Paul Day, a longtime professional indoor lacrosse coach and executive, has been named head coach and general manager of the National Lacrosse League’s Philadelphia Wings, the team announced Friday on Twitter.
#BREAKINGNEWS The city of brotherly love is happy to welcome @coachpaulday as our official Head Coach and General Manager!! @NLLwings @CoachPaulDay pic.twitter.com/iYwOjtEERu
— Philadelphia Wings (@NLLwings) January 19, 2018
Day, currently an assistant coach with the Rochester Knighthawks, is in his 21st season behind the bench. He was a Knighthawks assistant from 1995-1997 and head coach from 1998-2005 — earning NLL Coach of the Year honors in 2003 — before starting an expansion team as head coach and general manager of the Edmonton Rush from 2006-2008. He was replaced midway through the 2008 season and returned to Rochester as an assistant coach in 2011.
Although the announcement came Friday, Day had been working behind the scenes with the team to develop a plan for the future.
“It’s really nice to not hide anymore,” he joked.
Day, also the general manager of the Peterborough Lakers of Major Series Lacrosse, was a decorated 27-year police officer in Ontario, He retired from the police force in August, and was speaking with the Wings organization within days. He will again lead an expansion franchise in the Wings starting in 2018-19. Comcast Spectacor purchased the rights for an NLL team in Philadelphia for a reported franchise fee of $5 million. A team named the Philadelphia Wings operated from 1987-2014 before moving to New England and being rebranded as the Black Wolves.
As a child, Day rode his bike to the library to “watch 8-millimeter movies on a projector of old Philadelphia indoor lacrosse,” according to the team. He also got experience watching his friend, Kerry Huffman, play for the Philadelphia Flyers at the Spectrum. He said the background with Philadelphia and the Wings organization led him to accepting the job.
“The history of the franchise is really important to me,” Day said. “This was the best organization in the NLL for a while, and it’s so important the work that we do here to get them back to where they were. We’d like them to be the flagship of the NLL.”
Day is 82-69 as an NLL head coach. He has been on the coaching staff of four NLL Champion’s Cup-winning teams in Rochester (1997, 2012, 2013 and 2014) and also was an assistant coach on Canada’s world indoor championship team in 2015.
Day will be one of several box lacrosse speakers featured at this weekend’s US Lacrosse Convention in Baltimore, presenting drills for development alongside Georgia Swarm head coach Eddie Comeau on Saturday.