Author: (Coach) Mike Urgo
During the 2013 – 2014 lacrosse season I turned 27 years old.
Is that a flex? Maybe.
It was also the first full season that I coached college club lacrosse as officially a head coach at Stevenson University, which is a small liberal arts school in Maryland. I had pulled a Reggie Dunlop when I played in college (if you don’t know who that is, stop what you are doing, google it, watch the movie, then report back). As a new head coach, I was excited and I was confident, because I had success in the league as a player / coach in college. I knew what I wanted to accomplish, and nothing was going to stop me.
It didn’t matter if I didn’t have a large team (we had 13 – 14 consistent players, while most schools had closer to 25) or how talented our opponent was. In my head, I was going to coach the shit out of them so we could win. More or less, that is exactly what I did. For the next three years our team overachieved and made a final four of a tournament and received national ranking in the 2016 – 2017 season.
But that all changed when I was asked if I would switch from coaching the lacrosse team and start an ACHA Hockey program at the Stevenson University. The first change occurred as I was informing the lacrosse team that I was leaving following the 2016 – 2017 season. In my mind, I had cultivated a culture of warriors with a special bond.
I was wrong. Sure, there were guys who were upset, they were my guys. But many just kind of shrugged, wished me luck and moved on with their lives. In the moment, I was briefly miffed, but was so focused on the next challenge, that I would reflect differently as I began to mature as a leader.
When coaching the lacrosse team, while we had lower numbers, we never had what I experienced as a new hockey coach. In year one, I had between seven and eight committed players and two goalies. For those not familiar, hockey requires five players on the ice plus one goalie. Most teams dress eighteen to twenty-two players in a game.
We lost every game.
Except for one.
I won’t bore you with the details, but you can watch the highlights of another incredible win the following season here against the same team (maybe a slight rivalry). While the one win in and of itself was beyond remarkable, it was what happened afterwards that changed me as a leader forever.
The university had trusted me to start this new ACHA Hockey program, and I wasn’t going to fail. In order to build a college hockey program at any level, you had to recruit. In order to recruit, we had to have a team. In order to have an official team, we had to play 12 games. We had to play those twelve games knowing that winning was impossible. I won’t talk about the scores, but what that made me do as a coach more than I had ever done before, was take my focus away from the strategy of coaching and sink my attention into the players. If any one of the core players quit, we would have to fold as a team. So, I made it my mission to ensure that these college athletes who had been cut from the NCAA team stayed at the university and helped build this program. The odds were against me, the scores weren’t ideal, our practices were at 5:30AM in the morning, and recruiting was slow going.
But, on November 7th, we took Virginia Tech to overtime. Thirty thousand plus student Virginia Tech with a full roster. Initially as competitors we were pissed. But, on the bus ride home, I looked at the guys and said something along the lines of:
“Imagine. Imagine you all come back next year as juniors, and I have ten more guys on this team. If we can push Virginia Tech to the bring with nine guys, imagine what we could do with nineteen?”
On December 10th, down to eight skaters, we beat Towson University, which would be the only game we won that season. After shaking hands and signing the score sheet, I headed to the locker room to celebrate with the team. In my mind, this is where I needed to solidify their buy-in. As I entered the room and everyone was celebrating, I started to talk and our captain stopped me. And he said something along the lines of:
“Coach, we know how much this win means to you and how much this will help the program, and we are just so happy to be a part of it.”
He handed me the game puck and I thanked them so much, as typically this tradition consists of the coach giving the game puck to a player. I still have that puck. While it’s a reminder of what we accomplished that year, it’s a reminder to me not to focus on the mission over people.
That’s the message this week. I think it’s entirely possible to be an effective leader while being mission first. I have had great leaders who definitely care, but I have known that they are mission first. Knowing that always kept me at a bit of a distance, because I felt like I was always expendable if need be in support of the mission.
Reflecting on the lacrosse team, I think that is the environment I created. I am competitive, but I did not want to be a “win at all costs” leader, because that’s not how I liked to be led. I like when a leader is invested in their people regardless of the outcome of the games. After the experience in the locker room as my first win as a college hockey head coach, I have been trying to improve as a leader in that way every day both as a coach and as a professional. I am in no ways perfect, my former players will be the first to tell you that, but, I would hope that every player who I have coached knows I care about them and have their back.
While I have “hung em up” for now on the athletic coaching side of things, I think it’s important to always ask myself as a leader in any situation, am I prioritizing the mission over the people?
That’s my challenge to you as you’re reading this.
What’s your coaching / leadership style?
Do you sometimes put the mission over your people?
If you do, I challenge you to try investing in your people first. You may find that they surprise you in what they are able to accomplish if you do.
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