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.

