S3 E18. Mindset Matters: A Conversation with 6X MIAA Champion and 4X COY Bryan Kelly, Part II.

In this episode of 'Get the Lax Scoop,' hosts Big Dawg and Jaybird interview Bryan Kelly, renowned lacrosse coach from Calvert Hall High School, discussing his undefeated 1991 national championship team at Carolina and his journey in coaching. The conversation delves into the dynamics of that remarkable team, standout players, and influential mentors like Coach Joe Breschi and legendary figures Willie Scroggs and Dom Starsia. Kelly also shares insights on developing a winning mindset, building a cohesive team, and his experiences leading Calvert Hall to multiple championships. Additionally, the podcast touches on recruiting insights, player development tips, and the importance of character and simplicity in successful coaching. The episode concludes with a look ahead at Calvert Hall's promising future and the impact of lacrosse on youth development.

00:00 Introduction to Get the Lax Scoop

00:23 Meet the Hosts and Guest

00:59 Welcome and Introduction to Brian Kelly

01:34 Brian Kelly's Championship Insights

09:57 Coaching Legends: Scroggs and Starja

12:22 Sponsor Message and Announcements

13:43 John Tope and Coaching Journey

20:41 Calvert Hall's Championship Journey

25:03 Conclusion and Teaser for Next Episode

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Inside the Recruiting Game: Insights From College Lacrosse Coaches
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Donate to Harlem Lacrosse Summer Camp:

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Links to training videos:
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

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Check out!... Coach Tintle's Lacrosse Barn:

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SuccessHotline with Dr. Rob Gilbert on Ironclad & Apple Podcasts

Brian Cain Daily Dominator on Apple Podcasts

Lacrosse Charities Mentioned in S2 E36:
https://www.4thefuturefoundation.org/

https://www.harlemlacrosse.org/

https://15forlife.org/

Transcript

0:00

It's time for Get the Lack Scoop, a podcast bringing you all the people and stuff you should know in the game of lacrosse. We take lack seriously, but ourselves, not so much. Join host Big Dog and Jaybird and the biggest names in the game brought to you by Jay McMahon lacrosse. That's JML skills, mindset, and lacks IQ training. Ron Doglish, 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 Foundation. And Jay McMahon, the Jaybird, a three time All American midfielder at Brown. He was the captain of the U. S. Junior National Team and is the founder of JML. And Joining us in the studio, Steve Grisolfi, who's collegiate lacrosse career statistics equals one goal against Dartmouth brought to you by Jay McMahon lacrosse. That's JML skills, mindset, and lacks IQ training, helping the next generation of lacrosse players get to the next level Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. And for those who are new to the program, well we'd like to say welcome to you as well. We're so glad you're joining us for this second portion of our interview series with six time MIAA champion, and four time coach of the Year from Calvert Hall High School in Baltimore. The great Brian Kelly. If you have not heard part one of the series, we highly recommend you go back and check it out. As it was pure Podcast Gold. Now we will roll with the recording and you will find this interview picking up right where we left off last time. So what was, flash forward to your senior year, what were, what were the difference makers for that undefeated 91 national championship team at Carolina that you were a part of? What really defined that group? I, I would say was a hell of a team. Yeah. It, it was a team like I would say the, the 88 team that I was on as a freshman. That was the most talented team I. Played with it. Carolina unfortunately ran into sch smaller Cornell, and he, he just was unreal. Kind of like your experience against Marilyn run into a hot goalie and, and that happens, you know, and Yeah. Mm-hmm. They, they, they, we went home early and, you know, that year I felt like we had the talent to win it, but in 91. Again, it was kind of like Marilyn this year with like, not a lot of stars going in. No one really thought we were great. But Dennis Goldstein, you know Timmy's younger brother, who's a senior with me that year he was the offensive player of the year. He was just, Dennis was one of those guys that was really good at everything. He wasn't like great at anything. He just did. He could score, he could feed. He just was tough. And he did that and then super, super solid, you know, maintained possession, like, you know, everything like a master. Like if you watched him play, you'd be like, not popping off the screen, but you would look at the statue. He's like, God, he was three and two. He was four and three. You know, he was that guy and he just could end a game. And then defensively we had Graham Harden. He was my roommate and he was great. God rest his soul. He was unbelievable. He covered the number one and he was the defensive player of the year, and he was outstanding. And then, you know, midfield, it was super, super intense too. You know, he coached us, was that our freshman year at Brown? It was his older brother. His older brother. Yeah. That was boy. Oh, that's right. That was Boyo. Right, right, right, right, right. Yes. Graham was out here. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Graham had great hands. He played hockey and you know, now you can't take the ball away, but Graham could take the ball away and I, I made a living off of Graham'cause he would get the ball on the ground and I was good at it, right up ball up. So, you know, I led the team in ground balls and that was completely because of ground. Oh man. He just would just get the ball on the ground and I would get it. Yeah. And then but I think what set us apart was. We rode really well. We had a great riding team. We would score three or four goals off of rides. We played five attack men. You know, we played three midfield units. Fortunately, I liked that we only played three download defenders, but, you know, because I didn't like to rotate out, but Right. You know, we also rotate, and that could be demoralizing when you're scoring goals off a ride, you know, it's one thing, you know, you don't clear it. It's another thing that they get an immediate goal. You know what I mean? I remember that from that team. They were, it's like a, just a million people playing, you know, like you said, you're playing three midfield, you're playing five attack men. Yes. And it was just like a swarm. I mean, it was like, forget about it. Yeah. And Coach k Carmen, he had one rule, like if you don't ride, you don't play. And so, like if guys weren't riding hard, they came off and he put another guy on. Yeah. And you know and defensively we, you know, we weren't the biggest group. We just played great team defense. And then we had a guy named Andy Piazza in the Goal who was Oh yeah. Outstanding. And for me personally, I loved playing in front of Andy'cause he was the best communicating goalie I've ever played for in my life. Mm-hmm. Like, and I loved that'cause he, he was your eyes and ears and he was just, he was great to play with. So it was, it was this, you know, just, it was a team we won because it was just completely a team. Yep. That's great. Then tell us best team ever tell the, yeah, tell us about the young assistant coach. That's also a friend of the show who I think I, I, the last time we got to really hang out, Brian was at this guy's 50th birthday party. Yeah. Down at Chapel Hill. Yeah. So tell us about a young assistant coach, Joe Brushy went from teammate to your assistant coach that year in 91, and now of course. The very successful head coach of the Tar Heels. Right. Of course. You played alongside him for three years too, right? Yeah, he was great. I mean, you know, I love playing with Joe. He was one of the all time best defenders ever to come outta Carolina. And then he, when he came in and, and he took over the defense, you know, not obviously Coach Klarman became the head coach. Our senior year he was the defensive coordinator, so his hand print was in on it. But like, I'll tell you a little side story. So when Job first became. The defensive coordinator, you know, him and I talked and I told him, I'm like,'cause I was a senior, I was like, Joe, you just gotta rip me one day in practice and, and I'll just, we'll take it like, just rip me. And so to set the tone. And Joe's so nice. Like, he, he never really did it. He got on me as nice as Joe does. But you know, he, I knew he knew what he was doing and he coached us and it, and, and he had complete authority over our defense. And everybody, you know, Graham and I both played with Joe. We were one year removed, but there was that respect of knowing, like, he's our coach and what he says goes, and there was no question in that. And it was also great too, because Joe could understand and relate to us. And so yeah, you know, he, he did an awesome job with, with our defense and you know, and he, there's, it didn't matter. He was only one year removed. We all knew he was our coach and he was in charge. Mm, that's great. And that was the first year. That's a tough thing to do for, yeah. Yeah, honor, that was the first year of school. First year that Klarman was the head coach Was when you were a senior. Okay. Gotcha. And again, he did a, and was Scroggs the head coach right before that? Scroggs was my head coach for three years. So Willie brought all, it was all Willie's guys. He brought in and Willie was great. I mean, he, he, because I remember meeting Carmen in a recruiting. Meeting, he came to Garden City and he was not the friendliest guy in the world. No. He did not make any friends that day. I'll tell you that. I think that's, you know, I, I, we called him coach happy, you know, sometimes because, you know, but Coach K was great, you know, he was, it took me a while to you know, it was hard my first two years playing for coach, you know? Yeah. But then I, I learned a lot from him and it, it, you know, helped me. And he ended up being a really great coach, and he knew what he was talking about, and he really loved the guys, and he loved his players. And, and he was all about his, his guys, you know, type of guy, Uhhuh, but, you know, he was brutally honest. Right. Brutal. That's what I, brutally honest. Right. And that carried over to his recruiting. He was brutally honest. And you Right. You know, you knew what you were getting, I guess, with him. Yeah. You, you, you knew what you saw as what you got, you know, right. Now, what was Scroggs like? He's kind of a legendary guy. He was a legendary coach. I mean, he's one of the best coaches ever. Willie was very calm. But Willie, when he got mad, he, he knew he would let you play, but he ran a, a tight ship without many rules, you know, his rules were like, you know just don't be stupid, you know, type of thing. Yeah. But, you know, he, he was great in the riding and clearing game. He, he was very smart offensively defensively. He let Coach Carmen run the, the defense. I, I learned a lot from Willie. And he managed the game and, and he was one of the all time best college coaches to, to be, you know, I think he won three national championships as a right college coach. So he, yeah. It's funny, Jay listening, listening to that and remembering Dom's two rules. You know, and, and I think there is something to learn from these guys who kept it simple. You know, Dom's two rules, don't be late and don't be an asshole. Right? Yeah. Like, and, and you know, like, it sounds silly, but when you think about it, right? He's saying, be on time, take responsibility and be a good person. You know? Right. Don't be a jerk. And then, and then when he would leave, you know, practice, he'd say like, you know, take care of yourself. Take care of each other. You know, that was Yeah. Every day. That's what he'd say every time. Yeah. Yeah. And that's how, you know, Willie was, he, you know, you never wanted to be called into his office. You know, he, he was like, look it, I'm, I'm in charge. You know, like I make the rules. So like, if you cross it, you're, you're, you know, and you knew the boundary, you know? Mm-hmm. Right. He, he, he was, you know, he was a legend. He. He is a legend. He was just a he, he made, he built Carolina Lacrosse. Right. It was Willie Scroggs who, who created it. Yeah. So, yeah. Pretty cool. How about if we, 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. Two legendary coaches, Willie Scroggs of UNC and Dom Storia of Brown and UVA. Coach Scroggs was recruited to be the next coach at North Carolina when he was an assistant at Johns Hopkins. He would inherit a six and six team that had gone one and three in the A, CC. next 12 years, he would take the Tor heels to 11 consecutive NCAA tournaments, nine final fours, and would win three national championships in 19 81, 82, and in 1986. And over the course of those two consecutive seasons, 81 and 82, he led the to heels to a 26 and oh record before Dom Starer arrived in Charlottesville, UVA had won one national championship in 75 years. In 24 years under Star's leadership, the Cavaliers won four titles. Now, how did these coaches achieve these lofty heights? Was it through a lot of rhetoric, a lot of chitchat? No. Both were meant a few words. Talking to players from both programs over the years and having played for Staria at Brown, I know they had a deep burning desire for success. When recruiting, they kept it simple and looked for the most passionate athletic players they could find. But with one caveat, the players had to be a very high character. The men who came to play for them knew from the get go that there were high expectations, which extended out to even higher standards for those that would be chosen to become the leaders of their teams. The phrase, a passion for excellence sums up what these two men and the players they coached embodied. Each allowed their players to take initiative and play with energy and lots of enthusiasm, but they did have guardrails. No matter how creative and explosive you want your players to play, they have to have guardrails. There's gotta be some boundaries, as Coach Kelly just said, and understanding that there is a line, a line regarding your effort, your commitment to the team and your behavior that you simply do not cross. So as Coach Starge would say, take care of yourself and when needed, you take care of one another and steer them away from going off the rails. Success even at the highest level can be that simple. And now you will Hear a message from our sponsor. 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 on Kindle, and for those. Who would like a book in their hands? It is available on Amazon, under the title inside the recruiting game insights from college lacrosse coaches. Also we would like to mention the Harlem Lacrosse Boston Summer Camp for Boys and Girls will be offered again this summer and run by Brown Lacrosse alum and guest on our show, Sam Jackson. This camp is targeted for players who are with Harlem Lacrosse, but will be making that all important transition from middle school to high school. It is a critical time to help these young people feel connected to lacrosse and to their program players who continue with Harlem lacrosse into high school not only have nearly a hundred percent high school graduation rate, but also have a significantly higher chance of going to college compared to those who leave the program after middle school. Even a small donation can make a big difference. So with that, you will see the description of these items in the show notes. Now, another guest we had in the program was Brown's new head coach, John Tope. Yeah. And after a little research, we found out that his senior year was your first year coaching, right. As a head coach at Hall. Yep. So tell us, you know, what that was like and what, what a younger coach tope was like back then. That must've been fun. My first year, year, I remember, can't remember exactly what he said, but he was like, oh, you know, if it wasn't for Brian Kelly, I wasn't gonna go. It was something, I forget exactly what it was, but it was something big. Well, when Toury, my first year as the JV head coach was his freshman year, so I coached him his freshman year. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, he came in, he was this chubby fat kid, you know, coming in on the jv and he couldn't really run, you know, he was a little overweight, but he was, he had the greatest stick, he could get everything off the ground. And, you know, he made jv and then TOI just transformed himself in high school, you know, like Really? Yeah. And, and became a, a dominant player. And then, so my senior year his senior year I became the head varsity coach. And Uhhuh, you know, toury was a awesome, and, and at that time he was trying to figure out where to go and getting recruited and he ended up being one of the first guys to go to Ohio State. But. Corp's the guy, like if you were in a fight, you want him in the foxhole with you. Like Yeah. Right. And he was the player that just, he, he gave it everything he had. He was a awesome, awesome player. He played down low and he played pole for us. Yeah. He was pretty versatile. He tra, I mean he transformed himself and you know, he, he just is a guy like, you want K Hall to be model after, you know? Right. Like Brown's got themselves an absolute winner. Like, I love tours. He's, he's the best and what you see is what you get. He is, no. And he will he'll do an amazing job there. Yeah. We had Jamie Monroe on, and Jamie Monroe was the head coach of Denver and to was an assistant for him and he was like, you know, everyone says. People work hard and all this. He's like, no, I'm telling you like, you can't even believe how much this guy gets done. Like between eight to 10:00 AM on a Monday, it's like someone's whole week. Like the guy is a nut, you know? So there, there's just got an incredible motor right here. There's no one I enjoy more like talking to, like we, he's a guy who I call and we connect and we're, we're very close. Oh, that's great. And he is just he's, he's so smart and every, if you look at his kids that from high point that when they played, they always played hard and you watch Brown this year, they might not have had the results, but they played hard and he will have Brown on top. He'll, I, there's no question in my mind it's gonna take some time. I mean, I, Jay, I would, I would hope that the, the coach of the number one team in the country. Down there at Calver Hall is gonna be sending, you know, a coward hall long. You would think he'd get some on, give us some guys some boots. Film down in that neck of the woods. I mean, says he loves coach. Make a priority trophy. I think we're gonna remember that. Jack us the love We're gonna be watching. I'll, I'll, I, I'll share a story. We played stab this year and, there was a, our first game of the year and there was a kid on Stab team number. It's going Brown number. Yeah, yeah. Number 10. So I'm like, he played great against us. So after the game, I talked to the stab coach, his friend, and I'm like, number ten's really, really good. He's like, yeah, he was going to Air Force, but they, he can't go to Air Force for whatever reason. So he's totally, I, my first phone call was Toury. I was like, trp, oh, nice. You got, you gotta recruit this kid, number 10. Like, he's a great student. He is going to stab you. He's like, yeah, I know who he is. And then, and long story short, he started recruiting him. He ends up going to Brown, so, yeah. Nice. And that's the thing I share with kids. Like, you never know, like Yeah. As a coach, like I, if I, I see a kid that's really good. Like I got a text from another coach, college coach on a kid at Loyola High School. What do you think? I'm like, he's really good. You should recruit him. You know what I mean? Like but if that kid was a kid that I didn't, I. You know, treated our team with disrespect or something like that. I'm, I'm, I might have a different answer, you know, so. Right. I always tell our guys, you gotta carry yourself. You never know who's watching. You never know, and it could help you. Right. That's great. And just wanted to get into a little bit just on your influences as going into coaching. Like, as you said, you were coaching the JV at one point and then became the head coach at Calvert Hall there in 96. Did you go right into coaching right after Carolina? Or what, what was your path? I went right in. I, I didn't, I wish I had a mentor. You know, I, I kind of went right in and I was the assistant on varsity my first year out under Mike Thomas, who was my high school coach. And then he asked me to do the JV for three years, or two or three years or whatever. And I did that. And then he re. Retired. He, he did, he just was ready to step away. And and I applied for the job and fortunately I got it. You know, I was 26 years old at the time and, you know, amazing. I, I didn't Were you a little nervous being like, ah, this is a big time program? Or were you just like, not realizing it even? I was very nervous. Yeah. No, I was nervous. Yeah. I mean, you know, like I, again, like I never played offense, you know, I was like, you know, you just, you just didn't know, you know? And like, I came in and I, I, I had all these ideas of slide packages and different type of offense we're gonna run. And then, you know, I realized like, you, you gotta coach your, I hate to say it, your dumbest player sometimes. So you gotta keep it simple, you know? And high school, you can't run multiple slide packages just with some teams. Some teams you can, you just have to figure it out. So, yeah. You know, and I benefited from the previous coach my first year'cause he was, I. A excellent coach and teaching the fundamentals. And I just came in and, and brought some new ideas of things that I wanted to do defensively and offensively and it, and it, and I benefited from his teaching and, and, and then we had a really great year that first year. First couple years there. That's awesome. So good stuff. Yeah. Well, you know, you, you clearly have done something right. We figured it out this time. Brian, Jesus. I mean, he's coach of the, in 96, his first year. Yeah. And, and winning your sixth MIA championship. I mean, this is an in, I mean, I don't need to tell you that conference is torture. Yeah. And the competitiveness and to have the level of consistent success that you've had and, you know, number one ranking in USA today. So you know, this year too. Yeah. This, congrats on all your success. I mean, it's, it's huge and, and. People. I, I just don't think people realize. I'm sure you're you're, you know, you're, you're, you're basically gonna be able to retire soon from all that money you're making at Calvert Hall, being the head of cross coach. I know. Yeah. I mean, I just don't, I just don't think people have any idea if you want your team to play at that level in the MIAA, the time that you're putting in Brian and your staff. Right. Plus he gotta just love. Plus he's working a full-time job on the, you know, doing this lacrosse thing on the side, basically. I mean, it's amazing. So, so anyway, just thanks for all you've done for the game and the commitment you've made to those kids over all that time. It's impressive. Well, thank you. But, so, so tell us you know, you've had a lot of great teams. What was, what was special about this group? You know, we asked you the same thing about your championship team at Carolina. Tell us what was special about this this Calver Hall group. You know, like we, we didn't have any five stars or four star guys. We were all a bunch of three stars, you know? It was just really, wow. Yeah, we had maybe two, four stars, a face off guy and a long pole, you know, going to Carolina. But no five stars. It was just, you know, look. We work hard. You know, we're the only school in the MIA that's won a championship that doesn't have a middle school. You know, our kids don't reclassify. Our kids are 17 and 18, maybe have one 19 here or there, but like our kids are normal age kids. Mm-hmm. We don't have that. So every bit of our success has come through failure. It's been five failures that I could go through of like how I, we built this program and how I've, you know, focused on things. But, you know, our kids work hard and they were in the weight room. Five, four days a week. And it was through a lot of hard work and I think we had great senior leadership and, you know, our kids just always found a way to win, you know, and it just was a really fun group to coach. You know, it wasn't an easy, you know, always easy. I mean, we had two losses, which I'm okay with, but there were two games we played absolutely horrendous in. And I felt like we were intimidated and afraid. And, you know, after that second loss of our season, the spading I shared with my wife, like, I'm either gonna lose this team or I'm gonna galvanize this team the next day.'cause I was infuriated with our effort and, you know I had son on the team and after that game of driving back, that poor kid had to hear, hear it all. Like I, every kid on the team's calling like, dad mad. Your dad mad? He's like, oh my. But we got, the guys took the challenge and then they just, we just played as a team, you know, and one of the kids. And then you beat them in the championship, I think, right? Yeah. We beat the two teams we lost to McDonna. That's sweet. And, and then we beat Spalding in the championship. Wow. And and, you know, and our, our guys were just, they just played hard and they worked hard and, and they, they really they, they, they, they were green. Like, so we have this thing where we worked with this company called Lead'em up in the green, gray, and red, and. If the gray sway, it's hard to explain, but if you're green, you're that great teammate and you gotta get the guys in the gray to be green. And if you gotta get reds or the guys that pull the kids down, and we didn't have any reds, we had all green. I, every kid was all, all in from all the kids that played to all the kids that didn't play. And I think, you know, our team's very process oriented. We never talk about winning. And our big thing we tell'em is to play with joy. And, and that's the greatest emotion you can possibly have. So we always challenge our kids to pick something to be thankful for and just go out and play with joy and just focus on the process and do your job. And, you know, the way we won the game against Spalding in the championship you know, our guys executed what we wanted to do to tie the game and, and in, in overtime. I. They just ran their own thing. You know, everybody thinks it was a play, but I tell'em, it's just our offensive set and they just took advantage of what the defense was giving them. And it was really fun though. It's, that's the best part about coaching, is when you see kids do it on their own, you know? Right. We run a read, react offense. I don't run plays, you know, you have your quick hitters, but I, I wanna teach'em how to read a defense and then once kids can figure that out, it's hard to stop. And Nice guys did. They did that all on their own, so I was super proud of'em. That's awesome. That's such great fundamentals too, like getting their mindset to the point where it's like, don't focus on winning. Right. Focus on running the offense, focus on the process and focus on having fun. Right. All that positive energy. That's, that's awesome. Yeah, like. In 2012 was probably, we were number one ranked team in the country and we played Conestoga and they were four in the country and we were loaded. I had Ryan Brown I had Garrett, apple, apple, Evan Connell. Wow. Steven Kelly. Like I had five PLL guys on that team. Like we were loaded and we ended up, we were winning 10 to five going into the fourth. And they started pressuring us and, and, and, and, and, and created havoc. and, and, and, and, and, and And, and, and then what happened? What happened as the loaded number one ranked team in the nation with five future PLL players took a five goal lead into the fourth quarter. To find out. Tune in next week. Until we meet again. Here's to hoping you find the twine. We're signing off here at the get the lax scoop. Thanks again so much. We will see you the next time.