask for. I mean, the first one off the bench, first one I just to to give his guys a high five, you know, and and and then when he got in, like the his teammates would go batshit. Yeah, like, you know, they all like, and then he make a save, and the the sideline would just go crazy. And it was just a really cool thing to see how he played his game. And here he is from Stockport, England, you know, that's not you know, the lacrosse capital of the world, but what a great, interesting story in uh our mature kid, and uh he's not even a kid, he's a young man. He's a young man.

SPEAKER_00 57:56

Compared to us, he's still a kid, but you're right.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

Yeah, right, man. Exactly. Well, Mike, thanks so much for coming on the podcast tonight. What a great story. And um wish you continued luck, and uh we'll get you we'll get you on again, we'll talk again. What do you say?

SPEAKER_03 58:10

Hey, I'll be great. I appreciate it for having me.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

Danny, that was so cool. What a cool perspective Mike Connor brought. And that was one of my main questions going into this was what was it like and how did you get started in lacrosse in England? And he just painted a great picture that like you said it near the end when we were talking to him, right? You can't fathom not having a goal

outtro

SPEAKER_00 58:36

60 yards anywhere around you, right? And when he told the story of them playing basically in a dirt field and there no bounce, so it's really good no bounce shots, a goalie has to stop. I mean, there were so many good, good tidbits in there from him. It was just really neat to see uh and him talk about the international game versus the US NCAA game that he got to play at Wingate.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

You know, Mike for a young man, he's a worldly guy, you know, like he's he's he's he's he's absorbed a lot more of the world than most people will ever do. And you know what? To speak to him again. He's he shows a maturity beyond his age. And um it was very interesting his story, what don't you think?

SPEAKER_00 59:18

Oh, it was it was fantastic. I think it was great uh to get a D2 player on here and get a different perspective than just what we did with the student athletes this past season, which and it was great having them on talk about their team and what they're trying to do and maybe where they're gonna go. But it's good to see get a different perspective of not only the international game, but to see what he's done coaching and otherwise outside of uh of college once he graduated. And we're gonna try to keep that going. We plan on bringing out a few more former players to see what their college life, what their life is after college looks like. And the international thing is kind of like a cool uh twist to our division two podcast, you know, and I'm sure there's a lot more division two players that we can there will be when when when Mike talked about that going to when they do the they do the the world lacrosse games, just pure lacrosse, and they do that next year, I think it's 2023. There will be a lot more players that you see, you know, in the sixes format, it's smaller, it's not as many teams probably they had as they're gonna have in the in the the total world lacrosse game. So I'm sure we'll see a lot more players and be able to bring them in. Um and that will be great. I mean, besides so besides that, and uh the former players on, we also plan on doing a preview of the new teams joining D2 lacrosse ranks with Bridgeport, Virginia State, Malone University, and William Jewel. Shout out to one of our crack research team members, Gary Hyder, who helped us pull that together. But oh tiny boy. So that's just a few teasers for our listeners of what may be coming down the road. But this one tonight was phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

Yeah, Mike, that that was a fun one. This was a fun one. A little different, a little different, you know. Now that like there's really no lacrosse going other than tournament, you know, youth lacrosse going on right now. But having the world games on, and like again, I didn't know much about it. I didn't even know what channel they were on. There's just to go to show you, you know, how much I don't know about international lacrosse.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

But tonight's podcast was fun. Yeah, it was. It was great. And uh, I guess with that, Danny, that's a wrap.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

That's a wrap, Kev.