At times on the sideline last season, 47-year-old John Tillman looked like a Millennial in an elevator: face down in an iPhone. Well, in his case, a tablet.
The 2017 Maryland men’s lacrosse team’s legacy is no doubt cemented as the group of 50 that ended the program’s 42-year NCAA championship drought, the one that finally emerged victorious in the team’s fifth Memorial Day Monday appearance in Tillman’s first seven seasons leading the Terps.
But when they look back at the on-field highlights of their 9-6 championship game win over Ohio State — Matt Rambo’s diving backhand goal that gave them an 8-3 lead with 10:36 left, Dan Morris’ low save with under two minutes to go that ended a Buckeyes three-goal run, Tim Rotanz’s empty-netter from beyond the box with 59 seconds remaining to ice it and Jon Garino’s faceoff wins in between — there’s also bound to be a few clips of Maryland’s physically fit head coach tapping and scrolling on a black-encased piece of technology. He was looking at some of those same images, except almost immediately after they happened.
Yes, that was a tablet in Tillman’s hand, or tucked under his armpit, or in the back of his pants, or covered with plastic when it started to rain. Looking just like an NFL coach with a Microsoft Surface to the 30,000 fans at Gillette Stadium and more than 400,000 watching on TV.
Tillman is not the first lacrosse coach to use video capabilities, even during games. But as a head coach and figurehead of a program utilizing such technology liberally in the postseason, he may have become the game’s most visible user. The Maryland program will be considered a trailblazer of sorts, taking advantage of the broad language added to the NCAA rulebook last offseason that allows for technology to be legally used on the sideline for coaching purposes.
As part of a creative and innovative cloud-based system designed by a third-party provider called DVSport, a Pittsburgh company that provides services for teams in many sports and replay technology in college football, Tillman and the Maryland staff reviewed plays almost immediately after they occurred on the field.
“You can basically watch parts of the game,” Tillman said. “Any team could do it if they wanted to. You can’t get too caught up in watching, because you won’t watch the game, and our game is really fast. But I try to pick my spots where maybe I can catch something.”
Last April, during the first of three eventual meetings between Maryland and Ohio State, a TV camera panned to Tillman in the immediate moments after Buckeyes midfielder Johnny Pearson’s overtime goal. He was head down in the tablet.