North Carolina

[seacoaster]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

[Cletus]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Yeah—long hard climb to the top.

Levy stated, “we rose pretty quickly, but there was not a lot of foundation, and it is very hard to establish tradition when you are a young program; sitting where I am today, I have learned that it takes a while to establish things that identify with the program that is unique to just that program.”

[Cletus]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

[seacoaster]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

She’s had an enormous recruiting advantage since the inception of the program, which took a long time and triple OT in the final to translate into a championship. If aggregate talent won championships, she’d have ten trophies by now. Playing to the win is harder. Give Spallina the UNC or Duke job and he’d win.

[Bart]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

Kind of like BC under Coach Walker-Weinstein

[Cletus]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

She’s had an enormous recruiting advantage since the inception of the program, which took a long time and triple OT in the final to translate into a championship. If aggregate talent won championships, she’d have ten trophies by now. Playing to the win is harder. Give Spallina the UNC or Duke job and he’d win.

Would you add BC to that list, sea?

[seacoaster]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

She’s had an enormous recruiting advantage since the inception of the program, which took a long time and triple OT in the final to translate into a championship. If aggregate talent won championships, she’d have ten trophies by now. Playing to the win is harder. Give Spallina the UNC or Duke job and he’d win.

Would you add BC to that list, sea?

Nope.

[Lax247]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

She’s had an enormous recruiting advantage since the inception of the program, which took a long time and triple OT in the final to translate into a championship. If aggregate talent won championships, she’d have ten trophies by now. Playing to the win is harder. Give Spallina the UNC or Duke job and he’d win.

He had a very talented team in 2018 and was unable to seal the deal against BC even with his super star holding the ball to win the game as I recall.. Sometimes you are only as good as your best players. You leave the decision making to them. Nothing you can do about that.
Further Im sure we can all agree Gait is a great coach and has had some incredible talent yet has never won a natty.

[Cletus]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

She’s had an enormous recruiting advantage since the inception of the program, which took a long time and triple OT in the final to translate into a championship. If aggregate talent won championships, she’d have ten trophies by now. Playing to the win is harder. Give Spallina the UNC or Duke job and he’d win.

He had a very talented team in 2018 and was unable to seal the deal against BC even with his super star holding the ball to win the game as I recall.. Sometimes you are only as good as your best players. You leave the decision making to them. Nothing you can do about that.
Further Im sure we can all agree Gait is a great coach and has had some incredible talent yet has never won a natty.

Good memory Lax247! Without a doubt, KO did not deliver the goods in that game as she turned the ball over three times, twice in the second half during clutch moments. But – to put a little asterisk in here, KO’s sister TO got injured before the game and one has to think would have made a difference, if not the difference, in the final result. It was an extremely hard fought game and could easily have gone either way.

[Cletus]

Im sure we can all agree Gait is a great coach and has had some incredible talent yet has never won a natty.

Great point.

[Cletus]

Give Spallina the UNC or Duke job and he’d win.

Would you add BC to that list, sea?

Nope.

Interested in the distinction if you’d care to elucidate.

[Cletus]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

Kind of like BC under Coach Walker-Weinstein

Thanks Bart. You just gave me a new research project. I’ll be interested to see the correlation.

[seacoaster]

Im sure we can all agree Gait is a great coach and has had some incredible talent yet has never won a natty.

Great point.

I think Syracuse may well have won it all the year Tumolo went out with the ACL.

[Itsallgood]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

She’s had an enormous recruiting advantage since the inception of the program, which took a long time and triple OT in the final to translate into a championship. If aggregate talent won championships, she’d have ten trophies by now. Playing to the win is harder. Give Spallina the UNC or Duke job and he’d win.

Or the Notre Dame job as well ( Spallina coaching )

[Brownlax]

Remarkable to consider that Jenny Levy was 24 years old when she became coach of the Tar Heels. And to this day, the only coach the Tar Heels have ever known.

Took her 18 or 19 years to win the trophy.

Yeah—long hard climb to the top.

Levy stated, “we rose pretty quickly, but there was not a lot of foundation, and it is very hard to establish tradition when you are a young program; sitting where I am today, I have learned that it takes a while to establish things that identify with the program that is unique to just that program.”

In the last 30 years - only 6 teams have won a National Championship:
Maryland-Princeton-Virginia-Northwestern-JMU -UNC

There are a lot of coaches out there who have never won the big one.

[Cletus]

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

Kind of like BC under Coach Walker-Weinstein

I looked up each coach and how they did in their first few years. The comparison breaks down almost immediately in that Levy took a program from its very beginning. AWW inherited a team that had been playing for 21 years and had been to the NCAA's two years before she arrived. With Covie Stanwick as sophomore on that 2013 roster among others, it can't be compared to building a team (and a program) from scratch. I don't know that BC beat anyone significant early in AWW's tenure. BC went O-fer vs NC 4x, UMD 2x, SYR 3x in their first 2 seasons together. In just their 2nd season (1997) and 1st in the ACC conference, NC beat powerhouse Virginia twice--once in the regular season and once in the NCAA tournament. In their 3rd season, they knocked off Maryland and Virginia in the regular season, and Maryland for a 2nd time in the ACC tournament. AWW has made the NCAA Tournament every year since being made head coach and went to the NCAA final in her 5th year, but still has never won an ACC or NCAA title. I hope AWW wins it all (ACC and NCAA) with BC one day. That'll make me happy if it happens.

[Bart]

Strangely enough, the Heels were beating the top teams almost immediately, yet it took almost 2 decades to win it all.

Kind of like BC under Coach Walker-Weinstein

I looked up each coach and how they did in their first few years. The comparison breaks down almost immediately in that Levy took a program from its very beginning. AWW inherited a team that had been playing for 21 years and had been to the NCAA's two years before she arrived. With Covie Stanwick as sophomore on that 2013 roster among others, it can't be compared to building a team (and a program) from scratch. I don't know that BC beat anyone significant early in AWW's tenure. BC went O-fer vs NC 4x, UMD 2x, SYR 3x in their first 2 seasons together. In just their 2nd season (1997) and 1st in the ACC conference, NC beat powerhouse Virginia twice--once in the regular season and once in the NCAA tournament. In their 3rd season, they knocked off Maryland and Virginia in the regular season, and Maryland for a 2nd time in the ACC tournament. AWW has made the NCAA Tournament every year since being made head coach and went to the NCAA final in her 5th year, but still has never won an ACC or NCAA title. I hope AWW wins it all (ACC and NCAA) with BC one day. That'll make me happy if it happens.

I should have been more direct that I was commenting on the 2 decades to win it all. Point being we were told she is not an elite coach until her team has won it all, whose recent team underachieved, over and over in previous years by a poster in this forum. That there were currently only 2 elite coaches in the game as they are the only one to win the National Championship. It was glossed over at the time that it took one of those elite coaches a long time to win a national championship. And there was no mention of Coach Klaes who's team was a "one hit wonder". My point then, as it is now, is that to get your team, any team, to the National Championship three years in a row takes the ability to instill a winning culture and that takes excellent elite coaching. As others have indicated, it takes more than pure talent to win the entire thing.

[Cletus]

I should have been more direct that I was commenting on the 2 decades to win it all. Point being we were told she is not an elite coach until her team has won it all, whose recent team underachieved, over and over in previous years by a poster in this forum. That there were currently only 2 elite coaches in the game as they are the only one to win the National Championship. It was glossed over at the time that it took one of those elite coaches a long time to win a national championship. And there was no mention of Coach Klaes who's team was a "one hit wonder". My point then, as it is now, is that to get your team, any team, to the National Championship three years in a row takes the ability to instill a winning culture and that takes excellent elite coaching. As others have indicated, it takes more than pure talent to win the entire thing.

I agree with that standard, and pretty much everything else you wrote. I consider the coaches who have won multiple NCAA championships elite. There’s no shame in calling a coach great. There are many great coaches. I would certainly include AWW in that group and may even include Klaes. But I don’t consider either coach Elite. Admittedly, I’m a tough grader. I take credit away from Bill Belichick and refuse to consider him the greatest coach of all time because of his cheating and having Tom Brady to hide all his deficiencies. Yet, AWW also felt she underachieved as is evident in her comments at :30 seconds into this postgame presser.

https://youtu.be/hq0lBQ3qpsc

“Wish I could’ve done more, three years in a row.”

[Cletus]

Ortega announces her return for 2022 on SSB’s podcast.

[laxagainsthumanity]

There is only one coach I'm aware of who has started a program and immediately risen not just to prominence but to the pinnacle, and that's Kelly Amonte-Hiller. So clearly that is not the benchmark for an "elite" coach. Cathy Reese and Julie Myers inherited programs rich in traditions of excellence. Chris Sailer took over an okay program and brought home a national championship 8 years later; time will tell whether Spallina and AWW can do the same. IMO they're very much in the same boat.

Good memory Lax247! Without a doubt, KO did not deliver the goods in that game as she turned the ball over three times, twice in the second half during clutch moments. But – to put a little asterisk in here, KO’s sister TO got injured before the game and one has to think would have made a difference, if not the difference, in the final result. It was an extremely hard fought game and could easily have gone either way.

This was one of the greatest games ever played (right up there with the BC-UNC OT game the following weekend at the FF). Going into the season, this was the matchup most of us thought we'd see in the championship. SBU got shafted on their seeding and then TO got hurt. Seemed like the lacrosse gods just didn't like SBU.