Agreeing to coach in the Premier Lacrosse League in this inaugural 2019 season was, at least, about getting to know these world-class players a little better than any other factor.
I have often said that what I missed the most about college coaching was the give and take on the practice field with confident, elite players. Giving a little ribbing to Tom Gagnon, Andy Towers, Sean Miller, Doug Knight or Ricky Smith and getting it back respectfully was almost as good as it got through all those years.
I had coached against many of these PLL players, especially in the final third of my college coaching career. Just this past weekend, I used an example of preparing to play against Kyle Harrison’s Johns Hopkins team in the 2003 NCAA final to make a point in practice.
John Galloway gave me a little grief almost as soon as he arrived (late!) in Florida for training camp. I remember recruiting John to Virginia, but then having Adam Ghitleman commit in the same class. I don’t remember John’s version of our having “dropped” him, more likely Adam’s being ready to make a decision. As it was, they finished their careers with three national championships between them and being No. 1 and 2 for all-time wins as a college goalie. We had real battles with John’s Syracuse team every year.
I was very pleased when first handed a Chrome roster to see that John (and Brett Queener) would likely be our starting goalie. While he had been in the goal for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in the 2018 world games, word was that he was going to retire on top of that hill. I don’t think John was the only of those U.S. players to have made some decision to semi-retire before deciding to give the PLL a try in this first year.
From that first introduction in training camp, I was a little surprised by the serious work ethic of everyone involved, especially the older U.S. team veterans. While John and Joel White and Matt Danowski may have surprised themselves a bit by finding themselves on the field at all in 2019, it is likely safe to say that they were even more surprised to find our Chrome team standing at 0-4 early. Two posts in OT and four losses by five goals total was not much consolation. Everyone needed to play better.
In our fifth game against Andy Towers’ Chaos team, we found ourselves down 7-1 at the end of the first quarter and in desperate need of a spark. Changing goalies, especially from a veteran, can be a tough enough decision for a coach.
I am glad that I was not aware at that very moment that John Galloway had never been removed from a game IN HIS LIFE.
We went to Brett Queener, he played very well, and we battled back only to come up short again in OT.
I called John early last week to inform him that we would start Brett in the Chaos rematch and that our 0-5 team really needed his leadership going forward. He apologized for not having played better, thought going to Brett was the right decision and emphasized that he was “all in.”
We had a good, spirited practice the night before our game and, with all his teammates eyes on him, John was every bit the positive influence we could have hoped for.
We started out well in this most recent game. Brett settled in, and we took a lead into the second quarter. It was early in the quarter, however, when a collision around the goal put Brett down and out of the game.
John jumped up, flew out onto the field and was ready to go. We went on to win our first game by the most decisive score in this brief PLL history.
There were certainly a number of factors that contributed to our winning this pivotal game, but John’s response to the unexpected adversity in his playing career was an important one. When I called earlier in the week to tell him he would not be starting, I also mentioned to him that over the course of his young head coaching career at Jacksonville, he would find that this experience made him more relatable to his players.
He found out firsthand what any number of them would go through during their careers. Those players would now look at him and think, “If he could handle this, I can handle it.”
When I found John in the locker room after our 19-11 victory at Audi Field in Washington, D.C, I stuck out my hand to say, “Congrats and thanks.” He smiled at my next sentiment. “Life can sure be a peculiar animal at times.”