S2 E10. Chemotti's Web; The Spider's 2X Conference COY & His Iron Lattice of Consistency, Part I.

We are excited to bring you the first installment of our interview series with two time Southern Conference Coach of the Year, Head Coach of the Richmond Spiders, Dan Chemotti. 

In this episode we delve into Chemotti’s early years as the son of a high school basketball coach, with an older brother who played both basketball and lacrosse, growing up in the Syracuse area of Central New York. 

Dan describes how he went on to play lacrosse for the legendary coach Mike Mesere at nearby perennial powerhouse West Genesse High School and how he became the Central New York player of the year as a senior. 

Next we discussed his difficult decision to leave home (and an offer from Syracuse) behind and go to Duke to play for Mike Pressler and a young coach Joe Alberici. While at Duke he would help the team win two ACC titles and make it to the NCAA quarterfinals twice as he was elected captain of the team in his senior year.  

We review how he came to the decision to pursue a career in coaching and go in depth on the influence his coaching mentors such as Coaches Mesere, Pressler, Alberici and Charlie Toomey had on this decision. This is a jam packed episode that you won’t want to miss. Sit back, enjoy, and take it all in!

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Transcript

Jay: 0:00

It's time for get the La Scoop, a podcast bringing you all the people and stuff you should know. In the game of lacrosse, we take LAX seriously, but ourselves, not so much. Join hosts, big Dog and Jaybird, and the biggest names in the game. Brought to you by Jay McMahon lacrosse. That's J M L Skills, mindset, and LAX IQ training. Ron Doish, the big dog, was a collegiate football and lacrosse player at Brown. He was also an assistant lacrosse coach and the executive director of the sports found. and Jay McMahon, the Jaybird, a three time All-American Midfielder Brown. He was a captain of the US Junior National team and is the founder of J M L. And joining us in the studio, Steve gfi, who's collegiate lacrosse career statistics equals one goal against Dartmouth. Brought to you by Jay McMahon lacrosse. That's J M L Skills, mindset, and LAX IQ training. Helping the next generation cross players. Get to the next level.

0:59

Well, we're very excited for another episode of Get the Lack Scoop. Unfortunately, co host Ron Doglish, the big dog, could not be with me today. But we will soldier on today's guest is in his 11th season as the head men's lacrosse coach at the University of Richmond. He's the program's first ever and only head coach and has guided the Spiders to an unprecedented success for such a young program. The two time Southern Conference Coach of the Year has guided the Spiders to five NCAA tournament appearances in the first 10 years of his program's history. They enjoyed back to back seasons as Southern Conference tournament champions in 2018 and 2019, as well as being the inaugural Atlantic 10 men's lacrosse champion. In total, Richmond has won four regular season league titles in its first 10 years and has been in the conference tournament championship every single season of its existence. He's led Richmond to a 94 That's a 62 percent winning perce Of 10 or more wins and the Spiders have won 80 percent of their conference games. In 2023, guided the Spiders to its 5th NCAA tournament appearance and the first ever Atlantic 10 title. The win marked the third conference he's led Richmond to titles in, including the Atlantic Sun, Southern, and Atlantic 10. And back in the program's very first year, his first year ever as a head coach, he did what no other coach in the history of D1 lacrosse was able to accomplish. He took a first year program to the NCAA tournament in 2014. Prior to his time at Richmond, he was the offensive coordinator for head coach Charlie Toomey at Loyola College of Maryland. During his five seasons with the Greyhounds, he was part of four NCAA tournament berths and at least a share of three ECAC conference titles. In his final season with the program, he helped the team, as their offensive coordinator, win the 2012 NCAA Division One National Championship. His powerful offense led the Greyhounds to a staggering 18 1 record record. A 2002 graduate of Duke University, our guest led the Blue Devils to back to back ACC championships during his junior and senior campaigns. During his career in Durham, North Carolina, the Blue Devils reached the NCAA Tournament all four years. Advancing to the NCAA quarterfinals three times. He was selected a team captain his senior year and was awarded the school's Roy Skinner award for dedication and sacrifice. Following graduation, he worked as an assistant coach at Dartmouth college from 2002 to 2004, next, he worked as an assistant at St. John's for two seasons. 2004 to 2006 before moving to Loyola for the 2006 2007 academic year. In addition to coaching, he played lacrosse professionally as a midfielder for the New Jersey Pride and Washington Bay Hawks of Major League Lacrosse. He's a native of Syracuse, New York, played high school lacrosse for the legendary coach Mike Messier of West Genesee in Syracuse, where he was named an All American and the Central New York Player of the Year in his senior campaign. He led the Wildcats to a Class A New York State Championship his senior season please welcome to the podcast, the man, the myth, the young budding legend, Coach Dan Schamati. Hey, Jay. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Glad to have you. Yeah. This is, I'm excited. Excellent. Well, we'll jump right into the questions. So coach, you know, we like to start our interviews right at the beginning where their lacrosse experience first starts out. And so if you could tell us when you first started playing and what lacrosse was like in that Syracuse area and who were some of the people who made up, might've played a part in introducing you to the game. Yeah yeah, this will be fun conversation here. So I was just very fortunate to grow up in the West Genesee school district. And I grew up in a basketball house. My dad coached high school basketball for a long time. So basketball was always a first love, you know, played a lot of sports growing up. You didn't start playing lacrosse. Probably until about fifth grade. You know, maybe like the end of fifth grade, something like that. All my friends were playing. I remember my neighbor across the street he was older than us. And he was on the high school team. We would shoot on his basket and he had a he had a lacrosse goal in, in his backyard that was right across from our house. So, you know, we were my, my brother and I, when I say we. you know, my brother and I would go out there and just, you know, be all over the neighborhood playing. And, you know, so we were exposed to it, you know, watched him play you know, stuff like that. And then, yeah, all my friends started playing and it was one of those things where, like, you just wanted to be with your friends. So I'll start playing. Didn't really start taking it serious until You know, you kind of learn the West Genesee model, you know, and you get thrust to like, you know, the the 7th and 8th grade team and stuff like that and see like, you know, just how you know, how structured those practices were and stuff like that. And the summers when I got to high school, I remember very vividly I mean, those were, those were jam packed days, you know, wake up in the morning, have lacrosse in the morning from like nine to 11, and then basketball was like 1130 to one. And then there was we would play box lacrosse as part of the, you know, historic show park program. And you could have a game at like one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, you know, and then there was other levels of show park in the night. So I, I remember this very vividly. you know, leaving the house early, going to morning lacrosse and not coming home until very late and just waking up and doing it again. Monday or thursday, you know, every day, summer. And it was just, you know a big, you know, tight group of us doing that together. And yeah, it was great. You know, you start playing for coach from Sarah and learning, you know, so much more than, you know, You know, then lacrosse, you know what you're bargaining for and, you know, he has since become just an incredible mentor. And I just. I feel very lucky that coincidentally I grew up in that school district and got a chance to, you know, to learn from him and and to be coached by him. So that's kind of, you know, how it all began. That's great. Yeah, I know his winning percentage was like 91 percent and and knew he was successful, but don't really know what he was like, you know, as a person, as you just said, you're learning more than just lacrosse. So what was he like? Coach Maser was very detail oriented very disciplined. The he was the type. So my basketball coach, who I also love, you know, incredible respect for, I learned so much from both them. He would really he would hold you accountable in a different way. You know, he's not afraid to to raise his voice. You know you know, he could do that, you know, pretty well. Coach Massaire wouldn't do that as much as he'd give you just kind of, you know, a raised eyebrow or a look. You know, and I think that was the look. The look was worse than you know you know, than the verbal, you know, tongue lashing, you know, sometimes so so, but very detour in it. Very much a teacher of the game and of the fundamentals practices would just be hours long of, you know, stick work and shooting even to this day, like, I don't remember even doing a whole lot of like, Six on six offense. We didn't have any plays, you know, we just, it was just like a lot of just fundamentals and, you know, one on ones over, over and over again. So but you just wanted to, you wanted to make him very proud because of, you just knew how much time he put in to you know, how, you know, how much he cared about you how much time he put into like each player individually. And it was, you know, it was pretty special to watch. It was like a machine, you know, that he had created you know, where everybody was just fully bought into, the little things and what the history of the program was and, what that program stood for. So stories I'd like to tell when I first, as a younger coach you know, assistant coach, when I would for the holidays. You know, he's like the first person I would go and see. And we'd have like a fall scrimmage and I'd bring my computer over to his house and I'd be like, I'm going to go get notes from coach Maseer and I was always during the holidays. So whether it was Thanksgiving or Christmas. You know, we go and Mrs. Massaire would either, you know, put a piece of pumpkin pie in front of you or some Christmas cookies, we would go in the basement. And I'm no, this is not an exaggeration. We would emerge about five hours later. We probably got through about 10 minutes of film. The whole pumpkin pie, probably. Yeah. I mean, nobody got up out of their seat, you know, like nobody used the bathroom. Like it was just like. I mean, it was just like like these incredible film sessions. I still have the notebooks. I legitimately still have the notebooks under my desk here. They're just full of scribbles. You know, the conversation would always go in the direction of some martial arts you know, zen master and he was just lose me, it's like, well, it's, you know, like so and so used to say, you know, this, you know, martial arts and master, you know, it's, it's when form becomes formless, it's just it's kind of like, I, I lost you, you know, 90 minutes ago, but I love this, I'm loving this, but those were really you know, incredible sessions for me is a young coach to just learn, you know, so much about the game and so much about just coaching young men. I really, really enjoyed those. It probably wasn't until my wife and I had kids where, you know, I couldn't do that anymore. You know, I didn't think he was going to be in my house for as long in the. you know, as long of a time, you know, during the holidays, you know, where it's like, all right now, you know, we got to split right there. But actually, you know, our program got 100 wins you know, a couple games ago. And I just, you know, we're driving back on the bus and I just texted him and just You know, some pictures of my kids and just haven't talked to you in a while. Just, you know, thinking about you and he's still I think about him often, you know, very much. And again, just very lucky to, number one, grow up in the district, you know, West Genesee number two. have him as a high school coach and just be surrounded by, people like him and my father, you know, who I grew up watching coach, high school basketball was your dad, the loud basketball coach that you had in high school. Or is that a different high school coach? That was a different high school coach. So, yeah. So so my dad never coached at Westchester. He coached at a couple of different high schools. In the area, kind of stop coaching to be able to watch my brother and I play high school basketball think back into it after, we graduated. But no, he, he wasn't like the loud, boisterous type, but, you know, I grew up in the, in the locker room and in the gym blowing the whistle, you know, I remember, we were young and he'd kind of get us out of, my, our mom's hair. I'd taken us to practice and we would just ask to blow the whistle and he put the guys on the end line and let us blow the whistle, like players hated us. You know, all we wanted to do is blow the whistle, to hear it. And, but that meant that, you know, they had to run. But to be able to grow up like around people like that and see. The product of, what you know, what a coach can do. When they care about their players, that was, you know, that was really something. That's, that's amazing. Great, great stuff. Yeah, and as far as the machine, I was on the receiving end of the West Cheney Machine one year when we went to the state finals. It was at Garden City. It was our first state finals. And I was a sophomore. I actually had played JV that year, but came up for the playoffs, and we get to the finals, and got in maybe for like a clear or two. But I'll never forget John Zilberti. And these long passes, like you're talking about the passing is what made me think of it, just on a dime. I mean, he wasn't the only one, but him in particular, I remember, I think there was a Wertzberger or Midy on that team too, but unbelievable fundamentals. We lost like 10 to 3 and we, that was only our second loss that whole year, that was amazing. Amazing stuff. And then it was a machine for sure. They kind of had a down year the next year. We want to say title. And then my senior year, it was going to be a big match up. And we, we blew our, we looked past Yorktown, which we shouldn't have done. We ended up losing to them and like the last second, but good stuff. Yeah. Dr. Artie was my head coach. And Oh, awesome. Also, yeah, also a legend, but interesting to hear about Coach Messier. That's awesome. Let's take a little break to hear about a concept fully supported by JML. And that concept is the need for players to work on their individual skills. And we couldn't have a better example as this endorsement of practicing outside of practice comes from quite possibly the two greatest players who ever played the game. Gary and Paul Gaye. Listen to this clip. Taken from this past weekend's Syracuse first Virginia lacrosse game. Where Paul Gates Jersey was retired and now hangs in the rafters. At the dome right next to his brother. Gary's. Commentator Paul Tara had just asked Paul what made these two legends different in hear what Paul has to say? Outside of practice. You know, we took what the coaches let us have. Freedom. And we ran with it. And we knew. We'd go in Manly Fieldhouse. We knew football. We'd go to Manly Fieldhouse. And stuff that, that we learned as kids and tried to adapt it to the field game. Yep. Outside of practice. Outside of the team. I can remember that if the team were to have a streak. Yeah. They'd all get buses home. Yep. And Gary and I would run home. That's amazing. We knew what we're doing. It was the work ethic. It helps to be conditioned when you play fast like that. I know your brother loves when it goes from one end to another. So there you have it. And with the JML app. Myself and UVA coaches, Lars, Tiffany and Kip Turner has put together a skills training programs for offensive and defensive players, as well as for goalies teaching the essential skills needed to play this sport at the highest level. And to greatly increase your ability to get recruited at the college level. So check out the link for our free short course in the description below, or check it out@ourpodcasthostsiteatgetthelacscoopdotbuzzsprout.com. We'll return to our interview in progress. Now, you know, as we mentioned in the intro that naturally you went to Duke and, you know, obviously right now, let's say a college recruits looking at schools, Duke's going to pop right out at them. But back then, you know, Duke probably wasn't quite as successful. I know coach Preston was there. They had been to the playoffs several times. But really guys like yourself, Kevin Casis, who we had on the show to kick off the second season, you know, probably laid a big foundation for those final four teams and eventual national championship teams they had at Duke. But tell us what it was like. You know, you're in, at, in the Syracuse area, obviously you're the Syracuse area player of the year, and but then to leave town and go down in North Carolina. What was that like then and what kind of Yeah, great question, image did you have at Duke, you know, back then? So yeah duke was. Kind of a destinational opportunity, for me our family, we had been on that campus before. Like I said, the. Everything in our house growing up was basketball. I have an older brother, two years older than me. I still remember the first time he sat me down, in front of the TV to watch Duke knock off UNLV, in March Madness, you know? And I was like, I don't know what's going on here. Like, this is, what's this, what is Duke, you know? And just from there. we used to vacation in South Carolina and, parents would pack us in the car and drive down. And we would go to Easter Sunday mass and the Duke chapel on the way home, for spring break. And I remember,, the players, who I got to know there and getting their autographs and stuff and just thinking like, man, this place is incredible. And we were young and it was always like, man, that would be incredible. Like such a, great place to go to school. And, I still remember, when I sat down with coach from Sarah and, he kind of rattled off like all the places, he's very honest where he felt like, you could go to school and play, you know, put Duke on the list. And I kind of my eyes, you know, kind of, perked up a little bit. So, he was certainly helpful there. I got recruited by, a few places and,, through the New York state empire games. That was really the only thing, that, that I did. And certainly the final two schools came down to Duke and Syracuse. Syracuse had been to like 21 final fours, right. You know, Duke hadn't been to any. And I was just like, I feel like if I I don't leave Syracuse now. I might never leave and and Syracuse is a great place to raise a family. Certainly, don't get me wrong. Have certainly very fond memories and love going back there. But it was just kind of like, what else does the world have to offer? Like, let's right, let's go see. And so it was a leap of faith, but I love coach Pressler. I loved coach Alvarese, really tight, with both of those people still was Alvarese was an assistant there. Yeah, at that time, he was, I still remember, you know, my first phone call with him. He was from Auburn, New York, so we really bonded to, Italians from upstate, and I just, you know, both of those guys, I felt like, yeah, I felt like they really cared about me and, It was certainly not an easy decision, but, you know I felt like you were leaving the fold, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Syracuse went out, goes on to win two national championships. During the four by four college years, I'm sure I would have screwed those up somehow, and they would have I was there. But but I still I wouldn't do it differently. You know the relationships I have, with, my former teammates and coaches. I think those Trump, a national championship for sure. So yeah, so we just wanted to get out of town and see what else was out there. And, I knew I could always come back, but it was great. I still remember being in December and like wearing shorts and short sleeve shirt. You know, this is, this is amazing. it's not every place had, you know, I had mountains of snow, I was up at Brown in the snow and my, I had a friend Keith Melchione, who was at Duke and he, you know, he'd, he'd let us know that it was nice and nice and warm there like even this weekend, it was like 80 degrees. I went to the Duke UVA game and I was checking out that Notre Dame game on a DVR and everyone's in sweatshirts on Long Island and wearing hats. It was like 50 degrees, sleeting. But yeah, so I definitely like the Southeast. Nice, nice change. And so now tell me, so Coach Alborezzi, of course, that's awesome that he was there. I didn't even realize that. And then Mike Pressler. So they had a young, you know, really good coaching staff. What was Mike Pressler like back then? Intense, you know, coach was intense. At that. point. I was like, all right, I'm glad I've got a great base, fundamentals of the game of lacrosse from Coach Massaire, and I'm glad, you know, I'm used to being yelled at, from high school basketball coach. So, it didn't it didn't faze me. He wanted to win. He was competitor, still is. And you know, but he he was incredibly intense but he's incredibly loyal as well. And we literally text, I would say daily. Him and I and there's a group of us but he was great, he, he had a certain way about him where, he would make you feel like he would make you feel like in, in a recruiting conversation, like the most important person, in the room. But you knew when you got out on that field that he was going to push you and he was going to demand, greatness from you every single day without exception. So really just, blessed to have played for him and you know, I wouldn't be the man I am, without him for sure. Right. Now, are there some things that you took from certainly with Coach Messier that you took with all those notes? But were there some things you took from Coach Alberici and Pressler into your practice? Oh yeah. I mean, I mean, you name it, you know take a little bit of everything from, from, all of those guys. And those are the guys I still call when, I need advice or even if I need to figure out, you know, how a new ride or clear or whatever it is. I mean, that's, that's my group and I'm just really fortunate to have. You know, been able to work with such great people to be, so, little bits and pieces of, of everything, the loyalty and the intensity certainly, you know, from coach Pressler from coach Al Barisi, just, the relationships piece, just how important, the relationships are and just, you know he, is really lucky to have, that kind of relationship with him down there he gave a speech I asked him to, give a talk at my wedding, so like we're, you know, we're very, very close. We're very much cherish, that relationship. And then you go and you learn from coach to me or, then I, you know, started right with coach soul that was up at Dartmouth, Dartmouth. And then, And then, and then what. Find out by tuning in next week to hear what. happened with coach soul.

Ron: 22:43

until we meet again, here to, hoping you find the twine. We're signing off here at the Get the LAX coop. Thanks again so much. We will see you the next time.