After leading the Michigan men’s
lacrosse team to three consecutive
championships at the club level, John
Paul was gearing up to prepare the
Wolverines for their first season as
a part of Division I varsity lacrosse.
Now competing in the upper echelon
of collegiate lacrosse would bring
new challenges for Paul and his
players, but they were committed to
charging forward in hopes of build-
ing a brighter future for the program.
Starting a Division I program on
a year’s notice isn’t exactly the easi-
est thing to do.
For “Team One,” as Paul dubbed
it, Michigan had numerous pieces
to try to put together on a narrow
timeframe.
First, the Wolverines needed to
find Division I opponents. The Big
Ten didn’t exist in NCAA lacrosse
until 2015, so Michigan signed
on as an affiliate member of the
then-prominent Eastern College
Athletic Conference for the 2012
season, joining traditional rivals
Ohio State and Penn State, as well
as lacrosse stalwarts like Denver
and Loyola.
Second, the Wolverines needed
to find a space to operate on Michi-
gan’s athletic campus. Although the
team now had greater access to the
University’s and athletic depart-
ment’s vast resources, including a
strength and conditioning coach,
more reasonable practice field
times and academic support, it
didn’t have its own stadium yet.
In the meantime, Team One had
to use other programs’ facilities
when they weren’t occupied. For
practices and games, the Wolver-
ines continued to use the football
team’s Oosterbaan Field House
as they did during the club days.
They also now played in Michigan
Stadium and used the baseball
team’s visitors’ locker room for big
matchups. Paul had a trailer in a
nearby parking lot that served as
his “office.”
At the top of Paul’s priority list,
though, was mentally and physical-
ly preparing himself and his players
to compete in Division I lacrosse.
Having never played or coached
beyond the club level, Paul didn’t
have quite the pedigree or con-
nections that his future opposing
coaches did. Until this point, he had
largely pulled his coaching career
up by his bootstraps.
“I had to learn a lot of it on my
own,” Paul said. “I was a student
of the game. I ate up everything I
could.”
For advice on coaching a Divi-
sion I sport, Paul tapped into Mich-
igan’s rich network. He became
close with coaches like Erik Bakich
and Carol Hutchins, often stopping
by baseball and softball practices to
watch and talk shop with them.
“I don’t think you have to just
pigeon-hole yourself into your
sport,” Paul said. “Obviously Michi-
gan has a whole stable full of coach-
es, so I would learn as much as I
could from my friends who I was
surrounded with, other coaches in
other sports.”
From a roster perspective, since
the 2012 season would commence
without bringing in a single Divi-
sion I recruit, Team One was com-
posed solely of players carried over
from the club days. While the team
was tight-knit and accustomed to
playing at a high level of lacrosse,
culturally, becoming varsity
brought new challenges to over-
come and expectations to meet.
“I think culturally we had to
become a little more disciplined,”
Yealy said. “Even in the club
days, as a non-varsity sport, we
weren’t always under the watch
of the athletic department and the
administration, so that required
some adjustment to make sure that
guys were always doing the right
things.”
After sitting at the top of the
food chain for several years in the
MCLA, members of Team One
now had to manage battling with
some of the best lacrosse players in
the entire country. To compensate
for such a daunting talent gap that
lay ahead, Paul put an enormous
emphasis on practicing fundamen-
tals to ensure that Michigan was
always the more technically sound,
disciplined team on the playing
field.
“As a club program, we won on
what was a combination of talent
and coaching,” Yealy said. “When
we got to the Division I level, we
were still a talented team, but we
were no longer the most talented,
that’s for sure. … So there was an
incredible focus on fundamentals,
because what we couldn’t afford
was to be the least talented and also
be the sloppiest. There was a real
focus on back to basics.”
The odds would be significantly
stacked against the Wolverines in
their first couple seasons. It was
going to be very, very difficult to
win individual games, let alone
enjoy the same kind of success
attained at the club level.
To lead the charge, though,
Michigan had offensive leaders
like Yealy — now a fifth-year senior
— and junior Thomas Paras. After
finishing the 2011 season first and
second on the Wolverines in points
with 69 and 66, respectively, Yealy
and Paras were consistent contrib-
utors and active leaders who knew
how to compete and energize their
teammates.
And above all, players like Yealy
recognized their role in laying the
groundwork for the future of Mich-
igan lacrosse. They were grateful to
have the opportunity to play at the
highest level of the sport — some-
thing they didn’t think they would
ever get to experience during their
time with the Wolverines.
“It was great to continue playing
with that set of guys, play at the
highest level of collegiate lacrosse,
and try to build the foundation for
something that would last longer
than any of us as individuals ever
would,” Yealy said. “To be some-
thing that was bigger than us.”
***
On Feb. 12, 2012, Michigan
played its first game as a Division
I program against Detroit Mercy.
The Wolverines stood toe-to-toe
with the Titans for the better
part of the contest, heading into
halftime tied, 5-5, thanks in large
to a pair of goals each from Yealy
and sophomore midfielder Doug
Bryant. Detroit Mercy went on to
score eight of the next 12 goals in
the second half, though, to secure a
13-9 win.
Michigan dropped its next four
matchups as well. On March 4, the
Wolverines tasted victory for the
first time in varsity program his-
tory following a commanding 14-4
win over Mercer, in which Paras
tallied six points and Yealy and
Bryant each netted hat tricks.
The sweet flavor would only
remain on Michigan’s tastebuds for
so long, though — the Wolverines
lost their remaining eight games to
finish their inaugural season with a
lowly 1-13 record.
Although Michigan expected to
lose games early on in its transition,
it was still jarring for Paul and his
players to deal with defeat on such
a tilted scale. After going 76-2 the
previous four seasons, the Wolver-
ines did a complete about-face in
just one year.
“(It was) really hard,” Paul said.
“When you have a bunch of guys
who are used to winning 90% of
their games, if not 100%, and then
going to winning none of their
games, that’s hard. Culturally,
that’s really hard.”
Added Yealy: “Nobody was
thrilled about losing and I think
that did weigh on people’s minds. It
was frustrating in the moment for
sure. Going week to week practic-
ing and itching to get that first win,
and then once we got the first one,
itching to get more wins. It was
definitely trying.”
Michigan’s initial struggles
weren’t necessarily a signal of
imminent failure, though. Instead,
they were indicative of who the
Wolverines were competing
against right off the bat. Rather
than slate his players against lack-
luster opponents to pile up some
easy wins, Paul elected early on to
put them against some of the best
teams in all of Division I, including
No. 9 Loyola, as well as out-of-con-
ference foes like Harvard and No. 5
North Carolina.
Michigan played the 39th most
difficult schedule in the NCAA
in 2012. Around the same time,
Richmond took an easier route in
its inaugural season, playing just
the 63rd most difficult schedule
in 2014. As a result, the Spiders
notched a 6-11 record in their first
year as opposed to the Wolverines’
1-13 in 2012.
But rather than give Michigan
a false confidence of what it was
like to play at the varsity level, Paul
figured that, in the long run, it was
best to throw the team into the
deep end. If the Wolverines want-
ed to someday be one of the best
programs in Division I, they had
to know what those kinds of teams
looked like and how they operated
up close.
***
Partially due to Paul’s commit-
ment to playing a strenuous sched-
ule, Michigan’s growing pains
carried over into its next couple
seasons as well.
After leading the Wolverines in
points in 2012, notching 26 goals,
Yealy left a gaping hole in Michi-
gan’s offense when he graduated at
the season’s end.
To fill it, Paul turned to the
recruiting trail, where he found No.
7 Canadian prospect Kyle Jackson.
Growing up in Sarnia, Ontario, just
under a two hour trip on I-94 from
Ann Arbor, the crafty offensive
weapon played high school lacrosse
at the Hill Academy, a forceful
independent school that has sent
Canadians to the best lacrosse col-
lege programs in the United States
since its inception in 2006.
While some of Jackson’s
teammates elected to go to more
established East Coast schools like
Loyola and Lehigh, Michigan was
the perfect place for him. Eager
to go somewhere he could start
all four years and contribute to a
program’s grassroots development,
Jackson knew that he could have
an instant positive impact on the
Wolverines as a member of their
inaugural recruiting class. He also
wanted to show his fellow Canadi-
ans that the future of lacrosse lay
not in its East Coast strongholds,
but in programs like Michigan
that had benefited from the game’s
westward expansion.
“Going to the Midwest and
having Michigan open those doors
for a lot of people, it allowed other
players to have an avenue to go that
wasn’t just the East Coast,” Jackson
said. “I wanted to go somewhere
and show, not (just) the top-tier
players, but (also) your mid-level
lacrosse players, your bottom-tier
lacrosse players, that you don’t just
have to go to a powerhouse school
in order to be successful long-
term.”
And so Jackson did exactly those
things.
In 2013, his freshman campaign,
Jackson led the team in points and
goals, with 26 and 17, respectively.
While attackman Ian King took
over his role as chief goal scorer in
2014 and 2015, Jackson became the
program’s all-time career leader in
points and goals in his senior year,
racking up a cumulative 113 and 88,
respectively.
While talented newcomers
like Jackson and King racked up
incredible individual statistics and
accolades, Michigan still struggled
to get tallies in the win column. In
2013, the Wolverines once again
went 1-13, and in the subsequent
three campaigns, they never
eclipsed more than five wins in a
season.
Culturally, according to Paul and
Jackson, this dichotomy created an
interesting dynamic between the
tenured club players who remained
with the team and the fresh, high-
ly-touted recruits like Jackson and
King. Although everyone got along
in the locker room and had fun
together in their spare time, the
disappointment and frustration
of losing — compounded by the
natural evolution of the roster’s
composition — sometimes breeded
competition and animosity across
its castes.
“Without deliberately saying
that we weren’t the most liked on
the team when we came in, I think
that’s the best way of phrasing it,
because there were players that
had played for the club team for at
that point three, almost four years,”
Jackson said. “You had people that
were on teams that were extremely
successful at the club level and now
you got all these young kids coming
in as freshmen, trying to take their
spots and really ultimately doing
so.”
In a way, though, Jackson saw
all of this as a necessary step in
Michigan’s growth as a Division I
lacrosse program. If the Wolverines
were going to become a legitimate
force in the sport, he believed that
they were going to have to push
one another and compete with one
another
As Jackson entered his upper-
classman years and the last remain-
ing club players graduated, he
became the pace car that dictated
the direction of the program for
years to come. The club days were
over, but just as Michigan’s seniors
did in 2007 to elevate the club team,
Jackson began to take the next step.
Players like Yealy that came before
him had set the foundation for the
program.
Now, he was building it up.
“We literally (were) building
the framework for what Michigan
lacrosse is today and (will be) in 10
years and 20 years and 50 years,”
Jackson said. “And you can always
look back on that and know that
although you didn’t have the suc-
cess in the world at the beginning,
you built the framework. You built
the structure that that house is now
built on, and people can move for-
ward with and they can take it and
make it their own.”
***
In 2017, although Jackson had
since graduated, the Wolverines
began to reap the benefits of the
team culture he helped cultivate
during his time at Michigan. His
enthusiasm and fervor had been
contagious, and it now permeat-
ed throughout the Wolverines’
roster, particularly in players like
midfielders Brent Noseworthy
and Decker Curran — who were
budding freshmen during Jackson’s
senior year and began taking on
larger roles.
“They just took more ownership
of what the team could be,” Paul
said. “They weren’t as much just
waiting for the coaches to tell them
what to do. The leaders of the team
were taking more charge of the
younger guys and saying, ‘Look,
this is the way it’s gonna be.’ And
it was just shifting from a team of
reactionary people to a team of a lot
more proactive guys.”
Michigan got off to a hot start,
winning six of its first seven games,
with its sole loss coming from No.
5 Notre Dame. Halfway into the
season, the Wolverines took down
No. 10 Pennsylvania, 13-12, to pick
up their first win against a ranked
opponent.
While Michigan was subse-
quently swept in Big Ten play — a
misfortune of playing in what had
become the NCAA’s most compet-
itive conference — it finished the
2017 season with an 8-6 record. The
program had its first ever winning
season and made its first appear-
ance in the top-20 rankings, reach-
ing as high as No. 18 in the Maverik
Media Poll. Behind King, who set
the Wolverines’ new record for
points in a season with 47 his senior
year, Noseworthy and Curran fin-
ished second and third on the team,
with 43 and 25 points, respectively,
in breakout sophomore campaigns.
“We were just getting started
there,” Paul said. “It certainly
wasn’t there yet. (But) you (saw)
where the team (was) going. We
had the kind of start we were look-
ing for that year, and that didn’t
come because we were more talent-
ed, it came because the guys were
really starting to push each other
harder.”
Added Noseworthy: “We were
starting to develop confidence. I
think we showed some glimpses of
what a great program could look
like. It was good to have the feeling
of some big wins.”
After five years of trudging
through losses and molding the
team’s culture, it finally looked like
Michigan was moving into the next
phase of establishing itself as a solid
Division I program.
The athletic department likely
shared the same sentiment that
the Wolverines were on the brink
of something. But upon the arrival
of new athletic director Warde
Manuel in 2016, there was some
concern that Paul, whose contract
was set to expire, had taken the
program as far as he could. Despite
an overall successful season in 2017,
after witnessing several blowouts
to ranked and Big Ten opponents —
including a particularly transparent
18-7 loss to No. 9 Ohio State prior to
the football team’s spring game —
perhaps Michigan needed a fresh
start in order to start winning the
big games.
On May 2, 2017, Manuel
announced that the University
would not be renewing Paul’s
contract, thus ending his nearly
20-year journey with the program.
As the man who had largely
built Michigan lacrosse to become
everything that it had ever been
and everything it was at the
moment, Paul was obviously disap-
pointed by the decision.
At the end of the day, though,
Paul was finally content knowing
that he had poured everything
he had into the program and the
players he loved from the instant
he came aboard back in 1998.
Through trials and triumph, he
had given Michigan all that he
could, and that was enough for
him.
“I did this out of love for Mich-
igan and the program and not so
much for any kind of career ambi-
tions,” Paul said. “I kinda stumbled
and bumbled along for 20 years and
came out the other end with what
we had. And that’s how it kinda felt
the whole time. I was just kinda
latched on and rode it for wherever
it went.”
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 — 15
DREW COX
Daily Sports Editor
Michigan lacrosse: Becoming Varsity
FILE PHOTO/Daily
In his 20 years as its coach, John Paul laid the foundation for the Michigan lacrosse program which is celebrating
its 10th season this year.