Gerry Byrne has fielded more calls about playing time than he’d like to remember. But one he received in the summer of 2013 was different.
Byrne, the Harvard men’s lacrosse coach who was the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame at the time, remembers exactly where he was — driving over the Golden Gate Bridge with a group of friends on their way to Napa Valley — when Eddy Glazener called.
The incoming freshman’s question was different than most, too. It was the right one.
“Coach,” Glazener asked Byrne. “How do I get better to contribute to the success of the team?”
Standing on the sidelines at Homewood Field during Redwoods LC’s 13-11 win over Chrome LC last June, Byrne was reminded of that conversation and transported back to Arlotta Stadium. The Woods bore a resemblance to the teams he coached in South Bend due to more than their colors. Their roster that weekend in Baltimore featured seven former Fighting Irish standouts — and at times comprised the entire defense apart from Premier Lacrosse League Rookie of the Year goalie Tim Troutner.
Byrne watched Garrett Epple score on a ridiculous toe-drag shovel shot. He saw Matt Landis stifle Jordan Wolf.
“Those guys will tell you I was probably one step away from being in their huddle and holding a whiteboard,” said Byrne, who has been known to text his former players during games.
He didn’t need to worry. At the center of the Redwoods unit, Glazener conducted a master class in off-ball defense and communication.
“He’s irreplaceable,” Epple said. “There’s no one else in the game that can do what he does.”
Epple, a first-team All-American in 2017, racked up the most caused turnovers in the PLL last year. Landis, a two-time Schmeisser Award winner as the nation’s top collegiate defenseman, produced consistent shutdown performances last summer that helped coin the catchy anagram “Landis Island.”
Glazener’s resume doesn’t boast similar on-field accolades, although he did make the ACC All-Academic Team. While he can pull off a slick behind-the-back assist when needed, his impact — primarily as an interior off-ball defenseman — is more subtle.
That is, unless, as PLL fans learned, he’s mic’d up. Lacrosse fanatics shared the clips on Twitter like they’re songs from Taylor’s Swift’s latest album. Glazener turned into their beau ideal.
The talk isn’t just for show. Glazener is as loud in practice as he is in games. As someone who doesn’t face the opponent’s top attackman every game, he feels a responsibility to constantly communicate and make sure everyone stays organized. “You want to over-communicate in an efficient manner,” Glazener said on the “Phi-Lacrosse-ophy” podcast with Jamie Munro.
This weekend when the Redwoods kick off the PLL Championship Series — a fanless and fully quarantined two-week tournament in Herriman, Utah — against the Whipsnakes in a rematch of last year’s championship, you’ll likely hear little idle talk from Glazener. There’s no wasted verbiage. He delivers his instructions in short, screeching staccato bursts. Where others see chaos, he creates order.
“He’s the air traffic controller,” Byrne said.
Glazener seems equally comfortable shouting commands, but conscious of his less-visible role. His default mode online or in conversation is self-deprecating. He often refers to himself as a “backup dancer” to Epple and Landis. He theorized his player ranking in “Casey Powell Lacrosse 2020,” if there was such a thing, would be 64. On second thought, he added in the tweet, that might be too high.
“He has a great self-awareness,” Byrne said. “That is a really important trait for an athlete. If you can never connect where you are trying to get to with where you are and also knowing who you are, you will constantly be disappointed.”
Like many student-athletes who attend top-tier programs, Glazener soon realized his limitations in South Bend. He knew he couldn’t take away the ball at will or get by with the same aggressive, full-court-press style like he did as a four-year starter at The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, Calif. He’s listed at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, but he didn’t have the jaw-dropping athleticism of Landis, who started as a freshman at Notre Dame and became a two-time Tewaaraton Award finalist.
Glazener, a self-described “late bloomer” who originally committed to play at Division III Amherst, started on the scout team. Unlike so many of his peers who were maybe too stubborn or afraid to alter their ways, he adapted. Evolved, even.
“I realized my niche could be more of an interior-focused defender who understands the defense perfectly without fail and takes pressure off the other guys,” he said.
Perhaps it makes sense, then, that the Redwoods captain whose greatest asset is his ability to focus not only on his man and the ball, but also the entire 180-degree panorama of the defense, adopted a long view.
“I need you to become the PhD of our defense,” Byrne told the pre-med and economics double major on that pivotal phone call.
Never one to shy away from taking on a challenge — whether that’s Notre Dame’s freshman karaoke competition, also known as “Irish Idol,” or learning to play the bagpipes his sophomore season — Glazener embraced his new role. He didn’t try to be someone he wasn’t.
The transformation didn’t happen overnight. Glazener aggravated a torn labrum in his right shoulder his freshman year. He pushed off surgery (and still hasn’t gone under the knife) so he could gain experience on the practice squad. He set out to master his position and everyone else’s on the defense. Byrne’s system and vocabulary felt like an AP class. Glazener now details the intricacies of “secondary and tertiary”' slides the way a credit trader discusses a bond’s yield down to the basis point.
Along the way, Glazener leaned on Landis. Byrne called their relationship “symbiotic.”
“Their friendship off the field and on the field basically created this exponential effect,” he said. “They helped each other become great players with the pieces that the other one didn’t have.”
When Glazener cracked the man-down unit his sophomore year and began to get more first-team reps, he started to see patterns emerge. He earned a starting role his junior season. He was a captain his senior year and buoyed the nation’s sixth-ranked defense that allowed just eight goals per game.
By reimagining the type of player he could be, Byrne believes, Glazener redefined the attributes that great defensemen can aspire to.
“It's great that he’s become a defensive stalwart [at the pro level] because of the totality of what he does,” Byrne said. “Usually you have to shoot 100 mph, or throw these takeaway checks, or be able to run the 40 [yard dash] in 4.4. Eddy has none of those attributes. It’s all that he does that has allowed him to elevate to this place in the game. That creates a hopefulness for young defensemen who can do a bunch of things well, none of which maybe other people can recognize yet.”
That includes professional coaches. After Notre Dame’s 17-15 loss to North Carolina in the 2016 NCAA quarterfinals, Glazener moved to New York City to work at CitiBank, where he’s now a credit trader. His pro lacrosse prospects were less promising. He was not selected in the Major League Lacrosse draft.
“I pretty much thought it was over for me, to be honest,” he said.
But the next year, Glazener’s Notre Dame classmate Matt Kavanagh put in a word with the Denver Outlaws coaches and helped get him a tryout at their training camp. Again, Glazener had to prove himself. Again, he made the most of his opportunity.
“If you love the game and you love competing enough, you can make it happen,” he said.
Still, after two professional seasons, Glazener felt like something was missing. He found a sense of place again with the Redwoods in the inaugural PLL campaign. “The ability to go back and relive the way we were playing in college was incredible,” he said.
Glazener felt like he picked up right where he left off with Landis and Epple — the other two members of the (un)holy trinity — not to mention long-stick midfielder John Sexton and short-stick defensive midfielders Jack Near and Nick Ossello. They’re all Notre Dame products. They also got another chance to prove they were the best defense in the country and finish the season on a high note — after all those years in college that ended in dramatic and narrow playoff defeats.
The Redwoods’ playoff hopes looked doomed after losing to the Whipsnakes 17-4 in Week 9. It was the only game Glazener missed after dislocating his right shoulder a week earlier. His return coincided with their run to the championship game, where they met the Whipsnakes again. The Redwoods rallied from a 9-2 deficit to take an 11-10 lead late in the fourth quarter, but PLL MVP Matt Rambo scored with 21 seconds left in regulation and then again in overtime to give the Whips a 12-11 victory at Talen Energy Stadium in Chester, Pa.
“Everyone, especially the coaching staff, spent a long time this offseason thinking about what we could have done differently to make certain that doesn't happen again,” Glazener said.
Glazener and the rest of the Redwoods will play on PLL Island without Landis Island. Last year’s championship loss was even harder to stomach, because they knew Landis would likely not join them this year. He embarked on his other dream to become a Navy SEAL and is currently in BUD/S training in Coronado, Calif.
Redwoods coach Nat St. Laurent brought in Finn Sullivan through the entry draft and added 2019 Notre Dame grad Hugh Crance from the player pool to shore up the defense.
“We don’t even necessarily look at it like a challenge,” Epple said of the unit’s new look. “We’re versatile. It’s something we’ve done and practiced for, so we’ll be ready.”
Although Glazener will not belt out “Scotland The Brave” on the pipes when the Redwoods take the field at Zions Bank Stadium on Saturday (4 p.m. Eastern on NBC), he hopes to continue another tradition that has its origins in South Bend. Landis reimagined it last summer with a MSA V-Gard Full Brim Hard Hat in “Standard Green” that he bought on Amazon for $15.49 and decorated with three Redwoods stickers.
In lieu of a game ball, the Warden of Woods award goes to the Redwoods player who provided a spark. The symbol of the hard hat embodies the way the team wants to play.
“I think the Redwoods are a physical team,” Landis said a few days before the 2019 championship game. “We get after it and we get in your face. We let you know we’re there.”
After blanking Connor Fields in their semifinal matchup last September, Landis was the last Warden of the Woods. Word around the Woods camp is that the hard hat has found its way to Utah and is inside the PLL bubble.
So if all goes to plan Saturday night, Glazener will have to make another phone call.
“We'll have to loop Matt in on Saturday after the game and the win,” he said, “so he can crown the next Warden of the Woods.”