Why Not Dartmouth? Sean Kirwan Thinks He's Found the Right Fit

It’s hard to say when it really hit Sean Kirwan. Maybe it was a day after he was announced as Dartmouth’s new men’s lacrosse coach, when he was wearing a Big Green polo shirt at a recruiting event. Perhaps it was at a recruiting panel when he introduced himself as the head coach at Dartmouth College.

Another possibility: It’s still happening, every time the words “my program” tumble out of his mouth when he discusses the future of lacrosse in the Ivy League’s northern-most outpost.

“Couldn’t be more excited,” Kirwan said. “Everyone’s using the cliché with me [that I’m] drinking from the fire hose, and it’s absolutely that, but at the same time, I couldn’t be having more fun doing it. I’m enjoying every step of the way. I have a huge smile on my face 24/7, and I’m just so fired up to be a part of this thing and get to work.”

That Kirwan finds himself in charge of a Division I program a little more than a decade after concluding a solid Division III playing career at Tufts should come as no surprise. He’s coached on Memorial Day Weekend four times under Lars Tiffany and developed a reputation as a tactical wiz by his mid-20s.

An unknown quantity, he is not.

For Kirwan to make the leap at Dartmouth, a program 20 years removed from its sole NCAA tournament appearance … from afar, well, that was a bit more unexpected.

“I take it as a compliment — it’s a bit of a backhanded compliment — that so many people said, ‘There’s no way I thought he could get Sean Kirwan,’” Dartmouth athletic director Mike Harrity said. “Really, I think that’s coming from a place of the history and knowing Sean. I know Sean has turned down jobs before, and he’s turned down jobs because he was looking for that right fit.”

Fit is a funny thing, and it varies from person to person. For Kirwan, checking two specific boxes were prerequisites.

One was to find a high-end academic institution, not a startling aim considering Kirwan’s career stops. An Ivy League program fulfilled that criterion.

The other was to have a clear path for success, which might be the most fascinating part of the whole deal.

“There’s this overall alignment, from the president to the athletic director to myself, where we all know where this place can get, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to get there and I feel as supported as I ever could,” Kirwan said. “I was blown away by the vision they have for the school and for this program.”

THE HIRE OF KIRWAN — part of Tufts’ staff after his 2012 graduation, an assistant on Brown’s first Memorial Day Weekend team in a generation, the offensive coordinator on two national title teams at Virginia — would be considered a coup for just about any program with a job opening.

But at Dartmouth? Arguably the forgotten Ivy in men’s lacrosse? (Maybe even more forgotten than Columbia, which has played host to Ivy tournaments even though it doesn’t sponsor the sport. The Big Green has yet to qualify for the event.) It is a bold statement about how things could be on the verge of changing.

The history is, put bluntly, almost entirely forgettable. Dartmouth owns one NCAA tournament appearance, the result of earning the Ivy’s automatic bid in 2003. That stands as the Big Green’s lone share of an Ivy title since 1965. It has finished above .500 in Ivy play twice in the last 40 years, and its 3-1 mark when the pandemic zapped the 2020 season is Dartmouth’s lone overall winning record since 2006.

And yet Hanover is not home to a lacrosse coaching graveyard. B.J. O’Hara presided over three sub-.500 seasons in the late 1980s, went back to Hobart, won three Division III national titles with the Statesmen and eventually piloted four Major League Lacrosse champions. Rick Sowell left after the 2003 Ivy title and made stops at St. John’s, Stony Brook and Navy (and led the latter two to NCAA quarterfinal appearances).

Bill Wilson, who took over for Sowell, is now the coach at Air Force. Andy Towers led the Chaos to the 2021 Premier Lacrosse League title. And there have been some familiar names pass through as assistants, notably Tiffany and current High Point coach Jon Torpey.

At the very minimum, there is some inertia to contend with. But there may never have been a better time to fight it, and not just because Dartmouth is a year removed from being the only Ivy team sitting at home for the postseason when the league produced a six-team NCAA tournament contingent.

Kirwan was hired this month. President Sian Leah Beilock began her tenure June 12. Harrity, whose background includes time as a lacrosse sport supervisor at Notre Dame and Army, started at Dartmouth in July 2022.

Kirwan spoke extensively with Harrity during a whirlwind week, bringing about an hour’s worth of questions to almost every Zoom call or discussion he had with people at Dartmouth. Beilock called him in the middle of her move from Barnard College, where she had served as president.

“Every conversation I had, my excitement, my understanding of the road map started to get a lot clearer, and I started to realize they do want to change, they do want to close the gap on the rest of the Ivy League, they do want to do whatever it takes as far as support and resources to really set this program up for success,” Kirwan said. “I’m not one to say that I guarantee wins and things like that, but I really do feel we’re going to give ourselves a great opportunity to give ourselves that chance to have success.”

Some parts of the Big Green’s development in recent years are easier to see than others. Few in the sport would dispute former coach Brendan Callahan improved the program’s foundation, which is telling since Dartmouth went 2-40 in the Ivy League in that span. But there was real progress.

For starters, one of those victories came this season, when the Big Green picked off Harvard. The school also has the only standalone indoor practice facility in the Ivy League, a building that opened in April 2020.

When Harrity started his search for a new coach, he asked his facilities director which team accounted for the most swipe entries into the facility. Men’s lacrosse topped the list.

Every school has its quirks, and the biggest one at Dartmouth (which uses a quarter system as opposed to semesters) is sophomore summer. Domestic students are required to remain on campus the summer after their sophomore year, with most taking the ensuing winter quarter off to offset it (and no doubt avoid a few chilly months in the process).

That’s not an option for lacrosse players, who have traditionally pursued internships during the fall quarter. But Harrity said the Big Green’s players have — on their own — leaned on each other in recent years to stick closer to campus and be available to practice to ensure proper preparation and cohesion for the following season.

“Where I land on that philosophy is I don’t want to turn my nose to the uniqueness of Dartmouth,” Kirwan said. “I want to make sure I’m giving the guys the opportunity to have the Dartmouth College experience. That’s very important for me, as well as just having conversations and understanding this is an option and this is something cool we can offer that others can’t.”

KIRWAN SAID HIS DREAM was to be an offensive coordinator in the ACC. He got to do it by age 26.

And with Connor Shellenberger, Payton Cormier and Griffin Schutz back, he could have helped churn out another juggernaut in Charlottesville next spring.

But Tiffany saw a maturation and evolution in Kirwan over the last year or two toward greater collaboration, something which probably becomes more comfortable to do with experience and success.

“The brilliance of Sean Kirwan is he’s been able to take extremely talented lacrosse players and provide a regimentation, a structured offense that demands being compliant to it,” Tiffany said. “There’s freelance built in it, don’t get me wrong, but Gus Malzahn at Auburn would say, ‘Stand here,’ that’s one step over when you’re in the slot, and it makes a difference. Sean can be that meticulous.”

There is also some built-in knowledge of the Ivy League. Not necessarily personnel, but navigating a variety of added restrictions in place. Yes, the NCAA’s recruiting rules have changed since Kirwan left Brown for Virginia after the 2016 season. But there remains some hands-on experience.

One bit of it certainly appealed to Harrity. As part of the interview process, Kirwan presented a case study of Brown’s improvement in his two years with the Bears, who went from a mostly conventional team to an up-tempo dynamo led by Tewaaraton Award winner Dylan Molloy.

“There was a lot of similarity that Sean saw from afar,” Harrity said. “He’d watched a lot of film of us and was very familiar with the way we play, the men on our team, even back recruiting, he knew who they were as people and players. That was really compelling that he had been a part of a transformation within the league with all the same opportunities and dynamics that exist with the realities of an Ivy League institution.”

One of those realities is not surprising for institutions that reside in the elite academic echelon without the demands of a Power Five program: Athletics, school and outside interests tend to exist in greater balance.

But that can be something a coach outside the Ivy might underestimate, which further underscores the value of Kirwan’s time at Brown.

“We’ve seen the Ivies do fantastic with a limited schedule and restrictions that come from the Ivy League office,” Tiffany said. “But I do think it helps that you’ve been in the Ivy League to understand, ‘This guy’s really committed, but he also has passion for biology, for international relations and he’s going to jump on that committee and he’s not coming by tomorrow to do extra shooting.’ And that’s OK.”

It isn’t difficult to imagine what Kirwan’s ideal team will look like, given the potent offenses he’s helped field over the years. And all that time as a coordinator gave him time to think about his vision for his own program.

“He’s going to establish a really high standard of excellence,” Harrity said. “Why not Dartmouth? We can strive toward excellence here. I expect us to get better every day, every week, every month. I know we will with him as the leader, and I can’t wait to partner with him to absolutely elevate this program.”

And that process is already underway, with Kirwan scrambling to fill out a staff and getting on the road this summer. But eight months before his first game as a head coach, he’s already accomplished something remarkable.

He’s ensured that Dartmouth will be one of the most intriguing teams of the offseason — and, the Big Green undoubtedly hopes, well beyond that.

“I know this is not going to be easy,” Kirwan said. “It’s going to take a lot of work, but with everything we’ve spelled out, there is a path and there is a road map. It is getting clearer and clearer by the day. We know that that’s just the beginning of this thing. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of tough hours, some failure, hopefully some success we can rally around as well. But man am I excited for the challenge.”