This article appears in the February edition of US Lacrosse Magazine, available exclusively to US Lacrosse members. Join or renew today! Thank you for your support.

In the coming months, you will likely hear a deluge of numbers bandied about in an attempt to define the 2021 Duke men’s lacrosse team.

There’s the 15 graduate students…the 56-man roster…the nine returning top scorers from 2020…the 302 points Michael Sowers tallied at Princeton… the 317 points prized recruit Brennan O’Neill registered at St. Anthony’s (N.Y.). 

Yet there is one less flashy statistic that coach John Danowski would rather emphasize.

Zero.

That’s the number of positive COVID-19 tests — out of about 1,700 administered — the team had during the fall semester. 

“It can be done,” Danowski said.

During an hour-long interview in late November, Danowski could have easily focused on the on-field prospects of the team most of his colleagues consider the runaway favorite to win the NCAA championship this spring. Instead, he praised the discipline and maturity the Blue Devils displayed throughout the fall. Sure, he knows that inherent to Duke’s clean sheet was an element of luck not unlike the games themselves, of which he has won more than any other coach in Division I history.

The last of those came against Jacksonville on March 10, 2020. Despite the team’s now virtually annual early-season struggles that included losses to Air Force and Penn, the Blue Devils seemed to round into shape like most Danowski-led teams do at that point. A 16-15 overtime victory over Richmond, during which freshman attackman Dyson Williams scored seven goals, kicked off a four-game winning streak.

On March 11 at 4:45 p.m., Danowski was on the phone with a US Lacrosse Magazine writer for a feature story about Williams. The subject quickly turned to that afternoon’s shocking news.

The Ivy League had canceled all spring sports.

At the time, Duke was still planning to travel to Towson that weekend.

“The game is not a means to an end,” Danowski said. “It’s something that we love to do. We’re saddened for the coaches and the players who have to miss their season that I’m sure they’ve been working so diligently for up until this point. I’m sure that the players are crushed as well as the coaches. Our hearts go out to those guys.

“We feel a deep sense of that brotherhood for the loss of competition this spring, but if people think it’s in the best interest of their health and safety of their families and communities, who are we to pass judgement?”

Twenty-four hours later, when the NCAA shut down all sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Danowski broke the same news to his players. It was his 66th birthday. This was not a time for celebration. Danowski is not sure if he was simply trying to be optimistic, but he told the team there was a potential silver lining.

“Nobody thought that the NCAA would grant a fifth year,” he said. “I mean, that was absolutely not in our thinking at all. We told them that it would be a silver lining and 10 of them took us up on that offer.”

Two-time captain and US Lacrosse Magazine Preseason Defenseman of the Year JT Giles-Harris struggled to stay optimistic when it felt like the worst possible scenario was unfolding. One day, he looked forward to an extra week of spring break and taking a team picture. The next, he thought his college lacrosse career was over.

A week later, however, the NCAA announced it would grant an extra year of eligibility to all spring sports student-athletes. Once Giles-Harris knew the option to return to Durham was on the table, it took him all of “like 40 minutes” to say yes.

“I wasn’t ready to go,” he said. “I didn’t realize it until the season was canceled that I wasn’t ready. Once it became an option to come back, it wasn’t really that hard of a decision to make.”

Danowski believes there was power in the class of 2020’s unity and a comfort level that helped the tight-knit group buy in for another year.

“A degree from Fuqua doesn’t hurt either,” Danowski said, referring to Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.

Added to that mix are the five graduate transfers, chief among them Sowers, who broke the Princeton career scoring record in 47 games and was the likely pick for the Tewaaraton Award last spring. O’Neill, the No. 1 recruit according to Inside Lacrosse and a U.S. U20 team standout, also will likely make an immediate impact on an offense that averaged 15.25 goals last spring without their two leading scorers from the year before. Joe Robertson, who missed all of 2020 with a knee injury, put up 119 points in 38 career games. The senior attackman continued his rehab in the fall, but will be ready for the spring.

“With everything that happened last year,” Robertson said, “you never know when it’s going to be your last practice or your last game.”

While walking back to Koskinen Stadium, junior attackman JP Basile vividly remembered asking Robertson what they were going to do once they got back to Durham.

“We’re going to make it count,” Robertson recalled during a Zoom interview sitting next to Basile last November in the off-campus house they share with Sowers, Cameron Mulé and Phil Robertson, Joe’s older brother and another graduate transfer from Princeton.

On the white painted wall behind Basile was a poster of Kobe Bryant slamming home a windmill dunk. Behind Joe Robertson were framed copies of the 2018 and 2019 Duke team pictures. Asked where the 2020 edition was, Robertson said he wasn’t sure if they received it yet. (They hadn’t.) He hoped they would get one soon. 

In the aftermath of the 2020 season’s cancellation, Duke started holding Zoom meetings every day at 3 p.m. to provide a sense of continuity and connection. By the second day, Danowski realized he couldn’t hold everyone’s virtual attention. He made some calls. 

The team hosted more than two dozen speakers over the next several months on the topic of leadership in crisis. They ranged from former Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn to ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas to retired U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey — the 18th chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff. Even the actor Peter Dante, best known for his roles in Adam Sandler movies like “The Waterboy” and “Mr. Deeds,” provided some levity and answered questions about his eclectic filmography. He played for Danowski at Hofstra in the late 1980s. 

The series concluded with Duke president Dr. Vincent Price. 

“Every one of them was different and unique and really impressive,” Danowski said.

Like the role practice played in the fall, the meetings became the favorite part of many players’ days. But on the first day the team convened in person, there were no guest speakers or Q&As. Instead of practice, they held a meeting during which each of the team’s players of color shared their stories. Their teammates followed their lead. 

Danowski had just finished reading “Across That Bridge: A Vision For Change and the Future of America,” by the late John Lewis. He assigned a chapter to each class to foster conversations about how it made them feel. The entire team also discussed the final chapter titled “Peace.”

Once Duke started full team practices in October, each class was assigned a moment in civil rights history that they researched and then shared with the rest of the team. 

“It starts with educating ourselves,” reads the caption of a video from Unity Week.

“Nakeie did a great job of challenging the coaches and his teammates in a very thoughtful way,” Danowski said of Nakeie Montgomery, the senior midfielder from Dallas. “I owe him a lot for that.”

Montgomery, who is Black, took on multiple leadership responsibilities for Duke in the fall. He also served as the player-coach of Peithos in the inaugural Duke Outdoor Lacrosse League (DOLL) — a player-run series of intra-squad games. Montgomery called his coaching style more “collaborative” and let Giles-Harris, who also is Black, and fifth-year senior goalie Turner Uppgren handle the defensive assignments.

The series of scrimmages got their origins from the Duke Indoor Lacrosse League (DILL). While the setting was different, the coaching staff did carry over the tongue-in-cheek game recaps penned by offensive coordinator Matt Danowski, John’s son. Most were filled with Will Ferrell movie references.

“I don’t know if the guys think it’s funny or not, but it gave me a laugh when I wrote it up and sent it out,” he said. “I couldn’t go too far back looping in ‘Slap Shot’ or ‘Major League’ because they wouldn’t know what I was talking about.” 

How could Duke’s coaches make the DOLL fun? It was their driving impulse after the disappointment every player experienced last season.

There was a virtual draft where the top brass of each team dressed up in suits. Everyone got a ton of playing time. The two squads, McSallies and Peithos, wore game jerseys and the winner got to select their combination for the next contest. They opened up the game day locker rooms even though they weren’t playing at Koskinen Stadium and had given up their regular locker room to the men’s soccer team this fall.

“If you watch one of our practices, they’re just as intense as one of the games,” Montgomery said. “It was exciting to go out and compete for something.”

The coaching staff originally hoped Duke’s sports performance coach, Carl Christenson, could build a trophy since he’s a craftsman. Christenson could not produce one on such short notice though, so they got creative and repurposed a Battle at Bethpage silver cup into the DOLL Championship Cup.

“We couldn’t think of a better name,” Matt Danowski said. “Maybe we’ll hold it out for a donation.”

The seven-game series also offered more evaluation opportunities given Duke’s abnormally large roster. The coaches graded the film every Monday morning, then gave each team and players feedback.

“If you’re not playing as hard as you can all the time, you’re going to stand out because there is somebody who is,” Matt Danowski said.

That lesson was further reinforced after the fifth game of the DOLL, when McSallies led 3-2 in the standings. However, John Danowski announced, the first game — originally considered an exhibition — would now count. Game seven would decide the champion.

“You never know which play wins you a game,” John Danowski said.

While Sowers and McSallies fell to Peithos in the championship, more than any statistic or highlight-reel play, his first experience wearing a Duke jersey brought back the pure joy of playing that he had missed for almost seven months.

“To cap the long weeks of practice with those scrimmages was awesome,” said Sowers, US Lacrosse Magazine’s Preseason Player of the Year. “You knew every weekend was going to be a battle because the teams were so evenly balanced.”

John Danowski understands now more than ever that the playing field is unlevel. “Every school is not as lucky as we are,” he said.

Duke has 15 on-campus test sites and a central laboratory based inside the medical school’s Human Vaccine institute. Throughout the fall, it had a group of student volunteers and staff members, known as the C-Team, that walked around campus and encouraged students to comply with COVID directions.

The university earned praise from the Los Angeles Times in an article that highlighted its rigorous testing, tracking and surveillance program. When a Wake Forest women’s soccer player tested positive after a game against Duke, school officials watched the game tape to assess contact tracing. They determined no further isolations were necessary to limit the effect of the positive exposure.

While the Duke men’s lacrosse team held seven 20-hour weeks of practice in the fall, some coaches at other schools have only seen their players through a screen since March. The influx of graduate transfers in light of the NCAA eligibility extension also shifted the Division I landscape overnight. While providing a breakdown of the top-20 teams, a rival assistant coach shared a sentiment probably felt by most in his ranks.

“The rich got richer.”

When asked to submit preseason rankings of the top teams and players in 2021, another Division I head coach simply replied, “GoDuke.com has all that info.”

When the Nike/US Lacrosse Preseason Top 20 came out Jan. 6 with Duke at No. 1, a Twitter user with the handle “michael sowers for tewaaraton” offered a slight correction.

“Should just be 1. duke 2. everybody else.”

Turn to page 24 and you’ll see another Division I head coach who shares the fan’s sentiment.

“They are Secretariat,” the coach said, “and the rest of us are old farm mules.”

John Danowski said Duke has a full 15-game schedule on paper and is prepared to meet the demands of the ACC’s testing standards — three tests the week before a game and one test 48 hours after competition. Still, as we learned in 2020, even the utmost diligence is not a cure-all. The Duke and Wake Forest football teams played each other every year dating back to 1967. A COVID-19 outbreak among the Demon Deacons ended that streak.

“Pfizer and Moderna are the two leading squads in Division I right now,” Danowski said. 

He almost cried when he read that the Moderna vaccine was 94.1-percent effective against COVID-19. While he encouraged “staying in the moment” to the team during the fall, in that moment he allowed himself to look ahead. Not to Memorial Day weekend, but closer to April — the time of year when hope springs eternal in Durham. The weather gets nice, and the sun stays up a little bit longer before it sets behind the stands at Koskinen Stadium.

Danowski didn’t need a picture to imagine the scene. As much as the coaching staff tried to make the DOLL feel like real games, there was still one crucial element missing: fans.

Maybe, just maybe, Danowski thought, by April there will be people back in the stands watching lacrosse.

“I think I can speak for the majority [of coaches] I talked to and none of us care about winning and losing,” he said. “We care about the kids playing again. We’ll play Saturday, Sunday. We’ll play double headers. We’ll play split squads. We’ll do whatever it takes so these kids can play the sport they love again.”