Just over six years ago, RJ Kaminski was running the Sports Radio Club at Boys’ Latin School in Baltimore — an institution with a rich lacrosse history. He had not grown up a lacrosse player, but he knew the stars of the game.
Kaminski’s formal introduction to lacrosse came in 2012, when fellow Boys’ Latin student Tyler Steinhardt approached him about publicizing an event he had recently launched called Shootout for Soldiers — a 24-hour lacrosse game to help raise money for veterans around the country.
Kaminski was all in, eventually joining the Shootout for Soldiers team as its director of content and social media. It didn’t take long for him to fall in love with the sport.
“I realized right away how unique the lacrosse community was and how small and tight-knit it was,” he said. “What other sport brings the community together in Shootout for Soldiers fashion, raises a tremendous amount of money, and also fosters this incredible atmosphere where folks are coming to play the game they love and truly support a tremendous cause?”
Through Shootout for Soldiers, Kaminski was introduced to a lacrosse world happy to welcome him in. He met players and developed meaningful relationships while running the event’s social media accounts, and writing press releases and feature stories for the website.
Years later, Kaminski himself has become a fixture in that community — now serving as a host for The Lacrosse Network, a lacrosse media giant that has created a culture of its own within the game.
Kaminski began hosting a new show, “TLN Top 5,” last year and has risen to become the face of the media platform alongside co-founders Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry, who left the company to start a venture of their own.
“I’m in a position where I’m actively blogging and interacting with fans and doing exactly what Colin and Samir had done in building The Lacrosse Network up,” Kaminski said. “It’s been an incredible 10 months, meeting players and folks in the industry. This momentum is going to carry us onward and upward.”
Steinhardt, who worked alongside Kaminski with Shootout for Soldiers and later hired him at TLN while he was the general manager, said Kaminski’s upbeat attitude has helped him grow in his career and gain relationships with the lacrosse community.
“With RJ, it was a combination of two things,” said Steinhardt, now the manager of content for the Premier Lacrosse League. “One, he has this positive, infectious energy. When you’re around him, he’s always smiling. He’s never complaining or down. Number two is the hard work. He’s learned more skills than I can imagine. He literally did not edit videos before he came to TLN and now he edits his own videos for ‘TLN Top 5.’ Now he’ll be in the office until midnight almost every night of the week. He’s just someone that had the hunger for success that is unmatched and unrivaled.”
Through “TLN Top 5,” Kaminski has been able to tell some of lacrosse’s best stories and make friendships with names like Myles Jones and Kyle Harrison. He plans to do the same in 2019, as his own name becomes better known in lacrosse circles.