Behind the Whistle: A Guest in the Game

This story initially appeared on Behind the Whistle, the official blog of the IWLCA, and is being republished with permission from the organization. Eric Clakeley is the head coach at Presbyterian College.

I sat down to write this blog after celebrating my youngest daughter’s second birthday yesterday. Our sweet girl Eliza was welcomed into the world on the last weekend of March with both her parents with her, her older sister waiting eagerly at home and the Presbyterian women’s lacrosse team playing on the computer. Reflecting on that made me think how incredibly fortunate I am to be a guest in this game.

Growing up undersized with an obsession with sports, I decided at a pretty young age that I wanted to coach, and being from Western Pennsylvania, I figured it would be football. Around the same time, I was introduced to boys’ lacrosse. I was never the best player and would give anything to go back, work harder and practice more, but I digress. It still would have never occurred to me that I would have any involvement in the women’s game. That all changed when I encountered the first female women’s lacrosse coach that changed my life, former Bucknell head coach Heather Lewis.

Heather, in her new role as a high school athletic director, hired me with one year of boys’ coaching experience to coach her girls’ junior varsity team and assist former Slippery Rock women’s lacrosse athlete Katie Conn (nee Smolter). Katie had the pleasure of not only being responsible for 40 high school students but also having to teach her new male assistant everything she could about the sport. In my first game as the JV coach, I called a possession timeout to substitute — imagine my surprise when they all dropped their sticks and had to return to that location. It was definitely a learning process. I spent four years with Katie, and bless her, because it couldn’t have been easy!

Then came the time to enter the real world and find a coaching job I could do full time. That is when current Culver Stockton head coach Caitlin Erickson hired me to be her graduate assistant at former NAIA school Lindenwood Belleville. It was the opportunity to get my foot in the door of college athletics and position myself to continue to work in the sport.

Following the spring season, Ali Fisher was the next women’s lacrosse coach to change the course of mine and my family’s lives by hiring me to be her second assistant at Lafayette College. Outside of individuals who share my last name, no one has taught me more and been a larger influence on my life than my role model, Ali. She currently has the thankless, payless and I’m sure frustrating job of being my volunteer ombudsman and analyst from five states away. She also introduced me to the most talented coach and best human I know, current Rutgers assistant coach Ana White. While she, I’m sure, is loving the Big 10, I cannot imagine it compares to sharing an office with me and my 50 empty coffee cups.

There are so many more women who have influenced me, including Kelly Nangle (Liberty), whose knowledge and conviction to leadership, culture and team building is astounding and enviable; Jessie Aguglia (Wofford), whom I vent to and seek advice from every day; and KerriAnn Quiles, who has the pleasure of not only being my assistant, but one of my wife’s best friends (I can tell you one of those is more enjoyable than the other!).

The point is, as we wrap up this Women’s History Month, and I reflect on the past years and look into the future for my daughters, I recognize how blessed I am to be a guest in this game, and more importantly how blessed they are for that. They will never lack role models, from their mother to the athletes on my team, and the many incredible women in this sport. Thank you to coaches of the IWLCA for being who you are, and remember as we head through the craziness of the season, that you change lives every day.