Starting all over again
By Patrick Stevens, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Mike Pressler's cell phone buzzed throughout the 300-mile eastward
journey along Interstate 90 two Sundays ago. Twice, the caller was
Bryant University president Ronald Machtley.
The first call included praise for knocking off two-time defending
national champion Le Moyne earlier in the day. An hour later, the
congratulations were even more pronounced: Bryant earned its first
invitation to the NCAA tournament.
It was a good day to be the most famous Division II lacrosse coach
in America.
Pressler, the longtime Duke coach ousted in the wake of rape
accusations against his team two years ago, is back in the
postseason. And though he still receives questions about the since
absolved Blue Devils players, Pressler is busy building a budding
program in Smithfield, R.I.
"Two years ago, I never thought I'd have a chance of doing this
again with that second chance in life," said Pressler, whose
Bulldogs (14-3) will visit Le Moyne again tomorrow in the Division
II semifinals. "You get the opportunity and the players get the
credit, but to be part of this is very rewarding."
There is a distinct need to win this year, and it stems neither
from Pressler's famous feistiness nor typical competitive
yearnings. Rather, this is Bryant's final shot at a Division II
championship before moving up to Division I next year.
The Bulldogs, whose program was established in 2000, will not be
eligible for the postseason the next two seasons. But they will
join the Northeast Conference, which will field a lacrosse league
starting in 2011 because Bryant will give it the minimum six
schools needed to earn an automatic NCAA tournament berth.
Still, the best way to appreciate Pressler's situation is to look
to the recent past. Upon departing Duke less than a year after
earning national coach of the year honors, Pressler expressed
interest in three vacant jobs. Two of the schools wouldn't call him
back.
An opportunity developed when Army coach and longtime Pressler
lieutenant Joe Alberici contacted fellow Auburn, N.Y., native Bill
Smith, the new athletic director at Bryant. Pressler, whose family
vacationed in Rhode Island for 20 years, soon interviewed and
accepted the job.
What he found upon arrival was a bit different than what he was
accustomed to at Duke, which reached its first national title game
in Pressler's final full season.
"The program was very disheveled, I would say," Pressler said. "We
had to address everything from the way we conducted ourselves as
gentlemen to the way we handled ourselves in the classroom to how
we took care of business as lacrosse players. My first fall, we
didn't catch a lot of balls in practice."
It was a smaller-scale version of what he faced at Duke in the
early 1990s after arriving from Division III Ohio Wesleyan. Handed
a team that had won two ACC games in the previous 14 years,
Pressler earned 10 NCAA berths and two final four appearances in 16
seasons.
"When he got to Duke, it was really three teams in the league,"
former Maryland coach Dick Edell said. "You could beat them up, you
could intimidate them. When he left, Maryland-Duke was as much of a
brawl as Navy or Hopkins. He changed the entire culture, and that's
not an easy thing to do. He's obviously repeating it for a third
time now."
There are stylistic similarities between the two jobs. A surplus of
talent was not always in Duke's corner, but the Blue Devils
competed in a way that reflected a coach who also played college
football. That has permeated into Bryant's program, which has
beaten Le Moyne in consecutive years and has won 11 straight
overall.
"He wants to win, period," Virginia coach Dom Starsia said. "He
feels from Bryant a commitment to make that happen. He's very
excited for the opportunity. I think there were some kids that were
at Bryant that found out the train was about to go from a slow
crawl to the Japanese Express, maybe with people flying off the
cars in every different direction."
Pressler, though, isn't going anywhere. Maryland and Virginia are
among the marquee names Bryant is expected to play next season.
Pressler is deeply involved in boosting the sport in local leagues
and is using his experience to assist the rest of Bryant's athletic
department during the jump to Division I.
That has eased worries Pressler might jump to a bigger job once the
turbulence of the Duke case subsided — a concern Machtley
expressed during the hiring process.
"He agreed," Machtley said. "He said, 'I won't do that. I'll
recruit a team and we'll be here for a long time.' To his credit,
he's lived up to that. There's no way to enforce that. We had a
handshake and an eyeball-to-eyeball agreement. That's something
I've respected as much as his ability to win."
Another win would send Bryant to the Division II title game in
Foxborough, Mass., roughly a half-hour from the Bulldogs' campus.
The Division I final four will be played that same weekend, and
Duke is that tournament's top seed.
The juxtaposition of Pressler and his former school would draw some
double takes, but Pressler is used to it by now. The stares are
common enough when he's on the recruiting trail, as is the
experience of complete strangers coming up to him and wishing him
well.
"Some days you want to crawl under a rock and wish this whole
[Duke] thing didn't happen," Pressler said. "Those people who come
up to me, 99 percent of it has been positive. You try to shake
every hand and thank everybody for their kind words.
"For me when this thing is over — and it's far from over yet
due to pending litigation [against Duke] — but it's close to
being over. In another year or so, we'll be able to say, 'We've all
moved on, and we can finally all move forward.' "
Whenever it comes, it will be a great day among the many good ones
Pressler has enjoyed since finding his new home and another
chance.
