S3 E20. Gut Check: An Interview with 2025's, USA Lacrosse COY, Nic Bell. Part, I.

In this episode of Get the Lax Scoop, hosts Big Dawg (Ron Doglish) and Jaybird (Jay McMahon) interview Nic Bell, the newly crowned USA Lacrosse High School Coach of the Year for 2025. The discussion covers Nic's journey from his early days in Warrenton, Virginia, to becoming a highly dependable collegiate player at Brown University, and eventually a highly successful high school coach. Nic shares insights on his lacrosse upbringing, the evolution of his career, and the mentors who guided him. The episode also includes a segment on the importance of following one's intuition and Nic’s transformative four years at Brown under coaches Scott Nelson and Lars Tiffany. The podcast emphasizes the importance of listening to one's inner guidance and highlights contributions to lacrosse camps for underserved communities.

00:00 Introduction to Get the Lax Scoop

00:23 Meet the Hosts: Big Dawg and Jaybird

01:27 Casual Banter and Travel Plans

04:28 Nick Bell's Lacrosse Journey

14:38 Mindset Minute: Trusting Your Gut

18:08 Harlem Lacrosse Boston Summer Camp

18:59 Nick Bell's College Recruitment Experience

20:21 Brown University Lacrosse: The Early Years

22:32 The Lars Tiffany Era

27:50 Senior Year Reflections and Career Path

29:08 Conclusion and Sign-Off

NEW BOOK!
Inside the Recruiting Game: Insights From College Lacrosse Coaches
-Available on Amazon.com as an Ebook and paperback

Donate to Harlem Lacrosse Summer Camp:

https://www.harlemlacrosse.org/gmvs2025

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

Check us out...

On YouTube @jaymcmahonlax23
On Instagram @jaymcmahonlax23
On Facebook @: facebook.com/jmcmahonlax23. Page name: Jay McMahon Lacrosse

Jules Heningburg: https://thelaxlab.com/

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

https://g.co/kgs/eXedCXf

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 Well, lacrosse fans, we are in the thick of the summer. It's starting to heat up, Jay. It sure is wrong. The PLL season is heating up. The summer camp circuit is heating up false. And here, here at get the lack scoop. Jay, we never stop in our pursuit of talking to the game's finest. Jay, who do we have on top today? Jay? It's a pursuit of excellence. Ron, lemme get into an intro. Our next guest has over 14 years of experience as one of the top prep school lacrosse coaches in the country. While at the helm of the boys lacrosse program at the Taft School. He was a three-time founder leagues champion, a western New England champion and a Geico high school national champion, as well as the Western New England Coach of the Year. Over the course of two seasons, he has revamped a program steeped in tradition at St. Anne's Bellfield in Charlottesville, Virginia, taking the Saints to the State finals in 2024 and this year, bringing home the state title by winning the conference one VIS AA state championship with an eight five win over perennial powerhouse St. Paul, the six and hot off the presses. He was just named USA, lacrosse High School Coach of the Year for 2025. At Stab. He is also the associate Director of college counseling, a position he's well versed in over the years as a prep school and travel lacrosse coach, he's placed over 180 players on collegiate lacrosse rosters, helping them achieve their dreams of playing college lacrosse in the a CC, the Ivy League, the Big 10 and various D three institutions. He played his college lacrosse for Coach Lars Tiffany at our alma Mater Brown University, graduating in 2009 with a degree in moderate American history. Please give a warm, get the lack scoop. Welcome to the one, the only Nick Bell. Nick, congratulations on getting that fantastic award. Just saw the post today from, from stab up on Twitter XI guess. Yeah. Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. And you know, I know that we didn't talk about this in the pre-show, but I, I have been, really enjoying your podcast, really enjoying your work, and, and I'm honored to be on today. So thank you very that Oh, great. Thanks. Well, Nick, Nick, sucking up will work. We're, we're good. We'd love to hear, let us be very clear. We're we're looking for all, we're just old and washed up, so we're looking for all the positive reinforcement we can get at this point. Nick he's a big rumply dog who's starved for affection. What can we say? Sure. So, so Jay, quite a scoop for us to have the National High School Lacrosse Coach of the Year. Yes. Right after it's announced on Get the leg scoop. That is quite a scoop. We scored it. We scored it. All right. Wonderful. Nick. It's great to see you again. Enjoyed watching you play for coach Tiffany at a time when the program was really on the rise. And it seems like every program you touch, you just immediately impact in a positive way. And we'll certainly get to plenty of that. But one of the fun things we always like to do is, you've heard with our guests is, you know, we tend to know these folks when they're playing in high school and college and coaching, but we never quite know where that first spark started or where they, where they developed their love for the game. So can you tell us where did, where did this all start for you in terms of your first memories of lacrosse and who were the people that were, were maybe influential and and get you started? Thanks Ron. So I grew up in Warrenton, Virginia, which is a little closer to dc, certainly closer to DC than it is Charlottesville where I live now. I would not say the community I grew up in was a lacrosse hotbed by any means. But, you know, during the time that I was, you know, going through middle school and then high school at the Highland School I was introduced to the sport and completely fell in love with it. And. I think back to my time there, I had some great coaches who also worked in the school building. You know, one Paul Horgan, who is my advisor my AP history teacher, my coach for the four years that I was there. Archie another guy who's still in the community, doesn't work at the school anymore, works at a different school, but you know, had some like New England prep school roots from Kent School and was a big hockey guy there, but just a really great teacher and someone that looked after me. You know, I don't think I made it easy on any of my coaches when I was growing up and Nice. I'm sure LT could share some of those stories too, but it was really like in my, my middle school and high school school years that I was just like, I'm obsessed with this. And you know, it was, it was a small school. We had a good crew of lacrosse players that were in my grade or a year or two younger, or a year or two older and. You know, I think we did pretty well with the, with the, with the program that we had there. But it was just, it was the teachers that I had, the people that I already named so many other people at the school that I, you know, that I really appreciate for showing me so much grace over the years. And, you know, that's really where I got started. Cool. Now as you said, that high school experience started to gel, and then when did you start thinking, all right, I wanna play in college, I wanna take this to the next level. And then what were things like back then, of course they were really different back when Ron and I were looking at school, but for you, you know, heading in there in 2003 for, you know, being in high school, what were things like. That's a good question. It it, it was so much more simple for me than it is for the players that I'm coaching and, and mentoring advising now. And really like playing college lacrosse was pretty simple back then. I mean, you know, if you went to peak 200 or top 2 0 5 or if you good enough to get into, you know, Jake Reed's, Nike Blue Chip, there was only three or four camps that ran in the summer. You know, I was, I was growing up at a time when club lacrosse was in its infancy and there were some teams that were starting to play at like Battle the Hotbeds and Champ Camp and things like that. I played on one. Mm-hmm. I played on team that was sort of like a, a Loudoun Valley, like Northern Virginia. You know, kind of like club team, I guess. It was just a, a bunch of kids that played for a high school coach that put it together. But that wasn't really like a big part of my recruiting. It was really just those camps. And I think I knew as soon as I started playing that I loved it and I wanted to go as far as I could with it. And so, you know, I was going to a lot of like the UVA lacrosse camp with Dom Staria at UVA and mm-hmm. They had a great camp that I, I'm telling Lars and Kevin and Logan and those guys, they really need to bring back the Graves Mountain lodge. Oh. Yeah. Dom had told me about that. Yeah. Oh, that was, I still look back on that as some of my favorite early lacrosse memories. Now explain to the listeners who don't know about that, what, what that was all about. Yeah, so Graves Mountain Lodge is, this is a place in Syria, Virginia. It's like Madison County in Incre. It was really like a big lodge where we would eat corn pudding and fried chicken every day and do three in like sleeping cabins. You know, and, and, and even at that time when I was in middle school schooler, like I really looked up to Dom. Chris Colbeck was a coach that was on staff at UVA at the time that his like remarkable ability to make an impression on everybody that he comes in contact with. And I still vividly remember him. Mm-hmm. And you know, so in those early years I was really going to like, you know, Johns Hopkins lacrosse camp, UVA lacrosse camp, Maryland's lacrosse camp. And then it was, it was after my freshman year of high school that I started to go to some of those, you know, the aforementioned like peak 200, top 2 0 5, blue chip, in my rising Sophomore, rising Junior and rising senior summers, mm-hmm. You know, but it's, but it was, you know, I, I went to those camps, I did pretty well. And I got recruited and it was really, it was as simple as that. Right. Which is quite a departure from where we are today. Right. Yeah. So, so tell us about you know, we want to transition to the Brown Days. So what, what was the decider, first of all, who else, who else was interested in Nick Bell and what was, what drove your decision to come to Brown? You know, at a time where, let's be honest, Nick Brown wasn't on the rise quite yet at the time you chose to go to Brown. I think Scott Nelson was probably the head coach. Right. Definitely. Yeah. So Scott Nelson was the coach and one of the camps that I went to was called like the, it was called like the Brown Summer Challenge. And it, he actually had a good idea that I think a lot of clubs and like lacrosse companies now have leaned into, which was like a regionally based camp. So I played on, I showed up there at, at, you know, I was staying in the dorms that were close to the Sharp Refactory, the ratty. And we would walk up the hill to the OAC and, you know, all the athletic facilities there. We were playing on the roof you know, back then before there was turf out on Meister Carvan and or I guess before Meister Carvan even existed. But I played on a team with a bunch of kids that were from the Mid-Atlantic and we play against a New England based team, and there was a Midwest team and there was even like a southeast team. Mm-hmm. And I don't you know. I'm a college counselor in my day job and I'm, I'm working with kids really closely in recruiting through club and my high school. And I, I always say to them, like, you, you may not be able to describe exactly what it is or you know exactly like, what about the school? I, I is drawing you there. But you get a gut feeling. And when I was at Brown, I just, I just really took to it. I liked it. I liked the coaches, I really enjoyed the players that were working the camp that were like our coaches. It just all kind of fell into place for me and I got this gut feeling coming out of ninth grade. And then, you know, my, my mom had really pushed me. Someone growing up in, you know, in rural Virginia, like. There's a lot more out there and there's a bunch of really good schools that are in the Northeast. And at the time, like there was no University of Richmond. There was no high point. There was no Jackson. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's not that much in the Mid-Atlantic beyond like UVA and Georgetown. Right. That I think that she was smart enough to know that there's really good academic options for me that were outside of the area. So, so she, I give my mother a lot of credit for pushing me to have an open mind when it came to thinking about college and recruiting, because there were just so many more opportunities. 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. Coach Bell brings up a great point here. As he describes his experience visiting Brown as a ninth grader. He says he had a strong, visceral response to the school, a gut feeling about it. In other words, he felt a connection with the place and its people, and then his body sent him a positive signal about it. Another way of saying that is that Brown resonated with him. I had a similar positive feeling of connection with Brown when I visited way back when I was in high school, and I'll bet all of you college grads listening had similar experiences when you visited schools and studies show those of us who listen to that inner guidance system tend to enjoy our experiences more than those of us who do not. I'm gonna take a leap here. So buckle up buttercup and stay with me. The world famous inventor, Nicola Tesla, said, if you wanna find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration. He believed that all matter on the planet end, in the universe was made of differing levels of energy, and he also had a fascination with. Resonant energies. He discovered that certain energies inherently connected with other forms of energy, and that a gut feeling is a signal to follow. That signal is to follow our instincts, our intuition, our inner knowingness. That gut feeling is part of our inner guidance system, a high powered GPS that takes us to the places we're meant to go. The places. That our four are highest and best good. It is purely a feeling coming from the right hemisphere of our brain where our intuition, imagination, and creativity reside. Today's boys and girls who are immersed in technology and strictly rational left brain thinking could be missing out on important cues coming from their powerful inner guidance system. So here are a few tips to help them connect to that small, subtle voice. That resides in each and every one of us. First, quiet the mind. Meditation and mindfulness practices help calm the mental chatter and create space for intuition to emerge. Second is present moment awareness. Engage your senses fully in the present moment, noticing details and sensations without judgment, which can enhance our awareness of subtle cues. Next, trust your gut. Start with small, low stakes decisions and notice how your body reacts. If you feel a strong pull one way or the other, acknowledge it and see how it plays out. And finally, try journaling. Write down your thoughts, feelings, and intuitive hits as they arise. This can help you track patterns and identify recurring themes. So there you have it. And also do, as Coach Bell did, listen to your mother. Mothers are highly intuitive and well connected to their right brains. All in all, it helps to get in touch with your inner GPS. It is highly intelligent and never steers you wrong, and never takes you to a place of utter chaos. A place where there are no guardrails. 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 on Kindle, 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 we will return to our interview and you will find that interview in progress. So then, you know, when recruiting started to happen after my junior year, I, I most considered Dartmouth, Yale Brown. Georgetown and the University of Maryland and Navy. And that's a, that's a terrible list, Nick. Yeah, come on. Step it up. You know. Now I will say as I went through that summer like Yale said, we're not gonna be able to get you in. Dartmouth, I don't think I played well enough at Jake Reed's, Nike Blue Chip, and I think they sort of lost interest and it really came down to Maryland, Navy and Brown. And I actually they still run this program at Navy. They have something called summer seminar where you can go there for like five days and essentially live the life of a midshipman and have some of that experience and like. I'm a terrible dancer. Wow. Fairly uncoordinated. And like, learning to March was a, was a huge hurdle for me, and for probably really bad reasons. It, it drove me away from the school, but I'm glad that I did that. Right. And, you know, with the academic piece being like my guiding light you know, brown was the only school that thought I was a good enough player to justify my transcript getting me in there. And I'm really liked what they did because it, it was amazing and and an easy choice for me in the end. That's great. Nice. Yeah. So let's talk Nick about then that time at Brown. Right. And you know, it's, it's, it you know, and I knew, I knew and liked Coach Nelson and the guys that he coached with. But unfortunately, you know, they struggle in your freshman year. I think you're two and 11, right? And, and then, but then by, you know, your last two years, you're 11 and three and 12 and four. So, you know, it's funny, I was saying to Jay in the lead up to this, it was your group that I really think was the start of that march back to the Final four, you know? And so, so tell us about what happened during your four years. It's always tough. You know, as much as you may know and like Lars now, maybe, I don't know. I mean, he's weird. Let's be, just be honest. I say that those of us who know and love him it's not as smooth as Chris Colbeck. I mean, I, I hope he's listening. No, he's not smooth. He, as Chris Colback team, us, a team, not nearly as cool as Chris Colback yet Chris and I are teammates. Yeah. And but, but tell us what that, that four years was like and what sort of defined that experience for you and what led to that turnaround. Yeah, rollercoaster sounds like, that's a great question. So, a again, coming from a small private school in, you know, Northern Virginia, almost Central Virginia, but Northern Virginia, and then, you know, transitioning to division one college, lacrosse was a shock for me. And it was really hard. It was harder than anything I've ever done in the sport. And when we struggled that year, I didn't know any, I didn't know any, anything different. And I just thought, you know, our players aren't playing well enough. There's more that I can do. We're just not talented enough. I never, you know, I don't really point fingers at coaches. I don't really yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's such a complex and nuanced job that, especially at the time when I was 19, I, I was just like, you know what? We need to get better and we're not, and you know, like I, I, I don't know, like, I just think that there were so many things that were happening at the same time that I was just like, we're having a bad season. And yeah. I'm not sure I thought more about it, you know, or anything differently. I didn't, I really like Coach Nelson. Yeah. You know, and I, I'm very grateful for him, you know, for being the one that recruited me. And you know, then when Coach Tiffany came in, it was like, I could feel a palpable change. And he is still an enormous influence in my life. He's someone that, you know, when I need help with something or I need counsel, or I need to talk about. Something personal or professional or anything. He's, he's, he's like, meet me in the weight room. Let's go. Yeah, let's get a rack. But, but, you know, but I'm still like, to this day, I, I'm, I'm always like so impressed and humbled by him because he's never too busy, you know, for mm-hmm. People that are in his corner and. You know, I, I, I would not be where I am. I probably wouldn't be coaching if it wasn't for his influence. And you know, that's cool things that I remember when he started, like he changed our, our out of season lifting plan. We weren't running nearly as much in the fall. We were just like drinking protein shakes and lifting, you know, three to four days a week and not, you know, and all of us were getting stronger and more confident and we were actually enjoying college a lot more if we weren't, you know, waking up at six in the morning to do the hill runs and, and things like that, you know, nine months away from our season you know, he would, he would do things, you know, and I think he still does it. And I, I watch UVA practice all the time because we're, we're across the street from them. But like he does the dynamic warmups with the team. He would do every lift with us and would outperform a lot of us as a back in, you know, 2000, what was that, 2006, 7, 8, 9. Right. But what I think I learned the most from him is just, you know, to the weirdness comment, I learned authenticity and I learned, you know, that my players will, will only respect me if I'm actually being myself. Yeah. You know, like it or not, Lars is always himself and mm-hmm. You know, I think that was such an impressionable and like key thing for me to learn at a, at a point in my life when I just needed good male role models. And, and he certainly filled that void for me and all the other kids in the program I could speak for, you know, for my classmates and, and a lot of the brown skaters from that era. That's cool. And then what about, tell us a little bit about the rundown. Like, junior, senior year we were checking some scores, looked like you guys made the playoffs, had a good, great game against Hopkins. Tell us about the end of your senior year. I mean, it was an incredible ride to be on, and it was, you know, I, I credit a lot of the, the kids, especially, you know, the cla the class of 2007 at Brown, the Will Davises and Dave Madeira's and Alex Buckley's. Those guys were some of the best leaders I've ever been around. And I think they willed us forward along with Lars. We also happen, like we stumbled into having, you know, like the Thomas Muldoon, who, you know, could have gone to a lot of different schools, but was mm-hmm. Off centered and quirky and was drawn to Brown for a lot of, well, a lot of like the holistic university reasons. Right. Whereas a lot of us were just thinking about lacrosse, you know, he, he was a really dynamic player during that time. You know, Jack Walsh was one of my classmates and a kid that I lived with who completely overachieved as a player and as a leader, and became a kid. What a scrappy bastard he was. Oh. Just, I mean, relentless, 140 pounds soaking wet, you know, like, but would always make a big play. Like when you needed a big play, would just like, I'm like, what is that kid doing? Making that play totally clutch and I would be remiss not to. Obviously talk about Jordan Burke, who mm-hmm. I mean he, he, he couldn't do a pull up and he could bear a box jump and he was like so physically weak, but one of the most coordinated and one of the most you know, focused athletes that I've ever been around. And I mean, he graduated as a three time all Ivy, maybe three time All American, two time Ivy League player of the year, national Goalie of the year. And he was ridiculous. And he was just, you know, and it was to the point where I. I mean, we were, we were playing defense and conceding regularly to nine shots, let shots, right. We don't need to cover that. We were, you know, anything why bother outta 10 yards he was completely dialed in on and start breaking out. Yeah, it was, let him, it, I had never seen anything like it. And, you know, the second that he got his chance as a sophomore, which is when, which was lars's first year. He, he took it and never looked back. You know, one of the best natural athletes I've ever seen despite being right and not being able to, not being an athlete. Well, you would not notice him, but, but, but you know, on game day, he was the most, you know, hard to mis guy that we had. I mean, Ron, where were these goals when we were there? Sorry, Steve Ays Snake and Patty Flynn, the flounder. But come on, we could have used a goalie of the year. I'll, I'll tell you, I'll tell you this. If we have Jordan Burke as our goalie, we win the national championship in 1991. Oh my, my, my God, I have no doubt. Don't, don't say it. No doubt at all. Oh, it's a killer. Alright. Enough about that. But there you are, brown senior year and you're thinking about what am I gonna do with the rest of my life? I'm sure you might have thought about it before that time, but what were some of the things you said, obviously Coach Tiffany was a big influence. What was it that stirred you into the teaching and coaching profession? Good question. So I, when I was a freshman at Brown, I vividly remember in October of that year, every single one of the seniors on the team had either a commercial real estate or private equity or some sort of financial services job, almost a year ahead of, of time and, and remind, you know, that was 2006. Fast forward to 2008 and 2009, none of those jobs were hiring. And I had you know, some internships in commercial real estate in the, I thought I was gonna do something like that. And it was actually, I vividly remember a practice where Dave Evans, who was on ours on the staff for a couple years there, but mys was the offensive coordinator my senior year. He said, Dave Evans, He said, He said, He said, he said out with it. What did he say to find out? Tune an 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.