After 13 weeks in the 2018 MLL season, John Grant Jr. has played a big role in the success of the Denver Outlaws.

The team is 7-5, in third place in the league, rebounding from a 1-4 start. The team leads the league in goals (200), goals per game (16.7), and shooting percentage (.349). 

Grant isn’t helping the team by scoring, however. After a 13-year MLL career, where he retired as the league’s all-time leader in career points, Grant returned to the Denver Outlaws as the team’s offensive coordinator.

“I’m preparing more as a coach than as a player,” Grant said. “I want to be a better coach than I was a player.”

While many accomplished lacrosse minds have manned the sidelines for MLL teams, the league – now in its 18h season – is in a position where former players want to stay in the league and are taking MLL coaching positions.

In addition to Grant in Denver, more than half the teams in the league currently employ at least one former MLL player on their coaching staffs: Liam Banks, Spencer Ford, and Jamie Hanford in Atlanta; Ben Rubeor in Boston; Bill Warder and Jeremy Boltus in Dallas; and Ryan Danehy and Brian Dougherty in New York. Brian Spallina also helped coach the Lizards when his brother, Joe, missed a game early in the season because of his commitments with the Stony Brook women’s team.

Athletes often think about what comes after retirement, and for several players, coaching in the league was one of those options.

“I had a miserable season in 2016 [in Denver],” Grant said. “Obviously, we were 1-6. [Management] said, ‘There’s some teams interested in trading for you,’ and I wasn’t jazzed about it.”

“I said, ‘I was hoping there would be a future when I was done playing. As far as being on the staff, I love this organization, and I’d like to be a part of it,’” he added. “They said, ‘You go play, and when you’re done and retired, we’d love to talk about it.’ I got drilled with the [NLL’s Colorado] Mammoth that season. I had knee surgery and a concussion. I decided to retire in the MLL and retired on a Monday. They called on Wednesday and said, ‘You’re done. Would you like to help coach?’”

To reach the professional level of lacrosse, players like Boltus and Rubeor need to have great coaches and mentors. Now in a similar position, they hope to have similar effects on their players.

For Boltus, who is in his first season as an assistant coach with the Dallas Rattlers just after retiring following the 2017 season, he takes what he needed as a player into consideration as a coach.

“[The Rattlers players and I are] close, but there’s times where tough love is necessary. Sometimes guys need a boot in the butt,” he said. “The goal is to win the championship. To go from playing with them and then coaching them, I feel these guys are professionals, and we need to let them do what they do. I try to be just an extra set of eyes for coach [Bill] Warder, coach [Jacques] Monte, and for the team.”

Warder only played in Major League Lacrosse for one season and went through the experience of not dressing as part of the active roster and getting cut from the team. He said he feels those experiences, however, help him understand what his players are going through and help develop his coaching philosophy.

“From a coaching standpoint, I thought keep it simple lacrosse, maximum effort, and worry about how you’re approaching it mentally and physically; it’s not what you’re running, but how you’re running it,” he said. “Junior and Jeremy, they played as hard as they can in the time they did it. I loved practice more than games because you could try and compete and have fun.”

Even Grant, who is known as one of the best players in lacrosse history, said his intangibles are what led to his success, and they are what he preaches as a coach.

“I know as a player I had to outthink people,” he said. “I had to play through pain and physical limitation. I teach that. There’s a way to do it. It doesn’t have to be the way I do it, or he does it, but there’s a way, and I’d like to help you with that.”

“When you’re coaching, there is the give and take that, ‘He isn’t playing. He doesn’t know what it’s like,’ but I narrowed that gap because they did it with me, and they know I practice what I preach,” Grant added. “I want them to play for each other. If they play hard, the score will take care of itself.”

Coaching players individuals played with and against is a challenge recent retirees like Boltus face, but he credits the team for making that transition easier than it could’ve been.

“I don’t want credit because I know it’s a player’s league, and they’re professionals, they are friends, they know the relationship we have,” said Boltus. “To remain coachable makes the whole process easier. It comes with our culture and climate. Rattlers players leave their egos at the door. I do appreciate the guys, my friends, my good friends, they listen and respect my decisions knowing I’ve been through it as well.”

Active, younger players wanted to be on teams with stars like Grant and Rubeor so they could learn from those veteran, championship-winning players while playing alongside them. Grant won five MLL championships, and Rubeor hoisted the Steinfeld Trophy three times.

Rubeor said playing on such great teams in the past help him realize how the team he coaches can also be successful.

“I think having been a player, I was lucky enough to be on three championship teams,” he said. “What I realized was, one, everybody has enough talent. It’s so much more about the group dynamic and how the pieces fit together and how guys work with each other. Two, I’ve realized you’re not out of it until you’re out of it in this league. It’s a beautiful game and a beautiful league. When you get some momentum, beautiful things can happen, so you have to keep at it.”

What has been a challenge for Rubeor, however, is learning how to deal with defeat. 

While Grant and Boltus coach teams at the top of the standings, pushing for the playoffs, Rubeor’s Cannons are at a different place than the Bayhawks teams he played for. Through Week 13, Boston was tied for last place in the league standings with a 3-9 record.

“We’ve had a bunch of different faces, guys in and out of the lineup for a bunch of different reasons,” he said. “Comradery, cohesiveness, chemistry, they take some time to build on the offensive end. It’s getting everyone on the same page and getting the collective group to play their best. That’s what coaching is. It’s why I do this thing. It’s been a great challenge. The guys that I get to work with, I hope they think it’s going in the right direction because I certainly do.”

Boltus, Rubeor, and Grant agreed coaching has been a rewarding and fun experience, one they anticipate more MLL players, past and present, will look to get into.

Warder, in his first season as the head coach and added Boltus to the staff, shared his opinions on other MLL players he thought would make great additions to the MLL sidelines.

“Another name that pops up, Brodie Merrill would be a phenomenal coach in this league. Brodie, what he does with his other lacrosse opportunities, he’s a great business person, great leader, poised, one of the best defenders to play the game,” he said. “Casey Powell is a guy I thought would be an unbelievable head coach. From a tactical side, Ryan Boyle, the analytics of the game, he’s a Princeton guy. The other Mount Rushmore of potential MLL coaches would be Kevin Leveille … and Matt Striebel.” 

“[Striebel] knows the X's and O's really well,” he added. “There’s actually a play we implement from the Striebel Rattler days that he drew up one day in the locker room seven or eight years ago. It still works. It has a little wrinkle, but some stuff, it just works.”

There is a growing contingent of former MLL players signing on to coach in the league they once starred in. Those coaches believe more are coming. They are confident about that because they know how competitive the players are.

“Whether it’s guys sticking around to sign autographs or the way they talk to fans, the sacrifices they’re willing to make in their personal lives [are] for the league to grow and get better,” Rubeor said. “I’m not surprised former players are getting into the coaching side. One, it’s fun. Two, it’s competitive.”

They also know how committed everyone in the league is to the growth of the league.

“It’s something we’re all trying to build,” Grant said, “Maybe, in the future, we’ll look back and say, ‘I remember when it was nine teams and guys were doing it for peanuts.’”

“There’s a lot of pride in the lacrosse community, especially in the MLL,” Boltus added. “They’ve been publicized good, bad or indifferent. The one thing that remains constant is, the players and former players, everyone wants the league to succeed. The performance on the field is due to hard work with the coaches and players and everyone involved in this thing.”