S2 E22. A Fruitful Field of Dreams: 2X All American and Harlem Lacrosse CEO, Mike Levin, Part I
Jul 10, 2024Season 2Episode 21
Jay McMahon, Ron Dalgliesh, & Steve Gresalfi/Mike Levin
In this episode of Get the LAX Scoop, hosts Big Dawg (Ron Dalgliesh) and Jaybird (Jay McMahon) take a deep dive with 2X All-American goalie at Brown and Harlem Lacrosse CEO Mike Levin. Levin shares his journey from playing college lacrosse to his professional career with Major League Lacrosse teams, capped by a championship season! He reflects on his early days in the sport, the influence of coaches and mentors, and the pivotal moments that shaped his career. The episode also touches on the importance of mindset and culture in achieving success, and provides insights for young athletes navigating the college recruitment process. Sponsored by JML: Skills, Mindset, and LAX IQ Training, helping the next generation of lacrosse players get to the next level.
00:00 Introduction to Get the Lax Scoop Podcast
00:23 Meet the Hosts: Big Dog and Jaybird
01:01 Special Guest Introduction: Mike Levin
01:50 Mike Levin's Lacrosse Journey
04:14 The Evolution of Youth Lacrosse
10:22 Choosing the Right College
14:37 JML Lacrosse and Special Offers
18:18 Memorable College Lacrosse Moments
22:34 Professional Lacrosse Career Highlights
26:37 Leadership and Team Dynamics
30:18 Conclusion and Sign Off
NEW BOOK! Inside the Recruiting Game: Insights From College Lacrosse Coaches -available for FREE on the JML Training App at: https://jay-mcmahon-lacrosse.passion.io/checkout/79608 -And available on Amazon.com as an Ebook and paperback
Link to the FREE JML Mini Course-now with a FREE defense course taught by Lars Tiffany and a FREE Mini goalie course taught by Kip Turner- on our own App: https://jay-mcmahon-lacrosse.passion.io/checkout/79608
Check out our Patreon page with the link below: patreon.com/GetTheLaxScoop And take a look at our new virtual storefront here: jml-online-store.company.site
Link to Video of the Week: Master The 5 Best Dodges From the Wing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_7LDOcQQ6Q&t=88s
Blazing Shots... on the Run! https://youtu.be/XiptPlM63oQ
Check us out...
On YouTube @jaymcmahonlax23 On Instagram @jaymcmahonlax23 On Facebook @: facebook.com/jmcmahonlax23. Page name: Jay McMahon Lacrosse
SuccessHotline with Dr. Rob Gilbert on Ironclad & Apple Podcasts
Brian Cain Daily Dominator on Apple Podcasts
Jon Gordon Positive U. Podcast on Spotify
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck, PhD on Amazon.
In this episode of Get the LAX Scoop, hosts Big Dawg (Ron Dalgliesh) and Jaybird (Jay McMahon) take a deep dive with 2X All-American goalie at Brown and Harlem Lacrosse CEO Mike Levin. Levin shares his journey from playing college lacrosse to his professional career with Major League Lacrosse teams, capped by a championship season! He reflects on his early days in the sport, the influence of coaches and mentors, and the pivotal moments that shaped his career. The episode also touches on the importance of mindset and culture in achieving success, and provides insights for young athletes navigating the college recruitment process. Sponsored by JML: Skills, Mindset, and LAX IQ Training, helping the next generation of lacrosse players get to the next level.
00:00 Introduction to Get the Lax Scoop Podcast
00:23 Meet the Hosts: Big Dog and Jaybird
01:01 Special Guest Introduction: Mike Levin
01:50 Mike Levin's Lacrosse Journey
04:14 The Evolution of Youth Lacrosse
10:22 Choosing the Right College
14:37 JML Lacrosse and Special Offers
18:18 Memorable College Lacrosse Moments
22:34 Professional Lacrosse Career Highlights
26:37 Leadership and Team Dynamics
30:18 Conclusion and Sign Off
NEW BOOK! Inside the Recruiting Game: Insights From College Lacrosse Coaches -available for FREE on the JML Training App at: https://jay-mcmahon-lacrosse.passion.io/checkout/79608 -And available on Amazon.com as an Ebook and paperback
Link to the FREE JML Mini Course-now with a FREE defense course taught by Lars Tiffany and a FREE Mini goalie course taught by Kip Turner- on our own App: https://jay-mcmahon-lacrosse.passion.io/checkout/79608
Check out our Patreon page with the link below: patreon.com/GetTheLaxScoop And take a look at our new virtual storefront here: jml-online-store.company.site
Link to Video of the Week: Master The 5 Best Dodges From the Wing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_7LDOcQQ6Q&t=88s
Blazing Shots... on the Run! https://youtu.be/XiptPlM63oQ
Check us out...
On YouTube @jaymcmahonlax23 On Instagram @jaymcmahonlax23 On Facebook @: facebook.com/jmcmahonlax23. Page name: Jay McMahon Lacrosse
SuccessHotline with Dr. Rob Gilbert on Ironclad & Apple Podcasts
Brian Cain Daily Dominator on Apple Podcasts
Jon Gordon Positive U. Podcast on Spotify
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck, PhD on Amazon.
Jay:
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.
All right, friends. As we get into the sweltering heat of the summer, we've got another exciting episode of get the lack scoop with a really impressive, National leader in the game, who's I think one of the most important people in terms of expanding our game, to communities that haven't had access to it historically. So, Jay, as is our custom, would you like to lead off by introducing our fine guest? I sure would, Ron. Thank you very much. And I would say that's saying the least. This guy is the leader. But we're going to keep him anonymous for now. Right off the bat, just disagreeing with me when I thought I gave a lovely intro right across the bat. That's the way this episode is going to go. I guess. Huh? Bring the energy. Jay, please introduce our guest. Jay introduce our guest. I'm all over it. Our next guest is a 2004 graduate of Brown University where he was a standout goalie for the Bears and a two year captain. He was a three time all Ivy selection, a two time All American, and as a senior in 2004, he was named New England Player of the Year, along with receiving academic all Ivy League and academic all American accolades. As you can tell, I have trouble reciting those because I never received them. He had a seven year professional career with major league lacrosse playing for the Rochester Rattlers, Chesapeake Bayhawks, and the Philadelphia Barrage. After earning a master's degree in education at Boston College, he served as a volunteer and then eventually the CEO of Boston based Metro Lacrosse, where he worked from 2008 through 2014. In 2014, he moved across the country and co founded City Lacrosse in Los Angeles with Doc O'Connor and successfully grew that organization until January 2017, when Citilax merged with Harlem Lacrosse and our next guest was named their CEO. Since that time, Harlem Lacrosse has enjoyed great success. and now serves over 1, 000 students nationwide across 19 programs in five cities. Since 2011, Harlem lacrosse students have maintained a 100 percent on time middle school graduation rate, have passed their classes at a rate 20 percent higher than that of their peers at their school sites, and have earned over 40 and colleges. Harlem lacrosse alumni have earned admission with scholarships to many top institutions, including Bates, Colby, and Connecticut College, Gettysburg, Haverford, Hobart, Tufts, and the University of Virginia, as well as with the United States Military Academy at West Point. Please welcome our next guest, the one, the only, Mike Levin. Welcome, Mike. Yeah, Mike. Thank you. Great to have you. What a comprehensive intro. Mike, it's great to have you with us. And you know, one of the things that's fun for us is having people on our show who have done amazing things at all levels of the game. And just asking them to reflect on where it all started and where they first developed their passion for the game. And maybe who are some of the people that were influential in getting you into the sport? Yeah, it's I think about it all the time because. Of just the current landscape of, of youth lacrosse and the privatization of youth sports and the work that we do to, to make the sport more accessible. But I mean, I, I signed up at the rec center in my community. This was publicly supported activity and I did it. I looked up to my older brother, which I still do. He stopped playing lacrosse not long after that moment, but I got hooked. And the coaches at my first practice were the high school coaches in our community. And I had access to like Super comprehensive lacrosse experience for basically no money. That's amazing. That was good enough to get me as good as I think I could have gotten. You know, I don't think if I, there was no more, no amount of club or private instruction or anything else was going to make me better. Um, so I don't know, I look back on it with like nostalgia and I don't know, like longing. I wish there was more, more of that was still available. You know, it seems, it seems crazy now, actually, to be introduced to the sport in that way. I was talking to some family recently. I was like, I think I played in like maybe three lacrosse tournaments or two before I went to college. They're like, that's insane. I'm like. I don't know. I, I think it's not that insane to work out. You know, I was able to, I think I was able to take it as far as I was going to take it with or without, you know, a thousand more tournaments, but right. I managed to be Ivy league and all American and a pro without all that stuff. I guess it's just a different era now. I'm sure if I was, if I'm sure if I was 11 today or I, you know, I was in second grade at that time. So when I started playing, but I'm sure if I was. You know, a 10 year old, 11 year old kid today, I would be wanting to play in a club team and wanting to play all kinds of tournaments. So it's just a different, different world now. Right. Mike, did you want, did you want to be a goalie right away? Like most young kids don't say, Hey, I want to jump in there and just get slammed by the ball. But is that what you wanted to do? Or what was your evolution to the position of goalie? Not right away. There are two, two inciting factors. I was playing baseball as well. And my dad was like fixated on like getting me to not be afraid of the ball. This was like a preeminent lesson of my childhood. Don't be afraid of the ball. So I always felt like I was trying to overcome this. And so one day I was like, I don't like, I think this is like. The best way to go for it just like trying to learn to be not afraid of the ball because in my mind That was like the most important thing you could do to become a man was learn how to not be afraid of the ball So that was one that was one driving factor. And then one year I went to Nazareth lacrosse camp And which was in my community I grew up in pittsburgh where nazareth is and it was kind of a staple everybody went there and I was like This was probably third or fourth grade and I was like, I want to try goalie and they're like you can't play goalie because You You have to come to camp as a goalie. You can't just like switch it and camp. I don't know what the reasoning was, whatever, but I was like, it just like got under my skin. I was like, I'm definitely coming in as a goalie next year. Like I won't be denied. So in retrospect, it kind of makes sense that I ended up in playing goalie, but it seemed kind of random at the time that I ended up there. That's, that's certainly one way to overcome your fears of getting hit without a ball, getting out in front of it. Oh, that's awesome. Good stuff. And as you said, you're in Pittsburgh, which is the Rock, Rochester area. Is that right? Where you grew up. And then you know, as far as your high school lacrosse, tell us a little bit about that. And and, and what moment in high school did you decide like, okay, I'm really going to go all in and I'm going to pursue getting recruited and all that kind of stuff. You know, in middle school, I started to really like fall across more closely. And so I was like, you know, Really into like Johns Hopkins or I remember the like the Princeton see like early championship teams at Princeton, like Scott Bacigalupo, I was like, this is, this is what I'm going for. You know? Right. At least that, that I sort of established like the dream, the dream and then early nineties that was 92, 94, that sort of thing. Yeah. Probably my sophomore year of college, of high school, I made the varsity team and sort of, I'd had a pretty good year and I was like, okay, I think I, I started to see where I stack up, and I think I have, I've got some potential here. So, that just kind of, it crystallized. It became a little more real at that time. That would have been, I believe, 97. Gotcha. And who was like your biggest influence back then? There was like, you could almost never watch the Cross. I remember, what was the show with Lee Felsenow? It was like a I would like sometimes stumble into it and I'd be like, Oh my God, there's lacrosse on TV. This is amazing. But I couple, I went to the final four in like maybe 95, I think. And Brian Dockery was like, wow, this guy's amazing. Yeah. And it was mostly in my town, you know, I had amazing, I had amazing high school coaches and they were, They like supported the idea of in the best possible way of sort of like, meaning like they pushed us hard held us to high standards and let us know what was possible, you know, so. Right, right. That's great. Were there guys who were playing in college, like a few years ahead of you? That sort of thing? You can kind of follow in their footsteps. Yeah, we, we Pittsburgh has had a pretty strong lacrosse tradition, like even more so after I graduated, but there were a few, like. I'd say elder statesman. There was a guy named Kenny Anik. He was an amazing player. I went to Notre Dame. I think he stopped playing when he was at Notre Dame, but he was like an all time high school player. And it was great. A high school hockey player as well. There was this guy who I'd never really intersected with too much name, Mike Eckert, who went on to be a great player at Harvard. But he was sort of like, I would say like the gold standard in the town. It's like, okay, this is what it means to be like a great student and a great athlete in our community. Right. He was a little bit before me, but Yeah, there were lots of kids that my, my class and the class ahead of me was really strong class in Pittsburgh. So we, there are a lot of kids going to play with colors across at that time. It wasn't, it wasn't abnormal for me for sure. Right. I got you. Cool. So Mike flashing forward to how you ended up at Brown, we hear you've, you know, you had an interesting, some interesting elements to your recruiting process and that the home visit by our friend Pete lasagna. Yeah. Played a big role in how you ended up at Brown. So give us a little inside sense there. Oh, yeah. It was incredible. No, no, forget it. So it's kind of getting down to the wire. It's in the, you know, it seems crazy now. I guess it's been pushed back a little bit, but it was the summer before my senior year. Or yeah, it must, no, no, it couldn't have been. Yeah, I guess it was the summer before my senior year. So he's like I was, I was kind of close to I was really interested in Georgetown, so it's basically coming down to Brown, Georgetown. And. He's like, we're going on vacation to the Adirondacks. We'll, we'll come by, you know, I'm like, okay. And I was like, I, I didn't, I think maybe one other home visit. I think Hozier came to my house too, actually. So, but it was, it was more like traditional. So Pete pulls into my driveway. His wife gets out, his two kids get out, Carmen Deacon. I mean, I don't know how old they were. It must've, it was, it was 1999. So, I mean they were little kids, his dog runs out of the car station wagon, and they're like running all over my house. Then I'm like, what's going on. But it was like very unique. And then we just had the best. Conversation at dinner and spent a lot of time talking to his wife, Holly, about everything that like the university could offer lacrosse. We didn't talk about lacrosse that felt like at all, but I just walked away being like, you know, I'm not meeting many people like this in my life, you know, and he seems like unique as far as the college lacrosse coaches go. And I think I set it up ahead of time that you were going to be making him dinner and the rest of the family, I never, you know, it's weird, but the same thing happened with George and it was just sort of understood, I guess. And my mom took great pride in it. She, she's an incredible baker. So she, I forget what she made, maybe some pie or something, but coach York was leaving the house and he was like, Can I get a little bit of more of that? So, but it was like sort of understood, I guess, like, they're going to come to our house because I was like, mom, we got to impress these people, you know, like, this is a big opportunity, but then. All the tension went out of the room when Pete showed up, because it was like, what's going on here? Yeah, right, right. I mean, for Dom, I think I gave him a sleeve of Ritz crackers, maybe a couple of chips of hoagie. I mean, that's impressive, made of dinner. Jay, why does that not surprise me at all? He's a little caught off guard. Dom had that hungry look. Meanwhile, Mike's all over his mom to stuff up her pie game. Yeah, impress Pete and coach Eric. Well, you know, I think it is interesting, Mike. Right. When you think about when you, when you go back and think about the why, you know, and at the end of the day, like, Pete was a guy you just wanted to be around, right? Like he's just such a unique character. And he's, you know, you talk about Holly who really knew Brown and believed in it. So it's so funny, isn't it? How these things work out. And that, that really are big moments in your life that you don't really realize at the time. Yeah. It's so ironic because it's like, I was pretty focused lacrosse player. Like being good at lacrosse was important to me. But it, it became a little bit secondary. Like I knew I could play competitive lacrosse at Brown, of course, but it was like the, by far the more, the bigger driving factor was what you said. It's like, this is someone I want to be around. And I think I'll have a relationship with for a long time with ironically Pete left not long before I started at Brown. So I'd never played for him and. But I do still have a relationship with him to this day. Which is kind of crazy. It's like he's someone I talk to, like, not all the time, but with some regularity. And it's like, more so than the coach I actually played for. I talk to him. That's wonderful. Right, and Brown being kind of a different place, Pete, was like, giving you that different kind of recruiting home visit trip. It was kind of spot on. It was a great introduction to what Brown's all about, I think. Right, right. Right. Nice.
Jay:
How about if we transition to. J m l and let's do that.
So the big dog mentioned it and Mike Levin alluded to it. When it comes to picking a school for you. What's your why? That's one of the key elements for any high school lacrosse player to consider. When looking at a place they'll spend their next four years. Of course the academics and lacrosse are huge factors. But what are the intangibles you're looking for when it comes to your college experience? Are you looking for size and power? Think of the big 10 with schools like Penn state, Maryland, and Michigan. Or the ACC with perennial powerhouses, like Notre Dame, duke and Virginia. What do you want to see out of your school when it comes to their traditions or looking for a school with a long history or a place where you can blaze your own trail? I are looking for a sense of significance and prestige. Perhaps Princeton or Harvard or Dartmouth could be your place, or are you looking for a sense of discipline and a need to honor your country? If so then the military academies could be your ticket. Or are you looking for a great education, but want to take it in with a style that's a little quirky and certainly uncanny. And for the most part, completely Uncorked, then brown state might be the place that hits the spot. Now many of our listeners have expressed the difficulty navigating the college lacrosse recruiting trail. So we've responded by putting excerpts of our 10 best interviews with legendary coaches, such as bill Tierney, Lars, Tiffany and Andy towers. Into a book that you can access for free on our JML app. Simply download the J McMahon lacrosse app at the apple app store or at Google play for Android and check it out. And for those. Who would like a book in their hands? Or on their Kindle, it is available on Amazon, under the title inside the recruiting game insights from college lacrosse coaches. So with that, you will see the description of these items also in the show notes. And due to popular demand, we have put together a Patrion page for the show. This will allow those interested in supporting our efforts to do just that and to get exclusive access to unedited interviews. Big discounts on the JML online courses and merchandise from our new online store. Big additions to the JML course catalog. Now we have a defenseman's course taught by none other than UVA head coach, Lars, Tiffany, and a goalie course taught by former two-time All-American and UVA assistant coach kept Turner. And as the summer is just starting. We are offering for a limited time only. 70% off. That's right. 70% off of our four week online courses that help young players take their skills, mindset, and max IQ from good to great. That means you can get access to these highly rated trainings for only$90. That's right. For$90 offensive players defensemen and goalies can take their game to the next level. The summer is the best time of year to improve your game. And that's why we are making this special offer. So jump on it now because it won't last for long. Simply download the free version of the Jane McMahon lacrosse app. Or just follow the link that's listed in the show notes. And you will see the coupon code noted for each different course. We're excited to get back to our interview and you will find that interview in progress. Now you were a two time All American, as we said, at Brown, but not only that, you played against some all time greats while you were there and, you know, playing against people like Ryan Boyle from Princeton and Mikey Powell from Syracuse, and I was looking through some stats in 2002, there was, you know, Syracuse was number one and they came to Providence number one in the country. And you guys had an overtime thriller. You had 18 saves. So tell us, you know, about that experience. And then any other stories you have from your playing days that really stand out? Yeah. I mean, that was an incredible game. I've been a part of a lot of great games that were very high scoring. You're a great, you have a lot of saves. You had more saves than the, it was You know, we had a great team that year and we, we had lost a lot of very close games early in the season. So we were sort of like, we had some confidence, like, Hey, we're really close. We know we're really close. They, they were number one. We were on rank. They won the national championship that year, I think. Right. That's right. So it was like, but we, we, we had a little bit of confidence, like, Hey, we think we're a little bit better than we've shown and we knew how close we were and it all kind of came together for us. And you know, the margins are small. We've built lots of what ifs around that game, but I mean, they were obviously a great team, but it was, it was a pretty like incredible atmosphere. I don't know, Ron, you might've been at the game, but it was yeah, it was, was it one of those fleet invitationals? No, it was after that, those, they weren't doing those anymore, but it was just Stevenson, not the football stadium, but it was just like was it raining? Hopefully it was raining. It wasn't raining. It was over, it might've rained a little bit. It was like overcast as I remember, but it was just like the energy and the crowd. It was one of these games that got a particular big crowd. It's like when it's really fun to play in a stadium. That's not that big. That's just super packed. It was kind of one of those days. And you know, when we lost in overtime, it was just like. That bunch, I feel like the air came out of the entire place. Yeah, there's probably two or 3000 people, but it was like, Oh, but it would cool, cool era for, for Ivy League lacrosse and obviously getting to play Syracuse every year was amazing. But, you know, Ryan was an amazing. So like very end of Princeton's run, but it was just such a tough competitor, you know, but so it's like Mikey Powell's like a super athlete, like, you know, flying, flying high and then Ryan Boyle seemed to be more of like the quarterback, like, he kind of knew everything was very consistent, maybe not, you know, wouldn't have quite the highlight reel, but I just said a real fierce competitor. Yeah, I mean, I, and I got to know them both a little bit more after well, Mike, I knew a little bit from high school, but, in playing pro too. And Ryan is, you know, you just get to appreciate how tough he is. Very smart, like super smart player, but also just really tough. So that we had some good, good games and the Ivy league games in those eras were like they always are. They were like, they were all like eight, six, basically. And so they were, they were tough. I mean, now it's, I think a bit deeper top to bottom. The league is just brutally competitive today, but it was, it was a great era to play college lacrosse. I felt, you know, we, we, we knocked on the door a little bit. I would say of getting over the hump, the team to that, like that year in 2002 and in 2004, when I was a senior, we kind of knocked on the door. A little bit, but just never quite got to like tournament level or Ivy League championship level. So one game was against Cornell, I think at home towards the end of the year, and you guys beat them in overtime. And it looked like they were a ranked team. It looked like a big win for you guys. Yeah, we had a couple of big wins against Cornell and another one up there against them. And they had some really good, really good teams. They were kind of just just coming into their run. I would say when they started going to final fours and stuff After that, but they because they had been down a little bit in the 90s But they were they were a really really tough team So that we have some of our best games there the one up in in ithaca was was amazing Overtime game that we won up there. That was that. Oh, yeah, that's I think that was 2002. Okay incredible bus ride Right, right. Thanks. Thanks for a good bus ride home. And then following graduation, you played in the MLL with some real legends like Brody Merrill, John Grant Jr. And you were a two time champion with Rochester and then with Chesapeake. So, you know, first tell us a little bit about what you did. Pro lacrosse was like back then, but then I mean, talk about playing with some great players. I mean, holy cow, those two guys alone are probably two of the best guys who ever played, right? Yeah. I mean, the the Rochester team that we won on was an all time team. It was John Grant, Casey Powell, our face up guy was Alex Smith, who's unbelievable. Joe Walters is an unbelievable player. I mean, we were like, on defense, we had Reggie Thorpe, who was like just a legendary. Character and person in the game. We had you know, just the really like Gavin prowl was like a role player for us and he was scoring like hundreds of points in the NLL. And he's just like such a good player. And we had this guy, Colin Doyle, who joined the team, another like incredible NLL player who didn't have that much field experience, but turned out to be really, really good. So just like a lot of like. A lot more professional lacrosse experience. And I, a lot of people have been playing professional lacrosse for a long time when I showed up that I was like, this is what it's like. So I think, you know, it got sometimes got a bad rap. I think the MLL or being you know, not as professional, I guess, is what you see today. But I found it to be like, just incredibly competitive. And that Rochester team in particular was like probably the closest thing to a. Like a college team that I had in the sense that we kept the same core group together for a while. The lineup was pretty consistent and we're very close group. The team was almost everybody in the team was from probably 50 percent of the teams from somewhere between Syracuse and Toronto. So I've grown up there. So we have kind of like a, I don't know, shared worldview as, as people from that part of the world. And we had a great team, you know, we had a really, really great team. So. It was really fun for me. I felt like I had some unfinished business when things ended around, you know, I was blasting my career with lit against Princeton. And I, I was like shedding a tear. We're running out to the field being like, I think this is over. And we just never quite got where I thought we could. I kind of like had something still eating at me. Way better at lacrosse in the pros than I was in college, for sure. And had some just awesome experiences and great friendships. So I'm really grateful for that. The shot velocity probably went up exponentially along with the accuracy. Probably sink or swim. Yeah, exactly. It's it was a little bit better. You, I found, well, the less practice time and better players are like, you're getting hit a little bit less with the ball, but it was, that was part was good, but it was, yeah, it's just like. It's kind of like the way I think about tennis, where it's sort of like you can only get to a certain level if your opponent is pushing you to that level. And that's kind of what I think what I experienced, like goalie in the NFL was like, you know, I needed that, which was super fun. That's neat. I think I heard you say in another interview, I think it was Colin Doyle, the guy who had played indoor all along. And he says to you right before the game starting, You know, what are the rules for the outdoor? Something like that. Never played it. He was a good friend of Brody. I think he did play like some field lacrosse in college. But he was like, definitely not a lot of field lacrosse. But he was kind of like, okay, what off sides rules do we play? Just kind of, and he definitely had a ton of points in that game. He just like, the guy could just play lacrosse. Can I cross this line or not? Is that a no no? It's like, just Play offense and score goals and stay over there by the gun. And that's, he was awesome and an unbelievable teammate too. And it's, and ironically, like a really, really crafty and smart player. Like he actually is kind of person who like, you could be like, Hey, like this is where there's some role change to what you're used to right before the game and you'd be like, okay, I got it. And just like completely adjust his game perfectly. All right. Wow. So, Mike, I'm kind of interested in you You know, all those years when you were playing at Brown, I was at the Sports Foundation and I became fascinated by like, talented teams that didn't quite achieve and yet other teams that did. And so, you know, Jay and I were talking before you even came on. I mean, You guys had some really talented players in some of those years at Brown, right? And as you said, you were kind of right there and right there. And then you talk about your Rochester experience with where obviously, again, you've got incredible talent, right? But so does everybody else in the MLL. So as you look back, like, you know, Do you really think about what the differences are between those teams that are talented and good, but don't quite achieve at the level that's possible versus those championship teams? Yeah, I think I mean, I think leadership and culture are sort of like natural answers there. You know, I reflect back into the camp and I've been a better captain of the team or a better leader of the team. But I think also there's like. Sort of the, like the depth of the team is a, is a important factor to death in every, in every respect, like cultural depth. So like how many guys are all in. So it's like, you have your top tier of guys who are sort of like, I'm all in, I'm, I'm buying, I'm buying what we're selling here and I'm going to live the values of the team and others that are sort of like, I'm kind of half in half out. The greater proportion of your team that you have, I think that are all in, I think is a big factor. And so at Brown, we were, I would say not all the way there all the time, you know, and, but also that stands true on the field too, you know, the Rochester team was incredible, but like, you know, Chris Schiller was, was like, Basically the most valuable player on the team. I think we just named all these hall of famers and I think he's in the hall of fame too, but he was definitely unsung as a defensive midfielder, but he was the one guy who could tell all the other players who had large egos, rightfully so, like what to do and when to do it and when to shut their mouth and when we needed them to step up and score a goal. And that was just like, I mean, you can't put a value on that. And there's very few people like that, but also in a game, he would just Just always do what needed to be done and he could be counted on in any circumstance, you know And like in the most high pressure circumstance a really tough ball. It's just like as a goalie You just you had so much less like tension. You're like, I know he's going to come up with this, you know Like we're not going to give up. I know we're not going to give up like a brody was the same way But it's like I know we're not going to get up give up like a bad scoring opportunity here Because when in these critical moments You I just know I can count on these people. And like Jeff's wiki was like you know, not as someone like Casey Powell or Joe Walters, all these guys you've heard of, he scored a million goals that year and the role that we needed him to play was to, to catch the ball and finish, and he, he just did it like he understood his role perfectly and executed it perfectly. So I think that, I don't think we have quite at Brown, like the depth in terms of like every role being filled. Even though we had some great high end, like the top tier guys, you know, Jamie Moremile, Chaz Gesner, Chaz Woodson, like super talented guys that are really tough to play against, but I don't, I just don't think we have quite the depth in every, every position. Right. Yeah, I saw some highlights of Chaz Woodson. Holy cow. He was quite the crease diver as a pro. I didn't, would he do that in college too? Would he could, he, I'm not sure if he did or he didn't after all brown state is a radical place, but perhaps not that radical. Tune in next week to find out for sure.
Ron:
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.