S2 E23. A Fruitful, Field Of Dreams, 2X All-American & CEO of Harlem Lacrosse, Mike Levin, Part II.

Join hosts Big Dawg (Ron Dalgliesh) and Jaybird (Jay McMahon) on 'Get the Lax Scoop,' a lacrosse podcast exploring stories and strategies from the biggest names in lacrosse. In today's episode, learn about the college and professional lacrosse career of Mike Levin, and the hosts themselves, who all played at Brown. Discover the impact of players like Chas Gesner, Mike Mormille, and Chaz Woodson. Our co-hosts delve into Mike Levin's journey through coaching, nonprofit management with Metro Lacrosse, City Lacrosse, and Harlem Lacrosse, and learn how Harlem Lacrosse supports young athletes in middle school to prep school transitions. Don't miss out on expert advice, insights, and exclusive offers on JML training programs.

00:00 Introduction to Lax Scoop Podcast

00:23 Meet the Hosts: Big Dawg and Jaybird

00:59 Brown Lacrosse Memories and Insights

04:14 The Importance of Team Depth and Buy-In

06:00 Mike Levin's Career Path

08:40 Founding and Growing Metro Lacrosse

11:06 Transition to Build City Lacrosse

20:53 Merging with Harlem Lacrosse

26:42 Harlem Lacrosse's Middle School Program

35:15 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes

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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

Welcome back everyone. We're super excited to bring you part two. Of the fruitful field of dreams. Interview series with Harlem lacrosse, CEO, Mike Levin. If you have not heard part one, we highly recommend you go back and check it out because it was simply epic. You will find this interview Picking up right where we left off. As Mike has discussing some very insightful and interesting differences between the buy-in seen with college teams. Compared to the professional ranks, specifically the championship team, the Rochester Rattlers that Mike played on while in. Major league lacrosse.. 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? Yeah, there was a funny time where a coach got mad at the ref because he was like, you know, you're not prepared for someone that athletic. That's why you think that he went in the crease, but he didn't, which I think was true. He was amazing. Yeah. Just a tough cover, you know, plus a very uncommon amount of athletic ability. The first, we were playing pickup basketball in the, in the OMAC, like at the time. But in the fall of his freshman year and he's like, let's play basketball and he threw the ball at the backboard and to himself and dumped it like in the game. I was just like, what just happened? He's on the lacrosse team? How tall is he? He's, he's shorter than I am. I think, I mean, I'm fine. He's definitely like, it was just, it was, it was extremely casual and I was just like, what just happened? It's a casual. He, he might've had a little better first step than you too, Mike, just a, just a, just a little explosiveness. You too, Ron. Explosiveness. Oh, Jay, no doubt. All And you, Jay, I will say, I haven't watched you both, Jay. All right, let's, let's move along. Mike, I really love that, that thought though, of you were talking about two levels of depth, right? The, the talent depth, but also the buy in depth. Yeah. And I just think that is so true. What's your level of buy in depth on your team? You know, Jay, I was thinking about our senior year and I, I think that team had such tremendous buy-in depth at every level. I think I think so. Not, not to bring it back to our glory days. Why not freshman through seniors? Our, our undefeated senior season. But I mean, we, you know, dunno if you heard that we were undefeated that year, but we were That was, that was when Mike was saying he was in middle school. Jay, just getting into the game. Like they used to show some games on TV, but that was, that was 92. Right. 91, please. It's I think it's a super hard thing to achieve in college. I mean, the pros, we only dressed 18 people. So you do have like the lineup challenge of people in and out of the lineup, but in college you have lots of kids on the roster who not playing. Right. You don't really get that in the pros. So that's like a different dynamic. You get people who are outta the lineup and maybe unhappy with their playing time or whatever, but there's only 18 guys. Most everybody's playing. Right. You know? Right. So it's a hard thing I think for colleges to get that buy-in top to bottom. I, but you see some teams that are really good. I mean I think Lars has done a really good job with it at UVA and yeah. The Notre Dame team this year was just, they seemed like they were just sort of a talent, differential and so completed every position. I just don't. Running three midfields and they're all scoring. Unbelievable. But yeah, it was another good example. So so Mike, let's move on, you know, we're, we're going to go back a little bit, obviously, you know, we talked about your playing days at Brown and then on the MLL but let's get into sort of your. Personal and career path. You, you know, you leave Brown and you did some coaching for a year at Holy cross, I think. Then you go back to BC to get a master's in education. And I think coach a little club lacrosse there. So what, what was Mike Levin thinking about at that point in terms of what your sort of career trajectory will be? And then we'll, we'll talk about how you found. You know Metro lacrosse and then obviously a Harlem lacrosse. Yeah. I mean, I think I was just sort of I mean, when I graduated, I was just like, I just want to play lacrosse, you know, I just like, I've got unfinished business here and I have this opportunity. I'm going to try and squeeze it for everything I can. Yep. And then I was like, you know, should I, Think about coaching. I had a couple opportunities and it just, I don't, I think if I was going to, I was more interested in being a high school coach than a college coach like that. I came to that conclusion pretty early on that. I was sort of like, I think this is a bit better fit for me. So you were thinking like you'd be a teacher and a coach kind of thing. Yeah, the education degree. Yeah, like I my mom was a teacher and I and I, you know, all the most important people in my life were basically high school teachers and coaches or the people that I looked up to a lot. And but then I just started. I think Brown got me thinking about just like. Like social issues more like I had a greater social consciousness leaving Brown than I did entering Brown That's right, sir. What are what are issues that need to be addressed? that's why I started doing some more reading about like education reform and I took a couple of head classes at Brown before I graduated and just kind of got the wheels turning that I was like Okay. Well, I think I want to be a teacher in like a low income school and That's what I was my intention was with my degree from Boston College So that's, that's kind of, I thought, you know, this sort of, this is what I know and this is what I like. This feels comfortable to me, and it feels aligned with the sort of like the, you know, you're, at that time in your life, you're sort of forming what you, or like important values to you. Mm-Hmm. and, Right. It seems and then was it like right at that time, yeah, I was gonna say, was it right at that time when the metro lacrosse thing opened up or how did that factor in? Yeah, I had no idea about like a how a nonprofit. Organization function, but I, I heard about it from someone and I just signed up to be a volunteer and they were like, actually we have a job opening. So I was about to take a job working at a high school in Boston and instead of taking that job, I went to work for Metro lacrosse, but I still kind of was like, well, maybe we'll do this for a couple of years. And then I'll like go teach somewhere or try to get a teaching up somewhere. And then I just sort of became interested in how this works, you know, and how. The idea of a nonprofit, the work itself. When I was, I was working with kids, I wasn't like managing the organization anyway, I just was coaching and trying to help kids get into school and support kids as much as I could. But the, it introduced me to the concept of like a nonprofit business, which got me interested. Right. Right. And then how long was it until, because you became the CEO of that organization, I think, right? It's like, how did things develop? Yeah, it took a few years. It was 2011. And I got, when I did, I became, I got into this program that was like at the time called the Institute for Nonprofit Management Leadership. It was housed at BU then. It's now something else. It's called the I'll think of the name in a second. They've done an amazing job. They've expanded all over the place, but there, it was. It was basically to train kind of like middle managers and non profit orgs to get to the next level. It was management training effectively. And It was really valuable. It was like I was really drinking from a fire. I was because I didn't know anything about running any business nonprofit or otherwise. And I was in charge and I'm sort of like the organization challenges. They're like, Hey, we got to make payroll. Like, there's a phone. Here's what we figured out. That was great training. It was hard. It was really hard. It's really stressful at the time. I wasn't ready for it, but it was looking back on. It was really good. Really good training because you, you kind of. That's an important part of the job, right? Wow. Good deal. So Ron, where are we here? Well, I, Jay, I think we're kind of picking up on some of the different themes here. So I'll kind of take it. So you're with Metro Lacrosse, you've risen to that leadership role. And then, you know, there's this transition to go across the country. And co founded build city lacrosse. So, so what was that transition Mike and what, what drove that? So my now wife, I was chasing my, my now wife, Abby, graduated from business school and she was working in LA and I was really fulfilled and challenged by my job. I was learning a ton and I was starting to make some good progress. I felt like we were really making progress with the org. And So I was just felt a little bit stuck. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do. And I got an email this one day from someone named Dr. Connor saying, Hey, I heard about what you're doing in Boston. I'm kind of interested in that happening in LA. Could I pick your brain? I had no idea who he was. I had heard that you started in the mailroom at CAA. So I'm like, Oh, maybe he's like a super junior person. Like sometimes we would get people who wanted to start Metro lacrosse, like around some other city, but they'd be like a high school coach or something. And they're like, I heard about this sounds cool. Turns out he owns the business and he's like, you know, had an incredible career as a, as a Hollywood agent and a sports agent in LA. Wow. Knew basically everyone, you know, or knew a lot of people in LA. I didn't one person, but I responded. I was like, Hey, I'm kind of interested in moving to LA. Maybe we could do something together. So he said, okay. And I was visiting Abby. And so we, we started meeting, we met for a couple of times on trips out there and I wrote a proposal to him Asked him to basically fund the startup of this idea. And so that's how it came. It was basically just me wanting to live in LA and having this like incredible fortuitous bounce where the one person who's probably the best position to help me do that. That's amazing. Happened to email me out of the blue one day. That's amazing. And you had picked up that skill of picking up the phone. So you were like, well doc yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that's incredible. Yeah. And he's still involved in, you know, that was in 2016 when that, when I got that email and, or no, it was more, it was 24, 2013 when I got that email. And 2014 when he first started supporting it and he's still supporting it in a major way, helping, helping us grow the business. And yeah. And it grew quickly, right? I think like within three years, you guys, you did merge with Harlem Lacrosse, but it listed that there was about 250 students involved at that time. So, yeah, I mean, we, I was, that was such a fun experience. You know, it was, you know, he was supporting the organization and as was an important Brown Lacrosse alum, Tom Rothman as well. He was like the first person we called, really funny meeting. But Want to share that with us? Yeah, I will. I will. So, I've never been You know, for the listeners, he had just gotten the job being the chairman of Sony Pictures. He's running the movie studio. I've basically never been to California. So, right. And his name, just so everyone knows, is I'm the brown head coach. It's the Rothman chair position. So John Tope now, now shares the title of the Tom Rothman chair for coaching at Harlem Lacrosse or at at Brown Lacrosse. Right. We have not yet endowed the Harlem Lacrosse job. Not yet. ian Slip But it's, you know so he's a big dude. Like he walk, he a big, oh, walk into this office's a big deal. You're just like, whoa. And so we go, we go into his office and What's the office like? First off, it was bigger than my house for sure. but it's, you know, it was really cool. Has lots of cool, like movie like artifacts and stuff and you just, I, you can just feel there's a certain energy on the studio a lot that I was, you know. on my heels for sure. I'm like it. But it was lucky I'd have Doc. So he, he Doc must be a schmoozer. He must be like, Oh yeah, this is my territory. Yeah. I mean, he, he'd been in, I think he, he negotiated against Tom for, with, for many of his clients. So they had some battles, but but a certain respect for one another. And but he, Tom was letting somebody, Previous meeting to us. We were in the waiting room. He was letting them know that he was unpleased with something. It was which I can hear very clearly and nice entree, but he's like, who's next? So, we walk in there and I'm like, what's going on? And we start to get give the pitch and he's just like, what do you want? And I said, go And he's like, stop, stop, stop. What do you want? So we basically asked him to support the org and join the board, which he said, yes, in a very important way. And we were out of there in like five minutes. He's like, I just took this job. I'm not going to be that available, but you know, I respect what you're doing and I'm going to try and help you if I can. But you know, it was sort of like a, I took it as sort of a challenge to sort of like take this and do something with it. And prove it, you know, and but it was, it was super intimidating and also kind of hilarious because I, I walked out of there. I was like, I didn't know, I don't know what just happened. It seemed like that was like a home run expectations were, but it was so fast. And I feel like I got yelled at. Must have made other appointments a little easier. Yeah. Yeah. He's been incredible. Like, and we're we're going to be honoring him at the vet at our, that benefit this year, which I'm really excited about. And he's, it's been awesome to just sort of like build this together with him over many years as he's been building the studio and doing an amazing job there. Cause it was, it was right when he took the job. So it was. But yeah, it was definitely I was a fish out of water, but I still am, you know, it's far from Pittsburgh, New York. I'll tell you that much, but, you know, you know, like us Brown state guys, we kind of, we kind of figure it out. We just kind of figure out a way, you know,

Jay: 16:45

How about if we transition to. J m l and let's do that. We'll get into a little bit of the mindset. We'll do a mindset minute here.

16:54

All us guys, all you guys. And that includes men and women. And not just those from brown state, Ken, just figure it out. If we give ourselves the opportunity to prove to ourselves. But we can do. And at the same time when we make that effort. We can see that life and the sport of lacrosse can prove to us that it is responsible to us and our energy and our 100% effort. As Dr. Rob Gilbert says the sports performance expert. If you don't ask the question, the answer is always no. This echoes the famous quote for Wayne Gretzky, which states. We miss a hundred percent of the shots we'd never take. So sometimes we need to let go of the idea that we need more preparation. Let go of the thought that says, well, I'm just going to wait until the next game. After I've worked on my shot, a little more. Before I start letting it fly. Or as a defensive player waiting to throw that takeaway check. Until I feel more comfortable with it. Or for you goalies out there holding back on that long outlet pass that can become a fast break and a goal. No, not at all. At some point we've all got to say I'm not waiting any longer. I'm going for it now. I'm all in. That means not holding back. That means just going for what it is that you want and let go of the outcome and simply give it your best shot. I'm sure. You'll be glad you did. And I'm sure as Dr. Gilbert says, you'll never look back. Speaking of no guardrails that so many of our listeners describe 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. And finally, if you're enjoying this show, please share it with a friend. Our growth depends on our listeners. So please tell others about it and spread the word. We're excited to get back to our interview and you will find that interview in progress. Hey, so I'm really interested to hear the story of how all these organizations come together. Right. Because, you know. I knew of the founding of Metro Lacrosse. I obviously knew a lot about Harlem Lacrosse from Dom's involvement. And then you go out to the West Coast. So what is the, what's, what happens that brings all these organizations together under the brand of Harlem Lacrosse and makes it more of a national organization? Yeah, I think it's kind of a unique thing in the nonprofit world. You know, it's, it's pretty uncommon to see. And I honestly think it should happen more, but it was not not totally intentional from my perspective, but so I've known Harlem a little bit at Metro. We ran a summer camp where we invited kids from other programs to come for free. So I heard Simon Cataldo and started Harlem. I called him. I said, Hey, we're running a camp in New Hampshire. If you want to, I'm going to send a bus to New York. It's going to pick up kids from a couple other schools. If you want to bring some kids, you can. It's all taken care of. And so he brought some kids and we got to know each other a little bit that way. And then a few years later, Harlem started to grow. And I was doing, doing my thing at city lacrosse. And he's like, Hey, do you, would you want to be, you called me up, asked me if I was interested in CEO job, which I said, no. I was like, you know, we're about to have a baby. And I was super happy doing what we were doing. I felt like I was, it was really like a great experience building the organization. And now Simon was like one of the co founders of Harlem Lacrosse. Is that right? Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. He was concurrently doing this in New York when I was working at Metro. Right. But he had since gone to law school and had launched his law career and was now like leading Harlem Lacrosse from a board position. Not from a staff position and their previous director was moving on. So they were looking for a leader, a staff leader, and they called me. And that's how we joined. You know, at the time they were going to Boston or about to go to Philly, had been in Baltimore for one year. So we became the fifth city that was sort of part of the deal. So it was, I think, a bit opportunistic, you know, and then a couple of years in one year in maybe. There was a, like a, you know, a board interaction. Basically, we were starting to grow our presence in Boston and, and a board member of theirs connected with a board member of ours. And it sort of started this conversation of, Hey, can we do, could we do this together as opposed to not necessarily as competitors, but sort of like, there is competition. There's, there's finite resources out there. And so I have like such a connection with all the Metro donors and staff and board and everything. So we started having conversations about that was that was helpful during that process. And New Balance was super helpful too, as they still are remain our largest supporter, but we wouldn't have done that without their support for sure. So the first call was to them say, well, if we wanted to do this, would you be supportive of it? This is why we think it makes sense. So. Those were, were both a bit like opportunistic, I would say. With kind of the, the timing and everything worked out it wasn't as if we have never had a strategic plan at Harlem lacrosse where we're sort of like seeking to like acquire or merge with other nonprofits, even though I think it's, it's a reasonable thought to consider, you know if you're like as a, as society, what would make the most good, you know, and what's the best use of our collective resources. I think it's, it's worthwhile. It's just, it can be complicated and challenging to execute, I think. Right. A lot of moving parts kind of thing, but it probably makes you more more attractive to a big donor, like New Balance perhaps, right? Like, Oh, we're now we're, we're giving dollars to a bigger organization. Is, is that the case? Yeah, I think, I think there are some opportunities to, you know, You know, uncover new funding sources, but I try not to overvalue that, you know, at the time I was like, look, we have to be great fundraisers in every region. We're not going to think that there's some magical donor is going to fall into our lap just because we have to be big, just do good work every day in your region. But there's, we're able at a larger scale, we're able to make deeper investments in certain functions of the business that are really hard for a smaller grassroots organization. like talent or something like that, you know, to have like an HR function or a funder or You know, just in like our data infrastructure, like how are we collecting information? How are we able to analyze the data, the impact of our program? How are we able to use data in fundraising? These are sort of like back office functions that as a 1 million organization in one region is typical to difficult to like Make deep investments in those areas or like marketing or something, you know But if you're a million dollar organization, it's more feasible and you can kind of like leverage that investment more So that's I think that's where there's some value. In it, you know, and we can Basically, you can get sort of like one fifth of like a great hr leader And then you don't have to have your own hr leader, which you probably wouldn't have anyways If you were that small, but you get the benefit of having like a strong hr function, right? So I think that's kind of a value proposition, but we have gotten some donors that I think wouldn't have, wouldn't have supported us as at a smaller scale. That just, we became attractive to some other donors by, by virtue of our scale, but there, there isn't really that many corollary orgs to, to Harlem lacrosse. There are some that are national, but they tend to be more like franchise or affiliates. Okay. Where they're really quite a bit more independent, whereas we are just like one org operating in five regions. Right. I gotcha. Yeah. I mentioned to you how we had Pat Cronin on, who's the executive director there at Harlem Lacrosse Boston, and he was really going in depth. We did this, this episode in the first season, so if people haven't heard that, I definitely recommend going back and listening to that one, Pat Cronin and Sam Jackson. One thing we didn't get into was this middle school program where you're prepping middle school kids, then to get into prep schools, you know, their high school would be the prep school and then off to college. So if you could tell us a little bit about that, that sounds really interesting. And, you know, when did that start up and, and how does that work? Yeah, so that was really part of Harlem lacrosse. Metro lacrosse did a bit of it in the past. Not for Pat, unfortunately, Pat was in the program when I started working Metro across. I coached him when he was in high school, but I met him when he was amazing. Yeah, that's right. Along with his twin brother, his younger brother, who are also in the program Emily from West Roxbury and a great player and a great leader. And then we hired him to when he was in school, he went to UMass where he was got president of the club team. And then we I was able to luckily hire him. Um, When he graduated. So, but there was a little bit happening when he was in middle school. He didn't go away to school, but we, nobody else was really doing except for Harlem, Harlem lacrosse was, was sending more kids to independent school at the time. They didn't really have like a strong high school program or like a lot of options for a lot of kids to keep playing. So it was, it was a great way for kids who had the interest and aptitude to continue the sport. And so they started to develop a couple of relationships. Then when, when I started with Harlem, the scale started to increase a lot. So we, we had to sort of like build sort of like some resources and strategy around the idea of independent school. So now we're sending about 20 to 25 students a year to independent school every year and another probably 10 to 20 as post grads. No, there's a. You know, a comprehensive process by which a student is identified in any of our five regions. If, say, if you think that this is something you want to pursue, we want to talk to you and your family and let you know that's available to you. And there's kind of like the college counseling services that we provide. We'll sit down with the family, talk about what the options are, what their goals are let them know what the process looks like, and then sort of like walk them through the process. They'll apply to a bunch of schools. We'll help them with the financial aid piece. And try to find them in school now, then we'll also have a counselor assigned to them once they're in school or home lacrosse counselor. So they're responsible for talking to their counselors at school like their academic counselor, checking in with the student once a month. Hey, how are you doing? Like socially, how's school going? How's your fall sport going? Do you need a ride home? You know, whatever the case, what's your summer lacrosse looking like? We also operate a national club team. A lot of kids who are in an independent school end up playing on that team. So they remain pretty closely connected. And it's a pretty comprehensive process. But we're now putting through quite a few kids. So we have to have some systems in place. And there's really one person now, a staff member, who's where that's a big part of the portfolio of his work, is the independent school counseling. Gotcha. Great relationships with schools, admissions offices, financial aid offices lacrosse coaches in the independent school world. And we're, we're placing kids at a lot, all kinds of schools all over the place. Right. Yeah, because I know the basic model, right, in middle school and high school is that you've got a coach who's basically in the school, right? He's got like an office and he's coaching the team, but he's not necessarily like a teacher, right? He's, he's meeting with the kids in the program perhaps and giving them guidance, that sort of thing. So you gotta have a big commitment, I would guess, from these, these prep schools to have someone there, you know, guiding them along as well. Yeah. The You know, the, the, what we call the, the phrase that we use a lot is academic coach. You know, they're in the school. They're not a teacher, but they are a coach. So they're helping students like be better students that are going to class or like behaving better in school, doing their work more, studying more for the habit, having better study habits, accessing tutors when they need it, that kind of thing, changing their behaviors around school. But it is, it's very supportive. You know, there's a, there's a high level of support. If you're a Harlem lacrosse middle school student and the boarding schools are generally pretty supportive environments as well. I mean, I didn't go to a boarding school, so it's a little bit foreign to me, but we've had a lot of success. Not 100%. It doesn't always work out. Sometimes it's not the right fit or the student has needs that the school unable to meet or it's not position to me. But I think that's It's weird because Harlem lacrosse seems like sort of a novel concept that, okay, we're going to put someone in the school and they're going to connect their athletic experience to their academic outcomes, right? And that is novel in the way that we do it, you know, but it's also like, I think a very traditional idea, you know, that, that is like, well, that's basically like fundamental to a lot of boarding schools that it's like this teacher coach model, you live with the kids and it's comprehensive and you're with them and you support them from sunup to sundown and that's, you know, so it's, it's not, I don't think it's that far of a leap for, for a lot of our kids that that's, it's consistent with our model in that way, I would say. Right. I gotcha. That's interesting. It's interesting the way you think about that, Mike, because it's also like a fundamental to. When you get around a group of athletes of any kind and they talk about the coaches that really mattered to them, mostly it's about what they taught them about being a good person, right? And the sort of life skills and habits that made them successful. So in many ways, that's just what you're doing, right? And you're calling it Harlem lacrosse, but you're making sure these people have that, that mentorship and that leader that happens to be their coach as well. What you're describing is just really a great coach, like at any level in any sport. For sure. For sure. I mean, I just love sports for it because I think the, it's very difficult to create like the, the relationship building that takes place through the, like through the experience of a, of a sport, you know, like the, like, You were talking about my brown, you know, like losing to Syracuse in overtime. It's, you know, like that was a very emotional experience for me, you know, and like bonded me to the people who I went to, went through it with together. Right. Right. You know, or like working super hard, being like pushing yourself to be like, how hard can I actually work? That's like, it makes you closer with someone. So I think it's like so well suited for good relationship building upon which, and also it's a classroom for those lessons you're talking about, like. You know, what kind of person you want to be? It's like being a great teammate or like, you know How are you gonna act when the chips are down and or when you're not playing or you know? Like being really supportive of one another what is leadership? You know, I really struggle with that when I was a kid I was like really good player and I lacrosse is really important to me as was the other sports I played and I would get like frustrated with teammates a lot And I would like lash out at them or something. And I was, it was, it was so immature, you know, but I was like learning what leadership is and I need to sponsor that. I don't know where else I could learn that. So, so Mike, let's talk a little bit about, um, what you do to prepare these kids who come from, you know, a lot of them from very different backgrounds and face challenges that many of us couldn't imagine. And then you, you know, you're trying to prepare them for success in these. Certain environments and I want to I want to before I get into my question. I want to preface it by saying I remember a tremendous story that Pat Cronin told us that to me is so much about the incredible perspective that you create Oh, yeah. It's an incredible perspective that Harlem lacrosse does create. And this is such a funny story from pat Cronin. The executive director of Harlem lacrosse in Boston. At you'll definitely not want to miss. So tune in next week to hear all about it.

Ron: 34:35

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.