Mike Sisselberger Not Ready to Give Himself an 'A' Grade Just Yet

Mike Sisselberger remembers his report card from his first semester of middle school. He remembers looking at his grade for English class and seeing the letter “I.” It stood for “Incomplete.” it didn’t hurt his GPA, but there was more work to do to complete his tasks and be properly evaluated.

Fast forward nearly a decade later, and even though his team sits in first place in the Premier Lacrosse League standings, and he was selected as a starter for the All-Star Game, Sisselberger would give himself the same incomplete grade for the first semester of his rookie season in the pros.

“You put hard work in,” he said, “but at the end of the day, work still has to be done because we're barely even halfway through this season.”

The Archers made the semifinals twice in the first four years of the PLL’s existence, but the team has struggled with faceoffs, having never finished higher than fifth in faceoff winning percentage. In 2022, the team finished last. They reached the semifinals and lost to the Chaos 9-7. They won just 7 of 20 faceoffs against Max Adler.

Add in that Archers’ 2022 third-round draft pick Justin Inacio tore his ACL, meniscus, and MCL in the fall, requiring surgery in late November, and head coach Chris Bates wanted to solidify the position in the college draft.

There were multiple pro-level prospects at the position, and five were drafted in total, but Sisselberger was believed to be the top option. Bates selected the Lehigh product with the team’s first-round pick, fifth overall, ahead of field players Tucker Dordevic, Will Bowen and Matt Campbell — all of whom were also selected to the 2023 All-Star Game.

It’s possible Sisselberger still would have been available with the Archers’ pick in the second round. The Redwoods (TD Ierlan), Chrome (Connor Farrell) and Atlas (Trevor Baptiste) had their faceoff athletes locked in, while the Chaos (Adler) and Waterdogs (Jake Withers) also liked their starters and didn’t make the position a top priority. The Cannons only had two picks in the entire draft and several needs, so it was a long shot they would go after a faceoff athlete. That left only the Whipsnakes, whose starter, Joe Nardella, was also injured and possibly out for the season. Bates did not want to take any chances.

“We knew those guys going right behind Sis, those dudes are real-deal dudes. They’re gonna be good in the league for a while,” he said. “But for us, you look at your own roster, and we felt really good with where we were in terms of balance and position and depth. Faceoff, clearly, was an area we felt like we could potentially upgrade the most. We felt like Sis was the guy and the difference maker, and we weren’t willing to not get him.”

While Sisselberger impressed with his play in training camp, he also impressed the Archers coaches and players off the field.

When the Archers trimmed their roster from 30 to 25, the players and staff went to a team dinner in a back room at an Italian restaurant in Albany. Bates arranged the seats into a big U; he wanted everybody to be able to see everyone else and not have anyone closed off in booths or with their backs turned at tables. As the players trickled in, Bates tapped his glass with his knife, alerting them of a brief toast to wish them a great season. He asked if anyone wanted to say a few words and Sisselberger responded.

“[He] just says, ‘Coach, if you don't mind, and you guys don't mind, I'll say a blessing,’” Bates said. “He did it, and he killed it.”

“Faith, for me, is something that's just been a part of me my whole life. I have a strong belief in Jesus Christ, so that's kind of the main thing for me,” Sisselberger said. “Whether you believe in God or not, everyone loves that little edge that you get that someone's watching over you, and it's good for me that I can share that with them. At the end of the day, everything I do kind of revolves around my faith.”

Sisselberger has led the team in a prayer before every Archers game since then.

Jared Conners, who plays on the wing, said that moment sticks out when he thinks about Sisselberger. He said being comfortable enough to stand in front of his team as a rookie and speak out and to trust that his teammates wouldn’t judge him showed a lot of confidence, something he thinks Sisselberger takes on the field with him.

“His ability to take calculated risks but also not be afraid of making mistakes, I think that's really tough for a rookie to do, and being a guy that had a rookie season a couple years ago, you want to have the best first impression,” he said. “I admire the way he's been able to be authentically himself and just play with confidence and not worry about judgment or anything. I think it translates to how strong his performance on the field is.”

Confidence, however, is something that Sisselberger grapples with. It stems back to his childhood. He remembers being overweight and cut from multiple sports teams, including his hometown lacrosse team. He was embarrassed in front of his friends and thought lacrosse wasn’t for him. An opposing coach, however, saw something and encouraged him to face off knowing that he also loved wrestling.

Despite the success he’s enjoyed over his career, he said the position, especially at the pro level, makes confidence a delicate balance. As a specialist, he said the position is often seen as a deciding factor, and people will either praise you at the end of a game or blame you. There are only eight starting faceoff jobs in the league — six if you count the two teams that haven’t dressed faceoff athletes in recent weeks as part of a strategy with the new rule that teams that win the faceoff play with a 32-second shot clock as opposed to the 52-second shot clock.

It's why even though he struggled with English in school — “I couldn’t punctuate for [anything]” — his dream is to write a book about mental health in sports.

“I'm very open with myself, and I know when I have a problem, so I've seen therapists, talking about mental health and how pressure comes from sports and how it's actually detrimental,” he said. “Sports are supposed to be fun. At a young age, there's so much pressure these days with getting recruited, and, ‘Am I good at this? Am I good at that?’ Defining yourself in sports is something that I feel like is one of the biggest problems.”

Sisselberger said he maintains his mental health by taking a deep breath and reminding himself why he plays in the first place. He said lacrosse was never his way to achieve fame or glory or gaudy statistics. He played because he found something he was interested in. But he’s always been a competitor.

Sisselberger plays every game with a chip on his shoulder, and that chip is bigger in some high-profile matchups. The week before the All-Star Game, the Archers played the Redwoods. It was a contest between teams with 3-1 records playing for a spot at the top of the standings. It was also a matchup at the faceoff position between Sisselberger and the most recent faceoff athlete to be drafted in the first round: Ierlan.

Both players were involved in the tryout process for the U.S. national team roster roster for the recent 2023 World Lacrosse Championship. While Sisselberger felt he played well, he did not earn a spot on the roster. The team took two faceoff athletes: Baptiste and Ierlan.

When the two matched up during the PLL season, however, it was Sisselberger and the Archers who came out on top. The rookie won 10 of 15 faceoffs and picked up two more ground balls than the third-year pro while the Archers picked up a lopsided 10-3 victory.

“I'm honestly starting to get worried because I feel like he's winning so many and winning them so clean that it's like making my job almost useless,” Conners said. “Even when he's going against the best in the world like he did this past weekend, at worst, he's making it a scrap.”

The idea of going up against the best is partially another reason Sisselberger gives himself an incomplete grade. He has yet to match up against the Atlas and Baptiste, the 2022 PLL MVP, though. The two players and their respective teams meet the weekend after the All-Star Game, and everyone is looking forward to a matchup between two of the best at the position.

“Nardella isn't in the league this year, obviously, with an injury. TD and Connor have been pretty good, but Trevor is the standard bearer,” Bates said. “Trevor has an impact on the game. I think it's natural anytime you're an up-and-comer, you want to take your shots against the best, and I'm sure this will be the first of many battles.”

Sisselberger idolized Baptiste growing up. He believes Baptiste “paved the way” for faceoff athletes to be confident they can have an impact on the game.

He received much-needed advice from Archers and U.S. captain Tom Schreiber about how to handle the matchup.

“He's like, ‘Look, you have to be able to perform and not get caught up in emotion of someone you've looked up to your whole life, and now, you have to go out and play against them,’” he said. “’It’s a job at the end of the day, and just because you looked up to them, just because you think they're great, it's not going to change anything in the game. You have to go out there and you have to play your game no matter how starstruck you are, and if you don't, that's a detriment to the team.’

“I think something that I look back on is if I didn't belong in the league, and I didn't belong as a starter on the Archers, then I would not be one. But with the time and effort that I put in it, I deserve to be on the field with some of the best, and hopefully, one day, I’m in contention to be in the same sentence or question as Trevor.”

It’s support like that from his teammates that has helped Sisselberger in his rookie season. They’ve welcomed him with open arms. They’ve not only respected his faith but allowed him to share it with the team. Conners said even if teammates aren’t religious, they respect that he is doing something he believes will help the team. They embrace what Bates and Conners said was a quirky, social and fun-loving personality.

They are a big reason why Sisselberger is having so much fun and confident he can turn his self-given “Incomplete” into an “A” by the end of the season.