Retraction appended
There is an excitement for the club lacrosse team that was missing last year, with a new coaching model and a new approach to the game.
This year, the Oregon men’s lacrosse team has two head coaches, John Wright and Andrew Clough, who are Oregon alumni and know what Duck lacrosse is all about. They are the third set of coaches in as many years and they are taking a different angle with the team.
Wright and Clough are implementing a mentality that brings fun back to the game, while still competing at the highest possible level. “Because of the attitude that was instilled in everybody (last year), the caliber of play decreased,” Wright said about last season. “We are really looking to change the culture of what lacrosse has been in the past.”
In order for the team members to forget about last year’s almost disastrous season, some players who quit the team due to disagreements with then-coach Benjamin Tiller, must buy into this new system.
“With the new staff, we have more support from our coaches,” said junior attack Justin Blackmore. This year, the players are “working with the coaches instead of being told what to do and being yelled at,” he said.
“They really stress communication and commitment,” said senior defender Cole Magnuson. “They have a lot of knowledge and they work perfectly with our team.”
With only three juniors and three seniors playing fall ball, the team will have to work quickly to get everyone on the right level. The team will have 20 players returning for this spring – some with experience playing in the toughest leagues for some of the best high school programs – and are relying on the team from this fall to be ready for them.
“We have a really good incoming freshman class with raw talent, who seem very coachable. They mesh well with the returning guys,” Magnuson said.
Fall ball is important to the team because it gives the coaches a chance to evaluate the newcomers as well as find the problems that need to be fixed before spring, when games start to count and rivalries are revisited.
The Ducks, whose biggest rival in lacrosse is, surprisingly, Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. Players and coaches said this team gave the Ducks the idea for a dual head coach system, and the rivalry lives in part because of the skill levels of the teams. However, one of the biggest reasons for the rivalry is nationalism. The Ducks believe that because the Simon Fraser team is from out of the country and always is challenging, the Canadian team is a bigger rProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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al than the Beavers.
The coaches have worked on ways to travel to meet better competition in club lacrosse. They have created an Alumni Association to raise funds, and created a parent booster club to help with travel arrangements. This spring, they will travel to Los Angeles to face Chapman University, the team that, at the end of last year, ended up ranked No. 2 after losing in the national championship.
Last year, the Ducks lost in the conference finals, placing second in the Pacific Northwest Collegiate Lacrosse League. The goal for the coaches this year is to win the title and make it to the Great Eight, where the best eight teams in the country meet to contend for the title.
The players, however, have set the bar even higher. “Our goal is to get back to where we were two years ago, get back to competing for a national championship,” Blackmore said.
The spring schedule remains unannounced until December, but the team already knows that games will be worth watching. “(The Ducks) are going to be a really exciting team,” Blackmore said. “We have a whole new attitude, and we won’t accept losing.”
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It was reported that Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Center in the Lundquist College of Business, sought sponsorships to publicize the lacrosse team. The Emerald was later informed that Swangard did attend a brainstorming meeting with the coaching staff, but did not seek out sponsorships for the team. The Emerald regrets the error.