Junior attackman Conrad Oberbeck is a big- time shooter who could help Yale become a more offensive-minded team in 2014.
on the Bulldogs. “We like to believe our practices are as hard or harder than any team in Division I. [Shay] preaches that we have to be prepared to pull out those one-goal games. We hear about intensity and ‘the process’ more than we hear about our skill.”
Shay said there has been nothing complicated about the way he has engineered Yale’s resurgence. It’s all about finding smart, self-motivated students that are “lacrosse rats.” “Five or six years ago, we were tyrants in practice [as coaches],” he said. “We
started getting tougher kids who could be the engines of the team. The harder they work when the coaches aren’t around, the better we’re going to be.” Former defensemen Peter Johnson and Michael McCormack, one of the more underrated duos in the game before graduating last spring — Johnson as a shutdown cover man, McCormack as a transition igniter — were cornerstones of Yale’s work ethic. So is Mangan, the senior finisher who scored in every game last year and was held under two goals just four times.
“I knew there was something special going on in this program before I came here,” Mangan said. “[Shay] is about details and hustle plays. He likes being at Yale, because it’s tough to recruit here. He likes making it hard on us. It was hard for the first few days after losing that [Syracuse] game. I’ve dreamed about going to the final four since I was a kid. But we can’t look back at what we did. We know we’re a difficult team to play against, and we know we’ve got a bull’s-eye on our backs.” Oberbeck agreed. He wondered if
Yale’s excellent chemistry might shift in 2014. He wondered if the Bulldogs’ potent offense — bolstered by the return of Canadian finisher Deron Dempster, who took a year off after scoring 37 goals in 2012 — will set the tone next spring more than the defense. “Hopefully, the magic continues,” Oberbeck said. “But the experience of our last two years gives us the feeling that there are no excuses. We can’t hide or trick people. We can’t be complacent.” LM
HALL OF FAMER’S SECOND ACT Former Yale men’s coach Mike Waldvogel keeps winning with Fairfield women
At age 65, with a long and distinguished career behind him, Mike Waldvogel could lead a life of leisure. But the women’s lacrosse coach at Fairfield, who also happens to own more victories than any other coach in the history of Yale men’s lacrosse, still needs the game too much to quit it. That’s why Waldvogel still drives about 45 miles each day to Fairfield from his home in Madison, Conn., a beach town near the Long Island Sound on the south side of New Haven, where he made a huge mark at Yale for 23 seasons. That’s why Waldvogel, a National Lacrosse Hall of Famer, continues to adapt to the women’s game, while leading Fairfield with the same success that has followed him throughout a lacrosse career spanning more than 40 years.
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That’s why Waldvogel, who has guided the Stags to an overall record of 66-25 in five seasons, highlighted by an NCAA tournament berth in 2009 and a 25-game winning streak in MAAC play, remains immersed in learning a different game from the one he left behind after resigning at Yale following the 2002 season. “I drive about 100
miles a day so I can come here and do what I love,” Waldvogel said. “I enjoy the women’s game, which is really challenging with things like the three- second rule and defensive restrictions on going through the crease. It’s a different culture.” If this is the final chapter in Waldvogel’s passionate run with his favorite sport, it will complete quite a book. A two-time first-team All-American at Cortland,
54 LACROSSE MAGAZINE November 2013
Waldvogel has served as the U.S. delegate to the International Lacrosse Federation (1993-2001) and has been a member of the NCAA men’s lacrosse championship committee and its rules committee. He also played on two U.S. teams (1974 and 1978) and coached Team USA to a gold medal in 1990. Waldvogel made his biggest coaching mark at Yale. He took over a nearly century-old program in 1979, rebuilt it through the 1980s and turned the Bulldogs into three-time Ivy League champions and NCAA tournament participants. Yale made it to the school’s only final four in 1990, when the Bulldogs won a school- record 16 games. Waldvogel’s run at Yale produced 166 wins, but it ended badly after the 2002 season, when he was forced to resign after
the school discovered recruiting violations on his watch. The undisclosed infractions did not violate NCAA or Ivy League rules. “The athletic
department had nothing to do with it. Once I left Yale, I stopped having headaches,” said Waldvogel, who declined to discuss any specifics surrounding his ouster. “What I really missed was being around those players. But I still follow Yale and I’m very happy with what [coach] Andy Shay is doing there. I love the Ivy League — real student- athletes competing for the right reasons. But I’ve moved on. I’d rather move on to tomorrow than yesterday.”
— G.L. Mike Waldvogel A Publication of US Lacrosse
©RICH BARNES (CO); ©FAIRFIELD (MV)
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