It’s a mild evening in West Hartford (Conn), and high above the turf at Conard High School, the lights are ready to race the waning sun as a group of youth lacrosse players play a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors — more affectionately known as the faceoff in the sport of lacrosse.
Two players from each West Hartford Youth Lacrosse League team, in each division, were chosen by their coaches to take part in a faceoff clinic with Major League Lacrosse faceoff specialist Max Adler for three weeks in May. It’s just one of several experiences that WHYLL offers its players during the spring season.
“We’re trying to increase opportunities for our players in an effort to help better develop and improve their skills at certain positions,” says Sam Smith, president of WHYLL. “We also want to give parents more for their money.”
“These types of opportunities really don’t come along that often,” says David Halpert, who has two kids in the West Hartford program. “I know the kids are really excited when they get on the field with a pro like Max.”
Adler isn’t your average pro. He is a top faceoff specialist specialist in MLL, coming off a championship with the Denver Outlaws, and has become one of the faces of the entire league.
“There are many great athletes out there, but few like Max who have both the desire and ability to work with kids this young,” says Tim Walsh, an assistant coach for his son Ben’s U12 team. “An interaction with a top professional like Max creates a spark in a young athlete that lasts beyond a 90-minute clinic.”
“He is really patient with us kids,” says 11-year old Ben Halpert, adding “he really shows us how to consider the different skills required to perform the faceoff role.”
That affect also resonated with first-year lacrosse player Will Keever, who plays in the U14 division, and who traded in the sound of the clichéd crack of the bat of America’s favorite pastime for the sounds of coaches hollering “mark up” or “middies off, middies off” in what is considered America’s oldest sport.
“In lacrosse, it truly is a team effort the whole time to be successful. In baseball, you could be sitting in your position just waiting for the ball to try and make a play,” Keever says. “In lacrosse, you always a have purpose or a play; Max didn’t just show us how to do something; he showed us how to handle losing a faceoff. [Max] would not only have an answer, but he would demonstrate it right away and show us drills we could use to get better.”
“I love working with these kids and teaching them the intricacies of the position,” says Adler, who also calls West Hartford home. “West Hartford is beautiful. I actually signed my lease without coming here, I got the last apartment in my building. I just love it here, and I couldn’t have been more fortunate.”
Adler’s reverence aside, it is the West Hartford organization that is fortunate. Not only is Adler spending three weeks working with the players, but he’s doing it for free.
“I live in West Hartford, and I figured this would be a great way to give back,” he says. “If I can teach just a couple of things these kids will take with them, that makes me feel good.”
“The success of the clinic was not only based on Max’s willingness to give back to the community,” adds Walsh, “but also his ability to breakdown complex, split second faceoff techniques into basic concepts that a 10-year-old could understand, practice and master.”
One is forced to wonder if Adler lives in a world in which there are more than 24 hours in a day. When he’s not helping kids clamp, Adler is working fulltime at ESPN as a financial analyst in the affiliate revenue division. And when he clocks out on Fridays, he is wheels up, flying around the country to wherever his games are being played on Saturday, before returning home Sunday night.
For those who may be exhausted by the thought of such a schedule, taking inventory of how Adler got here helps interpret his unrelenting vitality.
Growing up in Florida, Adler spent most of his youth playing baseball, fielding balls on the hop as a shortstop and trying to turn double plays as a second baseman. Adler, who is quick to point out that Florida is not a hotbed for lacrosse, says he dabbled in rec lacrosse during middle school. It wasn’t until he was in high school at Northfield Mount Herman (Mass.), which has a requirement that all students must participate in a sport, that Adler’s pursuit of a lacrosse career unwittingly began.
“My freshman year I was playing JV football, and the coach was the wrestling coach, and he’s like ‘I really like how you play and how aggressive you are. You’re going to do wrestling in the winter,’” Adler says. “I had no idea what wrestling was, I thought it was like WWE. I had wanted to play hockey until my advisor said, ‘If you don’t know how to skate, don’t bother trying out,’ so that was off the table. So I started wrestling, and that was my main thing.”
In fact, Adler was so good on the mat, colleges started to take notice. But injuries would prevent him from competing at the next level. As luck would have it, Adler had picked up a lacrosse stick during the spring of his freshman year.
“I played [lacrosse] freshman and sophomore years, started my senior year, but I didn’t play my junior year, which is a big recruiting year for the sport,” he says. “Coaches told me I couldn’t play at the college level, not Division II or III. I was calling schools asking for a look, and then I ended up at Bentley College, and the lacrosse coach says, ‘Yeah, we’ll give you a chance to try out for the team.’ So that summer I committed myself to getting ready. I had never really faced off, so I was significantly behind. I mean, I’m playing with all-state, All-Americans. But I had great coaches who taught me the intricacies of the position.”
Learning and owning the position was one thing, but Adler had additional challenges impeding his chance of playing. Five of them, actually.
“Freshman year, we had five guys facing off, and I was the fifth one,” he says. “I took five faceoffs that year.”
To rub salt in the wound, Adler’s parents traveled from Florida that season for a game, hoping to see their son play at the collegiate level. “I didn’t touch the ball that game,” he says.
Adler can tell that story with a boyish grin now, because he is able to push the fast-forward button to 2018, when his parents witnessed him win an MLL championship with the Denver Outlaws. Adler went 15-for-29 in the final, a 16-12 win over the Dallas Rattlers in Charleston, S.C.
But even that moment looked like one in which Adler would be celebrating from the sideline.
“I’m at the D-II national championship game, and I get a call from the GM of the Outlaws (Tony Seaman). I was absolutely shocked, I thought one of my friends was playing a joke on me,” says Adler, who led MLL with a 57.7-percent faceoff winning percentage last year. “They had the number one faceoff guy in MLL (Tommy Kelly), and [in 2017] they drafted another guy (Zach Currier) who was one of the best midfielders, who could also face off. I didn’t think my chances of actually playing would happen. Jump ahead in this story and our starting faceoff guy (Kelly) gets hurt in the All-Star Game and they call me.”
The call from Seaman changed Adler’s life. It was another call that changed nothing, but one that magnified his character and inflated his influence on the game.
“Paul Rabil called and asked if I would play in the new Premier Lacrosse League that he started, which was a huge compliment,” Adler says.
Faster than you could say down, set, go, Adler said thanks, but no thanks.
“I was so flattered, but I owe everything to Pat Bowlen and the Denver Outlaws organization,” Adler says, referring to the late Denver Broncos owner who put the full weight of the NFL team behind his MLL franchise. “They picked me out of D-II, traded away their number one faceoff guy, we win the championship — I’m not going to just up and leave. I want to show Denver the same loyalty they showed me.”
In a sport where most salaries force players to supplement their earnings with full-time jobs, guys like Adler play for the love of the game. But a tireless work ethic, a winning attitude and boasting the number one faceoff percentage in MLL earned Adler an endorsement deal earlier this year with Cascade and Maverik, industry leaders in lacrosse protection and equipment.
“I just couldn’t be more excited,” Adler says. “I have used their products my entire career.”
Adler is the guy every mother wants her son to grow up to be like, and he’s the guy that 20-plus kids in West Hartford also want to grow up to be like.
“I go home after the clinics and watch Max on YouTube,” says 10-year old Matthew Bonner, son of the writer of this article. “I have watched every YouTube video of Max.” (Writer can confirm.)
“It’s so cool that he spends time showing us how to play the position,” he adds.
Today, lacrosse is considered the fastest growing team sport in America. Its popularity in West Hartford is evident in the number of teams each division fields, with two to four teams at each level. Many surrounding towns often only have one team in each division.
“We try to keep it real here in West Hartford,” Smith says. “I want West Hartford to love lacrosse, and to become a true lacrosse town. There are tremendous pressures to perform in the classroom and on the field. We try to provide an environment where kids are welcome regardless of ability and feel it’s a safe place to play. We want to further the abilities of our players, but in the end, it’s about loving the sport, not about the wins or recruiting potential.”
“These kids develop their skills very rapidly,” Walsh adds, “and even the best coach needs to recognize his own limitations in his ability to teach more complex concepts. I think West Hartford lacrosse is one of those programs that truly recognize this.”
For the coaches, the clinics have an impact on them as well.
“I have gotten so much out of these clinics,” says Chris Keever, who played collegiate lacrosse and coaches a U10 team. “As a coach, I’m able to pay that back to the program. I hope the program continues this path, because the game is changing and it’s quality clinics like the ones that we have used that will make us better coaches and, in turn, our players better players.”
“I give a lot credit to those who have made this possible for our kids,” adds Halpert whose 8-year-old son, Max, understands the significance of this opportunity. “It is really exciting to be on the field, meeting and learning and playing with someone who is a professional lacrosse player. It gives me the wow factor.”
His dad adds further, “It is very admirable that a professional player is taking the time out to work with the youth players of West Hartford. It’s a bonus that he is living within the West Hartford community. All the parents I have talked to are very impressed that a pro MLL player is giving back to the youth lacrosse players of West Hartford.”
Max Adler was told he wasn’t good enough. He proved everyone wrong. The kid who played lacrosse because he had to play a sport during the spring could be the poster child for one of soccer great Pele’s most famous quotes.
Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.
Adler knows that with success comes great responsibility to pay it forward, and as the twilight shadows lengthen and a chill in the night air sets in, the lights flickering above don’t just illuminate an athlete coaching a skill set these kids can use on the field, but highlight how one athlete can influence those kids off the field.
“I love giving back,” he says. “This sport has given me so much, and it means everything that I can give back, and hopefully inspire someone to never give up on your dream.”