You don’t often find team-defining moments in a 19-2 blowout.

But as the U.S. sputtered early in its FIL World Championship preliminary July 17 against England — the fourth game in four days during its redemptive journey to a gold medal in Israel earlier this summer — a sideline exchange between offensive coordinator Seth Tierney and co-captain Matt Danowski perfectly captured the interpersonal dynamics that made this team so successful.

Danowski had just turned the ball over attempting a difficult pass across his body as his momentum carried him down the right alley. Angry with himself, he shouted an expletive as he exited the field through the substitution box.

The pressure of playing for Team USA, with its 66-4 all-time record and now nine world titles, often comes with the unrealistic expectation of perfection.

“All these guys are alpha males,” said U.S. head coach John Danowski, Matt’s father.

“They’re all thoroughbreds and they put tremendous pressure on themselves to be successful.”

Sensing the mounting frustration on the sideline, Tierney, who might have teed off on one of his Hofstra players for such carelessness, instead approached the younger Danowski with a fake sense of rage and gave him a purple nurple, playfully twisting his nipples through his jersey like a schoolyard prank.

The 33-year-old Danowski was equal parts bemused and amused.

“I needed Matt Danowski to smile,” Tierney said. “Something needed to happen that he would just exhale and smile.”

On his next shift, Danowski fed Drew Snider for a goal, the first of three assists in a 13-minute stretch as Team USA built a more comfortable lead en route to the victory.

“It had nothing to do with anything except a relationship,” said Tierney, who has known the younger Danowski since he was in grade school, having served as his father’s assistant coach for several years at Hofstra. “He allowed me to do it, and all he did was smile and laugh. He stopped thinking about the last play and started thinking about the next play.”

While John Danowski, the three-time NCAA championship-winning coach at Duke, has developed a reputation as lacrosse’s Zen master, he wasn’t the only one pushing all the right buttons in Israel. Assistant coaches Joe Amplo, Tony Resch and Tierney, as well as assistant general manager Ben DeLuca, shared in that accomplishment.

Amplo, Tierney and DeLuca all had previous ties to Danowski. Amplo, now the head coach at Marquette, played for him at Hofstra and started his coaching career as an assistant there. Tierney was an assistant at Hofstra from 1995-2000 and returned to Hempstead in 2006 when Danowski took the Duke job. DeLuca, who was at a crossroads in his career after an abrupt dismissal at Cornell amid a team hazing investigation in 2013, volunteered for two seasons at Duke. He’s now the head coach at Delaware.

Resch, also an assistant coach on the gold medal-winning 2010 U.S. team, was the “fifth wheel,” he said, but the accomplished NLL and MLL coach embraced the opportunity to become “a graft of the coaching tree.”

On the morning of July 19, several hours before Team USA’s semifinal game against Australia, US Lacrosse Magazine editor in chief Matt DaSilva corralled the coaches for a 40-minute roundtable in the team meeting room at the Shefayim kibbutz to learn more about their history together and their shared approach to teambuilding.

DaSilva: I’d like this to be a conversation and let you guys speak freely.

Tierney: Be careful what you wish for.

DaSilva: Let’s start with the big guy. How did this staff come together? Why this group?

Danowski: All the guys who applied for the [assistant] position — the first thing was it was going to have to be fun. This is a volunteer effort. When I interviewed and then was offered the [head coach] position, I looked at the calendar, and there were going to be seven opportunities for us to be together. Seven weekends over two-and-a-half years. I wanted to spend it with people that I knew their lacrosse knowledge and coaching styles, but No. 1, it was just going to be fun first. Because if it wasn’t going to be fun, then it would be a drag. It would be noticeable. It would be stiff, and it would be uncomfortable. I wanted it to be fun first. I wanted it to be comfortable. I wanted guys where you could say anything to anybody at any time.

DaSilva: Was there an egoless component to choosing a coaching staff as much as it was choosing the roster?

Danowski: The whole thing was going to be built on character, and it was going to be built on guys who thought the same way. I was not going to be able to convince anybody of how I felt. I was going to have to trust people implicitly.

DaSilva: Why does this dynamic work?

Amplo: We’re friends first. The times we’re spending together that don’t involve lacrosse have been the most enjoyable moments for us. And that makes the lacrosse experience that much better.

PHOTO BY ADAM SCOTT

DaSilva: How would you characterize each other and what each brings to the table?

Resch: I was literally and figuratively the fifth wheel to the group, because they are all from Coach Danowski’s coaching tree. I think I asked John a couple of times in so many words, “Why me?” In 2006, when the U.S. lost, it was all college [coaches]. Then I was on the staff in 2010. And then they went all college again [in 2014]. I didn’t know if I was, for lack of a better term, forced into the group. You could tell they were speaking the same language. You could see so clearly how much they enjoyed each other’s presence, both X-ing and O-ing and film, as well as just getting lunch in the cafeteria. But their willingness right from the get-go to get me into the loop was very easy. I’m not a gardener, but I guess I feel I’m a little bit more of a graft of the coaching tree. I feel like I’m a part of it now.

Danowski: One of the reasons, when you ask why it works, is everybody’s being asked to be themselves. [Three-time U.S. midfielder] Ned Crotty said he thinks it trickles down to the players, that they’re able to be authentic, relaxed and confident. They can be themselves. Tony was the perfect fit because he brought this indoor experience, playing on the U.S. team, getting cut from the U.S. team, coaching on the U.S. team, being a two-sport guy, which we love — and he was a teacher. We consider ourselves teachers first.

Resch: I’d be the first to admit Joe’s done all the heavy lifting on the defensive end. That was different for me. I was kind of that guy in 2010. But it’s another reinforcement of the fact that no matter how old you are or how long you’ve been around, you can always learn.

Tierney: I don’t think anybody is an assistant coach in this circle. I think that we’re all assistant head coaches.

DaSilva: Well, there are a lot of coaches among the players too — a lot of lacrosse minds.

Amplo: And I hope they see that all of us are willing to accept any role and do any of the little things necessary. Ben will sweat his ass off warming the goalies up and then go stand and run the back of the box and not be in the front, but do everything we ask. I walk in for every meeting, and Seth’s got a broom, sweeping out the meeting room. And Tony’s always the last one off the bus carrying all the medical equipment. All of us so desperately want this experience to end the right way because of the friendships that we have and have formed.

DaSilva: Not to make this about the “Turnpike Guys,” but John, what was your impression of Joe and Seth when you first got to know them? Did you know they would be successful as head coaches? Would you have envisioned this many years later that you would be on the U.S. national team coaching staff together?

Danowski: The “Turnpike” concept was born out of that we weren’t the bluebloods of lacrosse. But we’ll scrap with you. Joe is a great example of that. At Marquette, they still don’t have a locker room. Six seasons without a locker room. But you’ve still got to compete every Saturday. Those are the lessons that you learn. You don’t need wooden lockers to compete in a lacrosse game. You don’t need chartered airplane trips. You just need a bunch of guys who love each other and love playing the game. Seth was the same way. Seth was built on running a business when I met him. You do everything. You learn from top to bottom. You’ve got to order supplies, you’ve got to manage personnel, you’ve got customer relations—there’s 25 facets of things that you do when you’re the boss because the bottom line falls on you. People are going to respond to you.

DaSilva: What business was that, Seth?

Tierney: At the time, it was a bar and restaurant business. Coach Danowski had come into a place called The Crease. It was a lacrosse-themed restaurant. Joe actually worked there for some time. Coach came in there for an engagement party. He had a position as a volunteer coach. That’s the way it happened. There were going to be practices at 6 o’clock in the morning, and the bar closed at 4 o’clock. You slept in your car for 45 minutes and you went through practice. Then you went to the diner. That was my first introduction to coaching. Our first game together was against Brown, and the [Hofstra] athletic director was Jim Garvey at the time. He was standing there, and he always used to wear these colorful pants on the sidelines. David Evans was throwing a couple balls in the goal, because he could shoot it. I don’t if it’s DNA or if it’s just my personality, but as the volunteer, it only took one or two bad calls, and now I’m yelling and screaming at the ref like it’s my job. I forgot that I should just shut my mouth and learn how to handle myself. And Coach Danowski, we got into the shower later on and he goes, “I don’t think we’re going to get the sportsmanship award.”

DaSilva: And you were hooked on game day from there?

Amplo: And he hasn’t stopped.

Tierney: I haven’t stopped. I guess it was an adrenaline rush. It was a way to compete after not playing anymore.

DaSilva: How would you characterize each other as coaches?

Resch: I can’t imagine how much time I’ve sat just watching the back and forth. They know how to bust chops. Seth should probably take his show on the road.

Amplo: He’s the wittiest.

Resch: It’s just an enjoyable group, just to watch them. Every meal, every car ride, you laugh. That’s going to be my clearest memory — the laughing, along with the lacrosse.

Amplo: For me, having Ben and Tony with me coaching the defense, it’s a challenge. You’ve got a Division I head coach [in DeLuca] who’s got a ton of experience. You’ve got Tony, who’s been around the lacrosse world and had the success he’s had. Those are the first two clearinghouses I have to get through. I can fool the kids probably 50 percent of the time. But getting my thoughts through to them is a challenge that I’ve enjoyed. It’s made me a better coach. I have to think about how I speak to the group, because I know that I have two expert eyes on me all the time.

DaSilva: What about this experience has surprised you? How does it compare to your expectations?

Amplo: I’ve been pleasantly surprised that through all the experiences that Coach Danowski has had, he’s still the same guy that was on Hempstead Turnpike in 1996. The [stuff] he says to these guys and the way he treats his staff, his philosophies on coaching, his outlook on life — he’s still the same person. That’s shown me, don’t ever take yourself too seriously. Be who you are. When he says, “Be who you are,” I can speak from being a freshman in college and working for him. And then watching him from the periphery have all the success and be at the top of the sport — I mean, he couldn’t even walk to the port-a-potty last night without people stopping him. Twenty years ago, he could walk to the port-a-potty, say, “I’m John Danowski,” and no one would give a [damn]. Now people look at him like he’s a superstar. But he’s still the same person he was when he was coaching us 20 years ago. That to me is the most pleasant surprise of this whole thing. I’ll take that away as I continue my career and look beyond this.

PHOTO BY MIKE WALLIN

DaSilva: There is a theme of Coach Danowski giving everyone a shot here. Joe, even you as a player, you were not recruited.

Amplo: I basically begged him to let my parents pay tuition.

DaSilva: And Seth, you were in the family business when you got your coaching opportunity. Ben, I know you were at a crossroads in your coaching career. I imagine there’s a certain degree of gratitude you guys have for each of those opportunities.

Amplo: And loyalty.

Tierney: For every guy that Coach Danowski coached or coached with, you hope at the end of our careers that we have close to the same feeling of all the people that he’s touched. I don’t want to make this a Hallmark commercial, but he’s done some really good stuff.

DaSilva: John, how important is your teaching background to you?

Danowski: It’s just all I know. Being a guidance counselor and being a seventh-grade science teacher, that’s what I know. Coaching JV football and coaching middle school football and JV basketball one year — those are my experiences. I didn’t come out at 22 years old. I got a head job early, but I didn’t come out at 22 being a volunteer in college. It’s just what I know. And my family — my dad and my brother were coaches, so that was part of it too.

DaSilva: I get a sense from these [U.S. players] that they want to be taught. They’re professionals, but they still want to be taught. When you break out offense and defense and really get into the nitty-gritty, those guys, their eyes are wide open.

Amplo: Aside from what I said earlier about Coach Dino, that has been the most surprising and invigorating thing I’ve noticed. These guys are sponges, man. They want knowledge. You’ve got the best players in the world. You would expect going into this that they might have that know-it-all mentality. But they don’t. And to your point about [Danowski] being a teacher, that’s the first thing he told me when I got into coaching. “You are a teacher first. Your business card should say ‘educator.’ It should not say ‘coach.’” That’s how I’ve tried to build my coaching philosophy, to teach.

DeLuca: I believe we all feel that our roles are bigger than just winning lacrosse games. It’s not just about winning a world championship. It’s about building relationships and impacting young men in a positive way, and allowing them to impact us as well as professionals.

PHOTO BY ADAM SCOTT

DaSilva: What will you bring from this experience back to your full-time endeavors?

Danowski: For me, it’s what you believe in coaching and how to develop a team — can it work at the highest level? And I think it has. It’s not with the results, wins and losses, but it’s watching these guys interact. It’s watching them smiling. It’s watching them be consistent. Keep the game simple, teach it a certain way, and go play. We trust you. It’s a game.

DaSilva: Did the MLL All-Star Game have you doubting that at any point?

Danowski: Oh, I was miserable. I saw some things — guys arguing with the refs, jawing with the other team, not focused in the huddles — that I was really concerned about. I was really disappointed at my inability to get across to them what’s really important.

Amplo: You talk about building a team, and you worry going into an experience like this with all these alpha males, all these superstars, if your philosophies on teambuilding and relationships are going to manifest into something that can really resemble a good team. I would argue it has. I know what I’ll bring back is, just stick to what you believe in. No matter how high or low it gets, just stick to building your team and focusing on the relationships, and that will bring you to a spot that will help you reach whatever potential that group of human beings can reach.

Tierney: Sometimes your best coaching jobs don’t end up in rings or championships, and it has to do with that connection.

DeLuca: For me, it’s kind of what we’re asking our guys to do. It’s embodying that. This role for me is probably outside of my comfort zone, to be frank. I’m a coach, and technically in my role, I’m an assistant general manager, so I’m not allowed to coach on game days. I’ve had to find my way in that regard, and also just subjugate the ego of what I’m used to and what I’m capable of doing to, what does this team need of me? What does the staff need of me? And how can I do that to the best of my ability? When they asked me to run the box, I don’t think I’ve run the box in 15 years, but we’ll have the best box in the tournament. If you’re going to ask the guys to do everything they can to help the team be successful, you’ve got to be willing to do that yourself. You’ve got to walk the walk.