Before a recent MCLA match between Cal and UC Santa Barbara, the two coaches, Ned Webster and Mike Allan met at midfield. When they started talking about their similarly aged kids, Allan recommended a children’s book to Webster called “Princesses Wear Pants,” a book about empowering young girls. He caught himself for a moment. 

“It was funny to be talking about a children’s book about princesses when we were on the field,” Allan said.

The context can be explained by the past four decades. 

Cal’s Webster and UCSB’s Allan have been friends since they were 5 years old, but lacrosse has intertwined their lives well beyond friendship. Webster and Allan were elementary school teammates in the 1980s, played each other in both high school and college through the 1990s and coached against each other both professionally in 2000s and now collegiately. 

That process has spanned 41 years, beginning as teammates at the Towsontowne Recreation League in Baltimore and continuing as coaches across the country in California. 

“I don’t think either of us could have dreamed of these West Coast lacrosse scenarios for ourselves,” Allan said.

Lacrosse came naturally for Allan and Webster, growing up near Johns Hopkins and watching their fathers, who both played.

“I was one of those kids that had a stick in his hand before he could walk, and I’m pretty sure Mike was the same way,” Webster said.

After playing on the same team as kids, the two split up. They went to local rival high schools. Allan then played collegiately for Princeton, while Webster went to Notre Dame. They didn’t talk much after high school and only played against each other in college once as freshmen.

But college was where Allan and Webster both realized they could have futures in coaching. Allan — stuck as the fourth option behind the All-American trio of Jon Hess, Jesse Hubbard and Chris Massey — didn’t get much playing time at Princeton. And Webster missed the last two years at Notre Dame after tearing his ACL. 

What they each soaked up observing from the sidelines helped transition them into coaching.

“It was sort of a humbling experience,” Allan said. “But also just to be a part of that program at Princeton at that time, just the stuff that I learned from those guys was just incredibly valuable as I started thinking about being a coach.”

Allan moved to California the fall after graduation to coach at UCLA, while Webster — admittedly bitter from injuries impacting his career — moved around a bit before settling into the Bay Area in 2006, coaching at Dominican University. 

“It was hard on the sidelines, for sure,” Webster said. “I think it made me much more analytical about the game.”

After the separate moves to California, their lives once again were connected by lacrosse. They also coached at now-defunct rival Major League Lacrosse teams in the mid-2000s: Allan for the Los Angeles Riptide and Webster for the San Francisco Dragons. At the college level, they began to face each other when Webster took the Cal job in 2014 and Allan had moved to UC Santa Barbara.

Now, they’re both part of the movement to grow the game of lacrosse on the West Coast, which has burgeoned in the decades since they first came to California.

“Once we both were on the West Coast, it was kind of funny,” Webster said. “When you grow up in Baltimore in the heart of lacrosse and then you move West, everything is just newer and fresher. It’s a little more exciting to help grow the game.”

Their coaching styles are similar. Both played for “fiery coaches in college who were intense on the field but personable away from the field,” according to Allan. Webster joked that referees might be surprised to learn that they’re both pretty mild-mannered away from the field.

“For a couple hours during game time, we might lose it a bit,” Allan said. “Those two hours we just kind of want to beat each other, and then after that, we just want to help each other out.”

The coincidental parallels run into their personal lives as well. Both of their wives are eight years younger than them. They both have two kids who are similar in age. Webster’s brother, Jim, was Allan’s 10th grade math teacher. And Webster and his wife had their honeymoon in Santa Barbara, where Allan now coaches.

Now, when the two coach against each other — most recently on Feb. 5 when Cal beat UC Santa Barbara 16-14 in Berkeley — they meet at midfield beforehand and talk X’s and O’s, but they also mention the “dad stuff.”

“His 2-year-old is waking up in the middle of the night,” Allan said. “We’re still potty training a little bit, so it’s funny to talk about those things in the pregame chat.”

Both Webster and Allan called those midfield meetings “special.” 

“It’s not often you get to share that type of experience with someone you’ve known since you were 5 years old,” Webster said. “In a weird way, it makes us feel young again.”

For Allan, what hits home is when other people realize that the childhood lacrosse friends from Maryland have ended up across the country, coaching against each other in California. 

“It’s funny when you think about the role that lacrosse plays in your life in general,” Allan said. “I shake my head sometimes that I live in Santa Barbara, California, and I coach lacrosse. How in the world did I end up in this spot?”