For the previous eight plus years, Rees’ contributions were mostly limited to practice. At Boys’ Latin (Md.), he found himself on the depth chart behind Jack Pezzulla, the No. 1 goalie in the Class of 2016 according to Inside Lacrosse. After a year at the Naval Academy Prep School where Rees was also a backup option, the trend persisted. He learned for three years behind Ryan Kern, who started every one of the 45 games he played at Navy.
“A big part of it is just believing in yourself and not worrying too much about it because it’s essentially out of your control,” Rees said. “The biggest thing for me was always the friendships and just focusing on those because that’s what makes playing lacrosse so meaningful.”
Rees’ ability to remain undeterred carries over onto the field and is as ingrained as his dry wit.
“He’s been like that his whole life,” said his father, Cliff Rees. “I always tell [my wife] Suzie and everybody, ‘I can’t tell if he's happy, if he’s sad, if he’s mad, if he’s down.’ You just never know because he goes along at the same, even keel.”
Cliff Rees, a 1988 graduate of the Naval Academy who played on three NCAA tournament basketball teams — including the 1986 squad that David Robinson led to the Elite Eight — witnessed his youngest son’s stoic attitude up close on the hardwood. From the time he was 6 years old all the way through high school, his dad was his basketball coach.
Asked for a scout, he called his son a pure shooter who had the greenlight whenever he stepped over half court.
Although Spencer Rees had the potential to play Division III basketball, he instead chose Annapolis, following in the footsteps of his father and his older brothers, Matt and Casey. The elder Rees brothers, separated by 13 months, both earned All-Americans honors on the lacrosse team. Matt Rees, who graduated in 2017, is now a long-stick midfielder for the Premier Lacrosse League’s Chaos LC. He holds the Midshipmen’s program record for caused turnovers (84).
“They’ve always been big shoes to fill just knowing what they’ve done with their careers,” Spencer Rees said.
While he said most people assume his brothers shot on him “all the time” growing up, that wasn’t the case.
“Fortunately we had a sloped backyard, so that couldn’t occur that much,” he deadpanned. To this day, he’d rather take his chances in basketball or golf against his brothers than stare down their shots.