This article appears in the March 2020 edition of US Lacrosse Magazine. Don’t get the mag? Head to USLacrosse.org to subscribe.

“All right,” Bryan Kelly says. “I got to change this song.”

Kelly weaves between more than 70 Calvert Hall lacrosse players doing shoulder presses and tricep extensions in the Baltimore area school’s windowless weight room. A massive speaker on the opposite side of the room blares a rap song so loud, the ground vibrates.

It’s not the volume — though it’s 6:45 a.m. on a Friday in January — but rather the language of the song that elicits Kelly’s concern. A clear violation of the sixth weight room rule printed in cardinal lettering on a handful of gold placards that dot the otherwise bare walls: “All music played must be appropriate — no foul language or inappropriate lyrics.”

Before Kelly gets halfway to the controls, the track changes to U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

“We can be as one, tonight!” Bono bellows.

“A senior captain took care of it,” says Kelly, equally proud and perturbed. “That’s not what we do around here.”

What Calvert Hall does is win. Last spring, the private all-boys Catholic high school in Towson captured its third consecutive Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference Championship. The MIAA is largely considered the nation’s most competitive conference. 

“There’s no conference in another sport in the country that is as dominant as the MIAA in lacrosse,” says Ryan Brown, a 2012 Calvert Hall graduate who now plays in the Premier Lacrosse League and was an All-World attackman for the 2018 U.S. national team. “Every single week, you’re going against a team that is usually top 25 in the country.”

Calvert Hall’s margin of victory in 12 league games in 2019 was 176-65. The Cardinals’ 15-7 win over St. Mary’s capped a 15-game winning streak and their fourth title of the 2010s. Their lone blip last season? A loss to The Hill Academy (Ontario), the Canadian juggernaut which subsequently lost twice to Culver Academy (Ind.) — the only reason the season ended with Culver at No. 1 and Calvert Hall at No. 2 in the Nike/US Lacrosse Top 25.

“What stands out about their team has always been their toughness,” says Brodie Merrill, the director of lacrosse at The Hill Academy. “They play a blue collar, ultra aggressive and physical style, not just compared to the MIAA, but all the teams that we play.” 

The Cardinals’ standard of excellence stretches to the U.S. national teams program. The 2020 U.S. U19 team includes three CHC alums and Cole Herbert, a North Carolina-bound senior midfielder who won the C. Markland Kelly award last spring while putting up 16 goals along with 39 assists.

“It starts with leadership,” said Team USA coach Nick Myers, who has established a similar pipeline of Calvert Hall products to Ohio State, where he’s in his 12th season as the coach. “You have to start with Bryan and what he’s done.”

“The thing we do better than anywhere I’ve seen is our seniors run the show,” Cardinals assistant Joel Tinney says. “Some places, freshmen carry the balls, but not here. Our seniors are the last ones getting the balls, and they’re making sure everyone is in line. Rarely at a Calvert Hall practice do you see a coach get upset or call out a player because a senior is doing it before that.” 

Tradition is not taken lightly at the oldest Christian Brothers school in the country. Cell phones are not allowed. If one is heard, it’s six days of detention. Your hair can’t touch your collar. Your shoes can’t be untied. Your shirt has to be tucked in. 

“Calvert Hall doesn’t put up with a lot, and we prefer it that way,” says senior attackman Daniel Kelly, Bryan’s second-oldest son who led the Cardinals in scoring last season. 

“We pride ourselves on taking care of the details,” says Dan Mulford (CHC ‘05), the director of admissions at Calvert Hall and the Cardinals’ defensive coordinator.

Mulford sits in an office in Keetly Hall in front of a sign that reads, “As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I’m totally flexible.” When he exits into the halls, another sign says, “175 Years Built on Brotherhood.”

Mulford asks a guest if he knows about the gold corduroy jackets that some students are wearing. It’s hard not to notice them against a sea of blue blazers and khakis. But they’re more than a bold fashion statement. They’re what you earn when you win an MIAA championship. Subsequent titles and all-conference honors are represented with stars. 

“That’s one of the most important things we do at Calvert Hall,” says Garrett Epple, an all-star defenseman for the Premier Lacrosse League’s Redwoods and a 2013 Calvert Hall graduate. “I couldn’t tell you how happy and proud I was to get my first gold jacket.” 

Yet Bryan Kelly’s answer to what has fueled the recent success might sound foreign to Calvert Hall’s seniors, who sport a stout 50-6 record and have won the MIAA title in all three of their years on campus. 

“Failure,” he says.

Kelly does not hesitate to say this between bites of a chicken cheesesteak with mayo at the Hub Café inside Kelly & Associates’ impressive headquarters in Sparks, Maryland, where he’s the chief people officer. He’s soaked in sweat underneath his black Calvert Hall quarter zip from a lunchtime Peloton ride.

Kelly was 26 years old when he took over the program  in 1996 — the inaugural year of the MIAA.

“I guess no one else applied for it,” he joked on the “Phi-Lacrosse-ophy Podcast” with Jamie Munro in 2018. 

Kelly led the Cardinals to their first MIAA championship in 2003. Earlier that season, he considered quitting. He told his wife, Heidi, that if they didn’t make playoffs, he was done. 

“Don’t read these forums ever again,” she told him. “They’re clouding your mind.”

In 2012, Calvert Hall was the top-ranked team in the country when it squandered a 10-5 lead against Conestoga (Pa.) in the first game played under the lights at Russo Stadium. The next day, instead of practice, Kelly asked his players to write down three things they were thinking when the proverbial storm hit.

What will my classmates think?

What will the forums think?

What will my parents think? 

“None of them were thinking, ‘I’ve got to go get that ground ball,’” Kelly says. “They were all outcome-focused.” 

He realized his own approach was too reliant on the result, rather than the process. With the help of a sports psychologist he started seeing after the Cardinals were upset by Gilman in the 2011 championship, Kelly reframed the way he communicated. Calvert Hall never discusses its past championships. After every practice, Kelly also tells his players that lacrosse is what you do. It’s not who you are.

“He cares a lot about lacrosse, and it’s a big part of his life, but he is focused on much more than that,” says Syracuse midfielder Brendan Curry (CHC ’17). “That’s a way he gains trust in us. We know he has our best interests first, even before lacrosse.”

It’s a lesson Kelly learned from his own playing days. The youngest of four boys who all played at Calvert Hall, Kelly (CHC ‘87) turned into a star defender and was one of four Cardinals on the first U.S. U19 team in 1988 that won gold in Australia. But at Chapel Hill, after a severe ankle sprain and back surgery limited his playing time, he felt lost. He was filled with doubt. He defined himself by how much and how well he played. 

“My foundation was built on the sand of lacrosse,” he says. “It was my God.”

Kelly got involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. At an Athletes in Action meeting, he heard evangelist Billy Graham say a coach can have more of an influence than a parent. 

“I realized that’s what I wanted to do,” Kelly says. “I want to have an impact on these kids. I look at Calvert Hall coaching as my ministry.”

Kelly leaned on his faith during the 2018 season after Dave Huntley died of a heart attack Dec. 18, 2017. Huntley, 60, was more than a lacrosse genius who brought a Canadian flair to the Cardinals. “He was like a second father to me and my brothers,” Daniel Kelly says. “He was my dad’s best friend. He had a massive impact on my life and forever will.”

The Cardinals experienced another loss when the father of senior captain Peter Illardo died the morning of the MIAA seminal game against Loyola after what was described as a lengthy illness. Calvert Hall still prevailed 15-9, then topped Boys’ Latin 8-6 two days later at Johnny Unitas Stadium. 

The championship game was on the 18th. That was Huntley’s number at Hopkins. “I don’t think most teams could have handled what they handled emotionally and mentally,” Bryan Kelly says. 

That year’s theme was “Let’s Hunt 18.” Last year’s was “Gratitude.” Kelly hasn’t decided what the driving force for this spring will be yet. “Sometimes God gives me a theme quickly, sometimes he doesn’t,” he says. “I’m still praying over what our theme is for this year.”

U19 Pipeline

Fifteen Calvert Hall (Md.) products have suited up for the seven-time world champion U.S. U19 team, including four who will represent Team USA this summer at the
2020 games in Ireland.

To view more high school content, head to USLaxMagazine.com/high-school. For the Nike/US Lacrosse High School Boys' Preseason National Top 25, click here. To see who made the list of 25 high school boys' lacrosse players to watch, click here.