PROVIDENCE JOURNAL: Bryant lacrosse coach Pressler is a man of his word
Bryant lacrosse coach Pressler is a man of his word
Sunday, June 27, 2010
By Mike Szostak Journal Sports Writer
SMITHFIELD — Seated in a folding chair beneath the
grandstand at Bulldog Stadium, fit and tanned, enjoying his view of
the world through his sunglasses, Mike Pressler is a portrait of a
happy man.
He coaches the U.S. National Lacrosse Team that will work out at Bryant next week before leaving for Manchester, England, and the World Championships. He directs popular lacrosse camps in Aspen and Atlanta.
This weekend, 118 teams have played in the Bryant Bulldog Classic, and through his contacts in the lacrosse world he has attracted a camp that will bring 1,000 high-school players from 38 states to Bryant during the next two weeks.
Better than that, he coaches the Bryant Bulldogs, and after finishing 10-5 and 12-5 in the program’s first two seasons in Division I, he is convinced that Bryant can be nationally ranked before long.
Best of all, the Pressler family is happy. Mike and his wife Sue bought a house 3.2 miles from campus, Janet is a sophomore and volleyball captain at Loyola of Baltimore, and Maggie is a 12-year-old lacrosse-playing seventh grader at St. Phillip’s in Greenville.
“If my career ended in Smithfield, Rhode Island, I’d be a very happy man,” the 50-year-old coach said.
That Mike Pressler, national coach of the year in 2005, came to Bryant in the first place was remarkable. That he is still at Bryant is almost unbelievable and proves that a man’s word still means something.
Four years ago, Pressler was an unemployed lacrosse coach with a family to support. Pressured to resign as head coach at Duke in the wake of rape charges against three of his players, he thought his career was over when he applied to several schools and couldn’t get an interview. His 16-year record at Duke — 153-82, 3 ACC championships, 10 NCAA appearances, 2 Final Fours, 1 runner-up finish — meant nothing.
But in the summer of 2006, as the case against his players began to unravel and Duke’s heavy-handed treatment of Pressler and his team came under scrutiny, Pressler got a call from Ron Machtley, Bryant’s president. He and Bill Smith, director of athletics and a former collegiate lacrosse player, had conducted their due diligence, found nothing wrong, and offered Pressler the job of moving the Bryant lacrosse program forward.
Pressler, who had vacationed in Rhode Island for years with his best friend John Hooper of Wakefield, accepted.
Machtley knew that Pressler would be in demand when the smoke cleared from the rape case — as it did in the spring of 2007 when the North Carolina attorney general declared the three Duke players innocent and charged the prosecutor with misconduct — so he asked for a five-year commitment from his new coach. Pressler agreed, and the two men shook hands.
And in a day when coaches jump and run for a bigger job or more money, Pressler has kept his word. He has turned aside overtures and offers from schools in the Ivy League and the Atlantic Coast Conference. He has said no thanks to programs that offered him three times what he is making at Bryant. And he hasn’t given those offers, the latest only two weeks ago from a bigtime ACC program, much consideration.
“I think about it a little bit. To get back in the ACC and coach against your former school would be exciting, but it’s not enough,” he said, “and I’ve already uprooted my family.”
In addition, he remains grateful to Machtley and Smith for throwing him a life preserver in 2006. “Ron and Bill gave us our lives back and gave me my coaching career back,” he said.
Machtley and Smith appreciate that loyalty.
“It’s amazing,” the president said. “In today’s world, not only in sports but in business and in every walk of life, it’s very unusual to see someone get offered substantially more money and say I have a contract and then not come back and ask for more money. Never once has Mike come back and asked for more money.”
Smith added that, “Mike is on everybody’s short list. That’s a great thing for Bryant. He’s coaching Team UISA. He was 12-5 this year. His reputation is that he is the best coach in the country. The fact that he wants to stay here and win it here says a ton about his character and loyalty to Bryant University. There’s no question that Mike Pressler is a man of his word. We asked when he signed that he would be here five years, and he will be here five years.”
Bryant is not Virginia or Johns Hopkins or Duke in lacrosse, but receiving the necessary resources and taking the program to that level energizes Pressler. Bryant has a multipurpose turf field with lights and new locker rooms in the stadium for lacrosse and football.
“They have audio-visual equipment, flat-screen TVs, oak lockers, Bulldog logo on the carpet. They’re Division I locker rooms,” Smith said.
Pressler is recruiting Division I athletes. Zach Greer, who played for him at Duke, used his last year of eligibility at Bryant in 2009 and was drafted by Major League Lacrosse. Andrew Hennessey, the 2010 captain, was drafted by the MLL Denver Outlaws this month. Seven Bulldogs were named All-Northeast Conference this spring and two were named to the All-Rookie team. Rising senior Evan Roberts will play for England in the World Championships
This spring Bryant defeated Yale, its first victory over a nationally ranked team, and upset Army at Michie Stadium at West Point. The Bulldogs lost by only one goal to North Carolina and Stony Brook.
“Once we get them here, they see the commitment to compete at the highest level,” Pressler said. “Our goal is defined. In the next three or four or five years, we want to compete at the highest level.”
Pressler doesn’t rule out the possibility of someday leaving for another opportunity but mentioned that the grass is not always greener on another campus. His program at Bryant is eligible for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament in 2011 and the Northeast Conference champion will become an automatic qualifier in 2013.
So Pressler may yet face his former school, Duke, but as coach of the Bryant Bulldogs in the NCAA Tournament.