The National Lacrosse Hall of Fame will enshrine nine new inductees — Kevin Cassese, Leigh Buck Friedman, A.J. Haugen, Alex Kahoe, Phyllis Kilgour, David Morrow, Ryan Powell, Denise Wescott and Tami Worley Kirby — in a ceremony Sept. 29 at The Grand Lodge in Hunt Valley, Md. Tickets are available for purchase until Sept. 21.

Denise Wescott coached college women’s lacrosse for more than 30 years, but it was her ability to look beyond her own program that always set her apart. Whether serving on NCAA committees, being a leader in the national coaches association or volunteering internationally, Wescott always had the vision to see the larger lacrosse picture.

“How can we make lacrosse grow and how can we make lacrosse better? We have to take care of each other and be more global-thinking,” Westcott said. “It takes a village to do just about anything.”

That mindset, evidenced through a lifetime of dedication and service to the sport, has earned Wescott induction into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame as a truly great contributor.

 

During Westcott’s tenure as the head coach at Delaware in the 1990s, she began also coaching the German national team. Working around her college schedule, she would travel to Germany in the winter and summer to help the team prepare for the European Championships. Resources, including equipment, were scarce for the start-up program.

An overseas trip to Germany with her Delaware squad in one of those early years helped Wescott realize that everyone can make a difference, and that teaching moments extend beyond the field. The Blue Hens played a series of exhibition games to help support the growth of the sport.

“When we were getting ready to leave, the captains asked me if we could leave the ball bags. I said, ‘Sure,’” Wescott said. “Then they asked if they could leave their sticks. And the trainer emptied her med kit. I watched our team leave everything they could. It was an awesome moment.”

Wescott has conducted clinics in 18 countries around the globe and served on Federation of International Lacrosse’s (FIL) development committee. She notes that bringing lacrosse to new areas always starts with the basics.

“The first thing is you have to get enough players that want to play,” Wescott said. “And then you have to teach them how to umpire. We teach them how to fundraise, and how to set up a national governing body. Then we take some of the older players and shift them into leadership and coaching roles so that they can grow from the inside. We teach them how to teach.”

Wescott has always viewed teaching as a core component of coaching. Teaching fuels growth.

“It was always important to her that we understood the game,” said Liza Kelly, who played for Wescott at Delaware and now serves as the head coach at the University of Denver. “She wanted us to understand the ins and outs of the game and to understand why we were doing something on the field.”

“For me, coaching was about helping people to grow and teaching them to set high standards,” Wescott said. “Even as a college coach, it was about teaching life lessons on the field and helping players figure out who they are going to be.”

That influence likely came from both Wescott’s dad, who coached youth basketball, as well as her college coach at Maryland, Hall of Fame member Sue Tyler.

“I wanted to help people and I thought, ‘What can I do well enough to teach somebody?’ I knew early on that I wanted to coach,” Wescott said.

Westcott started as a three-sport athlete at Maryland, playing field hockey, basketball and lacrosse. But that lasted only a year. With too much seasonal overlap, Wescott eliminated basketball, but did play four years of both field hockey and lacrosse. Scholarships for women’s athletes were just starting to materialize, but that really was not her motivation.

“It was always about playing as well as you could and being as good as you could be,” Westcott said. “We played because we wanted to.”

Tyler’s mentorship helped Wescott get started in coaching. It began with camps, and eventually led to assistant coaching stops at Maryland, Penn State and Drew. After one season as an assistant at Drew, she was elevated to head coach in 1990. Following two years at Rutgers, she took charge of the Delaware program in 1993.

During this time, Wescott took more active leadership roles with the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA). Building the Delaware program, which captured three straight America East titles from 1997-1999, while also supporting the sport’s domestic and international growth, found her wearing many different hats at one time.

“As much as I worked internationally, I also realized we still needed to grow the sport in this country, in places like Florida, Texas, Arizona and California.” Westcott said. “I wanted to grow the sport here at home and have more opportunities for players. You never know who you are going to touch.”

“She’s a woman who doesn’t sit still,” Kelly said. “She has always been about the bigger picture. It’s astounding to realize how many people she has impacted.”