When the U.S. women’s roster was released for this weekend’s Team USA Fall Classic on Sept. 4, one name stood out to the Dartmouth women’s lacrosse players.
Danielle Spencer.
The Big Green’s head coach was invited to play for the stars and stripes after a five-year break from the squad. Upon graduating from Northwestern in 2010, Spencer trained with Team USA and made it to the roster of 24, but just missed the final cut before the 2013 FIL Women’s World Cup. Three years later, she was tabbed as Dartmouth’s fourth head coach.
“I love lacrosse, but after I didn’t make that final roster, I focused on coaching,” said Spencer, who also had stints at Northwestern and Stanford as an assistant. “I wasn't trying to be done with lacrosse. There’s so many good young players that I felt like I had my run years ago, that I gave it my best shot and made it really far.”
At the end of July, U.S. assistant manager Colleen Shearer called Spencer on behalf of coach Jenny Levy to extend the offer, which only guaranteed play in the Team USA Fall Classic. She and defender Kristen Carr, a 2010 North Carolina graduate and a 2017 U.S. gold medalist, are the oldest on this weekend’s U.S. team.
“It’s a pleasant surprise,” Spencer said. “I’m not getting any younger, so I thought, ‘Well of course! … They called me, and how do you say no to that?”
Levy had watched Spencer – and 25 fellow U.S. training team members – compete at the professional ranks in the WPLL and UWLX.
Spencer, an attacker for the WPLL’s Upstate Pride, led the league with eight draw controls per game. She now will run the midfield for Team USA, starting in the draw circle.
“I feel like people were probably pretty surprised to see my name, but that actually fuels me a little bit to play well,” Spencer said. “It fuels me to prove to Jenny, who decided to include me on the roster, if she feels like she saw something, then it’s my goal to prove to her that she did see something.”
Team USA, the 2017 World Cup and World Games gold medalists, will square off against the reigning NCAA champion, James Madison, on Saturday. The Dukes are kicking off their fall ball slate playing against the best women’s lacrosse players in the country after having their best season yet. Game time is set for 3 p.m. at US Lacrosse’s Tierney Field.
“If this is the U.S. team, not only should we win, but we should really win with real style,” Spencer said. “If we’re really trying to represent the U.S. team, then we should really dominate this game.”
While JMU has had experience playing together, this is the first competition for Team USA under a new coaching staff with Levy (North Carolina) at the helm and assistants Amy Altig (Penn State), Alex Frank (Colorado) and Joe Spallina (Stony Brook) by her side.
It is also the first time this 27-player roster will take the field together, featuring 12 returning gold medalists and 15 new faces. Ten U.S. players, including gold medalists Gussie Johns and Marie McCool, just graduated in 2018.
“The roster is just so stacked,” Spencer said. “I’m pumped to play with some of the guys like [former Stony Brook star] Kylie Ohlmiller. I’ve watched her for years and never played with her. It’ll just be fun.”
For Spencer specifically, it’s also the first time she’s wearing the red, white and blue with head coaching experience. She has witnessed the evolution of the game, played with new rules in the WPLL, become smarter as a Division I head coach and now understands what the U.S. coaching staff is looking for.
“I think I can really understand what they’re trying to accomplish,” said Spencer, the 2018 Ivy League co-coach of the year. “Joe Spallina, he’s been talking to us about our offense and it just really makes a lot more sense to me now than when I was younger and just a player. I think I can really use my coaching experience maybe to my advantage. It’s an honor and a privilege.”
It’s an honor that she aims to share with her Dartmouth team, showing that you can coach and play, or simply continue playing after college, if that’s your goal.
“I definitely sent a message,” Spencer said. “If you love the game, then you can stay a part of it. There are the leagues now – two different leagues. Hopefully, I showed to my players that my love of the game has allowed me to continue to have opportunities, and also hopefully, over the last couple months I’ve been training, I hope to have showed them what it looks like to be really committed and really disciplined.”