My Inside Scoop On Gettysburg's Coach J

I met Coach Hank Janzyck at the first ever FCA Lacrosse Camp which was held at Gettysburg College in 1989. It wasn’t long before I learned that they guy was one of the best story tellers I’d been around and a real prankster. I also learned that he was a great recruiter—three months after meeting him he talked me into coming to Gettysburg and worked behind the scenes on campus to develop an offer I could not turn down. At the time G-burg was not one of the premier D-III schools in the country and I had just made the 90 US National Team. People in the lacrosse world asked me why I was going to Gettysburg. My answer was simply Coach J made me an offer I did not want to turn down and he opened his home to me. I lived in the mother in law’s apartment adjacent to his family for three years and loved it! His children called me Uncle Fred and I felt like family. They also gave me my space when I needed it. During my time working under Coach J and learned allot about life and lacrosse. As he often says he comes from great lacrosse stock as a Hobart Lacrosse alum. One of my most memorable times at Gettysburg were seeing Coach J with Coach Urick, who is the one who recruited Coach J to come to Hobart from Irondequoit High School in Rochester. When these two get together it’s like watching a standup comedy show. At the same time Coach as many know, as a serious side him and he’s intense about his faith, turning boys into men, and getting them to give a maximum effort at all times. More tomorrow on Coach J. Until my second book came out and my academic career really starting taking off, the secret between Coach and I was if he ever got the job at UNC or Duke I would return as his defensive coordinator. Well that almost happened in the case of Duke. In retrospect I’m glad coach did not get the job because I want to see him win a championship there and I found my stride as a prof and author and don’t have the same interest in college coaching anymore.

Thinking About Grad School?

Me shooting on goal in USA exhibition game against the Syracuse All Stars up in Liverpool, NY out side of the city of Syracuse. That's Rodney Dumpson (Portwashington & SU) chasing me down.

When I decided to return to grad school in 1989, I tapped into my lacrosse network. I knew that graduate assistant positions (GAs) existed that would pay for tuition provide a living stipend in exchange for work. I let be known that was looking for GA position where I could coach. I soon received an offer from Head Coach B.J Ohara (West Genesee, Hobart) at Dartmouth College in Hanover, Vermont. I just earned a spot on the 90 National Team and thought Dartmouth was at the time just too isolated from opportunities to play club ball and have a social life. Chuck Winters, the former head coach at Cortland State when I played at SU, had just started G-burg as the school’s new athletic director that summer. He and coach Hank Janzyck (hereafter Coach J) created an attractive GA offer and I took it. At the time coach J was building the G-burg lacrosse program. I took the job because I liked Coach J and the location of the school in south central Pennsylvania allowed me to play for Maryland Lacrosse Club in nearby Baltimore.  I rented a mother in laws apartment from coach who I would live with from 1989 to 1992. I really had a great gig with access to the weight room and the campus library and I made the most out of it. I could return to grad school because I was single and accept for a couple of students loans and small car loan, financially independent. That's key if you want to return to school. I was also a big fish in a small pond as new US National Team player. That celebrity status and a good reputation off the field helped me negotiate a good GA position that worked for me.

Lessons from My Graduate School Experience: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=Graduate+School

Gettysburg Stories: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=gettysburg

Fred Opie talks with Ohio State Men’s Head Lacrosse Coach Nick Myers

Ohio State Men’s Head Lacrosse Coach Nick Myers, Photo courtesy of laxbuzz.wordpress.com

The Big Ten’s Nick Myers is starting his ninth season as head coach for the Ohio State men's lacrosse team in 2017. In the Summer of 2016, Myers guided Team USA to the gold medal at the FIL Under-19 World Championship. His brother Pat, an Ohio State alum, served as an assistant coach on the US team. Myers began his coaching career as the volunteer coach for the Buckeyes for two seasons under then head coach Joe Breschi. He had worked as an assistant coach at Butler before rejoining the Buckeye staff in 2006. Myers played lacrosse at Springfield College in Massachusetts.

Listen Now [26min 16sec] https://soundcloud.com/thestudytable/ohio-state-lacrosse-coach-nick-myers

Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/FrederickDouglassOpie?ref=hl and Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/DrFredDOpie

Listen to Our Podcasts and More: http://www.fredopie.co

Nick Myers: http://www.nmnathletics.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=17300&ATCLID=1059039

Interview with Coach Paul Wehrum Part 1

Coach Wehrum diagramming Xs and Os at a Herk vs Army B team, West Point circa 1982, click the image to enlarge it.

An interview I did with my Junior College (Herkimer County Community College) Coach, Hall of Famer Paul Wehrum. He is the only Junior College Coach in the National Hall of Fame and he served as US Team Coach in 1998. After three undefeated seasons, 15 consecutive regional championships, and 7 National Championships, coach retired as a Full Professor of Physical Education from the State of New York. He's now the head coach at Union College. 

Coach what were the keys to developing your successful career at Herk?

“The primary things were having an emphasis on the academics [by doing things like] only two hour practices. Using you as an example, I concentrated on your academics but also pushed you hard lacrosse wise and did the same with my other players. I made sure kids enjoyed both athletic and academic success and I would not let them give up because a teacher graded your paper and failed you. I encouraged them not to give up; most of our kids did not have great success in the classroom in high school. Then when players went on to good schools, their success naturally brought more players to Herkimer through word of mouth [and kind of a chain migration with repeat players from the same communities coming to Herkimer] from Croton, Baldwin, Yorktown, West Genesee, Irondequoit, and Homer.

Coach Dave Urick on Ed Howard

Buffalo natives,  Hobart African American defensemen Mac Nelson (Timon High School) and Ed Howard (Canisius High School). Nelson, a football player who walked on and made the varsity, persuaded Howard, a former basketball player at the college, to walk on to the Hobart Lacrosse team in 1977. Photo circa 1978. Howard died on June 16, 2012.

Back when Ed Howard played lacrosse Coach Dave Urick served as the defensive coordinator of Hobart’s lacrosse program under head coach Jerry Schimdt (John Hopkins, National Lacrosse Hall Fame). Schimdt is the only lacrosse player to ever appear on the cover of Sport Illustrate during his playing days at the Hop. Ed Howard represented one of a host of Hobart lacrosse players that started for the Statesmen who never played the game before arriving in Geneva, N.Y. “We made a living out of kids like Eddie,” African Americans Marion “Mac” Nelson, Greg Williams (Henniger) and many other great athletes that we taught how to play the game of lacrosse,” says Coach Urick. “Hank Janczyk, the head coach at Gettysburg College, and Frank Fedorjaka, the head coach at Bucknell University were guys just like Ed,” good freshmen athletes who never played the game but learned it under Urick and Schimdt. Howard came to Hobart from Canisius High School in Buffalo, a prestigious Jesuit school where he excelled in the classroom and earned awards playing football, basketball and track and field. Ed held a sectional high jump record in track and excelled on the basketball court playing small forward in high school. Hobart’s basketball coach recruited Ed to play basketball but soon after the basketball season started his freshmen year at Hobart Ed did not see eye to eye with the head coach or his system and left the team. “I quit the team and left frustrated at winter break ready to transfer” says Howard. Just then Mac Nelson, a wide receiver on the football team and lacrosse walk on approached him. Nelson, a sophomore at the time told Howard “that the coaches had been following my situation on the basketball team and they wanted to meet with me,” recalls Ed; more tomorrow.

My Series on Hobart All American Ed Howard: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=Ed+Howard

Navy Head Coach Rick Sowell on How to “Really Play” the Game

Guest blogger Navy Head Coach Rick Sowell on learning the game lacrosse back at Horseheads high school in western New York (photo from lacrosse magazine)

Coach Rick Sowell: After months of Coach Moffitt explaining to me how the game is “really” played and that I could be good someday, I took a chance, a chance that proved to be one heck of a turning point in my life. It took a little time to develop my stick skills, but it didn’t take long to fall in love with the game. In the inaugural varsity season, I played the long pole position and our team finished with a modest 5-13 record. The next season, I became a short stick two way middie (offense and defense) and also played some attack. I went from scoring zero goals my first season to twenty six as a junior. In my senior year, our team posted a 14-5 record and I lead the team in goals with sixty. Not bad improvement over those 3 years!

Par1 How I Started Playing Lacrosse: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/2010/04/rick-sowell-on-how-he-started-playiing.html

Coach Sowell's Bio: http://www.navysports.com/sports/m-lacros/mtt/sowell_rick00.html

Wining Coach Sowell’s Way: http://www.americanathletemag.com/ArticleView/tabid/156/ArticleID/142/Winning-Beyond-the-Game.aspx

Interview with Coach Sowell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XimZNwcXWcg&feature=related

Back When I Coached College Lacrosse: Steve Koudelka Part I

Steve Koudelka (aka Kouder) from Long Valley, New Jersey was in my opinion Coach J’s greatest impact recruit during my tenure at Gettysburg and perhaps after my years but others will have to comment on that. According to Coach he had “like 50 schools recruiting him.” When I came to G-burg I was GA for the lacrosse and soccer programs working on my Master's Degree in history at Shippensburg University. I grew up in metro New York on Cosmos soccer in which that team had some of best in the world playing at Giant Stadium in New Jersey. I heard from then soccer coach Dave Wright (who is now the AD) about Kouder’s soccer ability. And it was perhaps coach Wright that discovered him and not Coach J? Kouder never played soccer at G-burg but he supposedly had game and he was a great hoop player too. His first year at G-burg he sat on the bench behind an All-American senior goalie Brian Sullivan (aka Sully). Another perhaps not so well know secret about coach J is that he works closely with his goalies drilling them on the fundamentals especially their footwork. Kouder worked very hard his first year and maintained a terrific attitude while waiting for his turn to play. His sophomore year he showed tremendous poise and leadership which is necessary for s goalie who is the middle linebacker on the defense calling the plays. Fortunately Steve had some great defenders in front of him particularly Billy Stedman who had great speed, size, and the ability to throw checks that he learned from another All American G-burg defensemen Braden Edwards. Brandon who graduated with Sully was bigger than Billy but Billy in my opinion was the better defensemen because he was faster, a better athlete, and smarter lacrosse player, and coachable. Both Billy and Branden earned first team All American honors their senior year, but they were different people and players. Now if I was in a bad neighborhood in say Baltimore City back then, if I had the choice between the two, I would want Braden to have my back, but if I wanted to invest some money in Latin America, I’d go with Billy. More tomorrow on Kouder.

Navy's Syd Abernethy Part 1

 Navy vs. Hopkins game circa 1978 

Syd “the squid” Abernethy gained his nickname for his patented head and shoulder fake at the attack position that allowed him to blow by defensemen and score bunches of points during his lacrosse career. A lot of young players today of all stripes know nothing about him. I witnessed his game first hand and I think his story is important for serious fans and students of the game. A tall well-built attackman with powerful legs and blinding speed, Abernethy was born at John’s Hopkins University Hospital in 1958. He grew up in Annapolis, Maryland where he first played middle school lacrosse at the Key school and then later for a Hopkins’ lacrosse alum, Dave Roberts, at Annapolis High School located down the street from the U. S. Naval Academy. At Annapolis High, he excelled both at athletics and academics where he achieved high school lacrosse All-American honors. His brother, who was three years older than him, played as a walk on defensemen at the Naval Academy for Hall of Fame Navy coach Dick Szlasa. Syd received offers to play college ball at West Point, Yale, and Navy and he chose to follow his brother to Navy in the summer of 1977. More on Syd and the role he played as part of Navy’s triple threat offense tomorrow.

Syd Abernathy: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=syd

Guest Blogger Navy Coach Rick Sowell Parts1: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/2010/04/rick-sowell-on-how-he-started-playiing.html

Navy Head Coach Rick Sowell on How to “Really Play Part 2:  http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/2010/04/rick-sowell-learning-how-to-really-play.html?spref=tw

Navy Coach Rick Sowell: http://www.navysports.com/sports/m-lacros/mtt/sowell_rick00.html

Wining Coach Sowell’s Way: http://www.americanathletemag.com/ArticleView/tabid/156/ArticleID/142/Winning-Beyond-the-Game.aspx

Interview with Coach Sowell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XimZNwcXWcg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqphHerSL8I

Meddling Parents and Athletics

Photo: Me helping coach my son’s Kennedy’s 1st and 2nd grade lacrosse team. In contrast to my son, who is a lacrosse fanatic, I didn’t start playing until 8th grade.

In today’s post I want to continue to explain my own experience parent and coach relations. As I mentioned yesterday, this went down back in the 1970s back when parents and coaches seldom butted heads. My injury during a freshmen football practice and the coach’s failure to follow up that night with my parents led to a confrontation between my Dad and freshmen football coach Nick Padula who also served as the varsity lacrosse coach. My dad, I learned years later, when ballistic resulting in me being overlooked the following year when it came time to promote JV players to varsity during the year end sectional playoffs. You see, my Dad’s youngest brother Earl Washington Opie died about his freshmen or sophomore year of a football head injury as a student at Sleepy Hollow High School in the 1950s. 

My Earliest Exposure to Lacrosse: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=elliot

Croton and Yorktown Lacrosse: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/2010/01/be-steve-mabus-in-your-lacrosse-world.html

Lacrosse Back in the Day At Croton Point Park: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=Croton+Point

Coach You Have A lot Of Influence: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/2012/06/be-careful-what-you-say-to-people-you.html

How to Improve Your Stick Skills: [Watch 4 min 2 sec] http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-i-developed-my-lacrosse-stick.html

My Lacrosse Recruiting Experience as a High School Senior

That's Guest blogger and Navy Head Coach Rick Sowell (right) as a riding attackman from Cobelskill chasing me down in 1983 in a game at Herkimer. I covered Rick and we had some battles! I am embarrassed recall that in those days, my BC days (before Christ), I used a profane and limited vocabulary to talk allot of trash and disrespect opponents. I later played with Rick on Maryland Lacrosse Club and it was allot better playing with him then against him!   

Navy Coach Rick Sowell: My recruiting experience as a senior in high school was an interesting one. First off, I can tell you having been a college coach for about 20 years now; the difference is night and day compared to the recruiting process back in the early 80’s. I was recruited by Ithaca College to play football and Hobart College to play both football and lacrosse. After a visit during the fall, I committed to Hobart, but unfortunately, due to grades, I found out in late April I would not be accepted. So then, the plan was to attend JUCO [Junior College] for one year then try and transfer. I ended up choosing Cobleskill over Herkimer because Cobleskill had dorms, plus they were the better program at the time. From there Terry Corcoran recruited me to play for him at Washington College. As a head coach at Stony Brook I recruit[ed] JUCO players; In fact, we had 4 former JUCO players on our team. As a Coach, I look for players with great work ethic and I really enjoy seeing them develop throughout their college years. [I like my teams to] work hard on the fundamentals aspects, the little things that make a big difference.

Navy Coach Rick Sowell On How He Started Playing Lacrosse

Rick Sowell # 30 back in 1983 playing attack for Colblesskill. I use to cover him and we had some battles! Rick is now the head coach at the U. S. Naval Academy

I've known Head Lacrosse Coach at the U. S. Naval Academy Rick Sowell since 1982 but I never asked him how he started playing lacrosse. Rick Sowell: After successful seasons playing freshmen basketball and JV football, I was introduced to the sport of lacrosse by Tom Moffitt, who also taught me both algebra I and II in 9th and 10th grade. Prior to Coach Moffitt’s arrival in Horseheads in 1976 (I was in 8th grade), our area [Western Tier of upstate New York] did not have lacrosse, but somehow he quickly convinced our school board to approve a lacrosse program. It began as a club sport and after 2 years it officially became a varsity sport for the 1979 season (my sophomore year). As was the case with many athletes who played both football and basketball for coach Moffitt, he somehow talked us out of playing baseball and joining him on the lacrosse field. To this day, I really don’t know what made me decide to give up baseball for this sport. I had never seen it before nor was I excited to try a sport where you “whack” your opponent with a stick.

When, how, and where did you start playing or coaching lacrosse?

Related link:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bs-sp-navy-lacrosse-sowell-0610-20110609,0,3545769.story

http://www.laxpower.com/laxnews/news.php?story=25629

My Year as Hempstead's Boy's Varsity Lacrosse Coach

I closed yesterday talking about the mistakes I made as a young head lacrosse coach at Hempstead High School in 1989. For example, I held my first lacrosse practices before school to make sure my players attended their first period classes and I had dress code on the field to insure we looked uniform. Before you jump on my case, this was the late 80s and the Hip Hop dress culture had some of my players looking straight up ghetto with shorts and sweat paints hanging off their but etc. I tried to instill discipline in a new program but I tried to make too many changes too soon and some that frankly were not necessary. The seniors rebelled and I threw them off the team—these were guys who went on to play division 1 football and basketball the next year; one of them, Lamont Hugh, is the current lacrosse coach at Hempstead High School. I would love to see how Lamont his doing as the coach. Lamont had to be one of the quickest guys I’ve seen (including SU athletes). His senior year he earned the Long Island Player of the year award, parade All American as a quarterback and he had several division one football and basketball offers. As hard as it was to do, I kicked him and several others off my team which meant I was going to have tough road to hoe ahead. I regret how ran the team, but not kicking off superstar athletes who frankly didn’t care. As a coach you are hurting your best players when you play favorites with them. Just hold them accountable for their actions and bench them in big games even if it means losing that game. In the long wrong you will do more to help that player become a better person and you will establish a representation for fairness that help your program down the line. I was 27 years old in 1989 and I had a lot of lacrosse knowledge to share with my Hempstead Tiger team. The problem was I lacked the wisdom to apply the knowledge in a way that my players would have responded and matured into student athletes.

Navy's Syd Abernethy Part 4

In high school I indentified with attackman like Mike O’Neil and, after a 1981 Army Navy NCAA lacrosse playoff game, Syd Abernethy. I also idolized Army’s great defensemen Bob Henry who covered Syd that game; Abernethy scored four goals on Henry to advance the midshipmen to semi-finals. Henry would go on to earn first team All-American that year and defensemen of the year honors; Abernethy earned first team All American honors too becoming the second African American to do so at the division 1 level since Jim Brown in 1957. Seeing Syd play that day made a big impression on me; it said to me that this was my game too as an African American. “In those days, lacrosse was still an exotic game and I saw very few blacks playing or black youth in the stands or after games asking for my autograph,” recalls Abernethy. I clearly remember that game in May of 1981 and the impact of seeing Syd play off the hook that day did a tremendous amount for my psyche as young black kid playing a white dominated sport. Navy would go on to lose to a tough Carolina team in Carolina in the semi-finals.

Syd Abernathy: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=syd

Guest Blogger Navy Coach Rick Sowell Part1: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/2010/04/rick-sowell-on-how-he-started-playiing.html

Navy Head Coach Rick Sowell on How to “Really Play Part 2:  http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/2010/04/rick-sowell-learning-how-to-really-play.html?spref=tw

Navy Coach Rick Sowell: http://www.navysports.com/sports/m-lacros/mtt/sowell_rick00.html

Wining Coach Sowell’s Way: http://www.americanathletemag.com/ArticleView/tabid/156/ArticleID/142/Winning-Beyond-the-Game.aspx

Interview with Coach Sowell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XimZNwcXWcg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqphHerSL8I

Interview with Coach Paul Wehrum Part 3

Coach Wehrum encourages his players. Herk vs ArmyB team, at West Point circa1982. 

I an interview with my Junior College (Herkimer County Community College) Coach Paul Wehrum. A native of Roosevelt, New York, his resume includes All American honors as a attackman at Cortland State and as a coach, US Team Assistant Coach in 1998, National Hall of Fame, three undefeated seasons, 15 consecutive regional championships, and 7 National Championships. I asked about his reflections on my career and how would fair if I were a prospective player today.

Thinking about young players that read my blog, for example my son who is ten loves lacrosse, and wants to get better. How do you account for the success I've had in lacrosse as one of your former players?

You came to Herkimer with a passion for Lacrosse and you had great stick skills. I think you were a very very talented young man and you worked very very hard at your stick skills.”

Did you predict my success or did it surprise you?

I did not predict you success because early on you had allot of physical limitations, you were pigeon toed, [and had foot and knee surgery] and you shocked me with what you did after Herkimer at Syracuse as a player like what happened in that Hopkins game at Brown. You found a real joy in playing. You did not feel restricted by me or by Coach Simmons. But if you had gone to different kind of program that did not give you that freedom, you could have had a very different playing career.

Coaches' Give and Take and Their Players

My coaching and teaching style as a college prof is similar—high expectation, tough love, and a willingness to help when someone wants help. But I don’t stomach laziness from me others. As the defensive coordinator I would have weekly meetings and rank my players at the meeting telling them their rank and why. It was my way of taking the guessing out of evaluation of a player. My players said they appreciated my honesty even when they disagreed with me. A couple of players I want to comment on. First John Colucci, John was about 5’ 7” sophomore who never played much before I arrived on the scene. But I saw something in him that I liked—John was tough as nails, had a great work ethic, superb field sense, and smooth stick skills. It took a bit but I persuaded Coach Hank Janzyck (Coach J as I called him) to give john a shot as a starter. Throughout my coaching tenor a G-burg coach J had to convince me that I player had more talent and ability than I could see too, it’s just how things go and the benefit of having a head coach who is humble enough to learn from his assistants and vice versa. With some convincing I got coach to agree that John should be getting more playing time and he did is junior year breaking into the starting lineup and never losing his place thereafter. John went on to have a great career at G-burg and his play made me look like a genius as he stymied his attackman, defended fast break with grace, and delivered bone crushing hits on a regular basis that fired up our team and sent opponents hobbling off the field. More importantly John led by example and he was an excellent example to our younger players both on and off the field.