As the 23-man U.S. men’s national team roster emerged out of a ballroom in the Omni Hotel in Champions Gate, Fla., the faces told the story of a group of men from various points in their lacrosse careers united in one of the greatest moments of their lives.
The hallway was filled with the celebratory congratulations on an honor bestowed upon few in the lacrosse community — a member of the U.S. men’s World Championship roster.
After a discussion-filled night between John Danowski and his coaching staff in the same ballroom, the group (which includes assistants Joe Amplo, Seth Tierney and Charley Toomey) came to a decision. Early in the morning, they delivered the news to the entire U.S. training team, addressing both those who made the team and those who did not.
The roster announcement meeting ran 30 minutes in full, at which point the U.S. roster returned to the ballroom to celebrate with the coaching staff and get right to work.
“The experience that we were fortunate enough to be able to have in 2018 and those guys that were part of the game that we called the Forever Game — to me, that was the Forever Experience,” Amplo said. “It’s all those relationships and the time you get to spend with each other. You guys are about to get involved in that, too.”
There were six players selected for the 2023 U.S. team that played in Netanya, Israel, in 2018, celebrating a last-second gold medal victory over Canada. Names like Michael Ehrhardt, Tom Schreiber and Rob Pannell returned to the U.S. tryout process with a good chance to make another run — but not every gold medalist followed the same path.
Jack Kelly, who tore his ACL in Netanya on July 14, 2018, against Australia, not only missed the rest of the world championship but didn’t suit up for a lacrosse game for over 1,000 days. His rehab was a roller coaster of ups and downs that had him focused on being able to live a normal life, much less play lacrosse again.
After almost three years of working on his recovery, Kelly returned to the field with Redwoods LC in the summer of 2021. Once he got back into playing shape, the goal of playing with the U.S. quickly came back into view.
He competed in The World Games this summer with the U.S. Sixes team and felt confident in a run for the senior team. The first player to walk out of the room upon seeing his name among the 23, Kelly was rightfully counting his blessings.
“This was my ultimate goal,” Kelly said. “For me, there was a point where I thought I was never going to play lacrosse again. There was a point where I didn’t want to play lacrosse again. … As things started to slowly turn around, I was like, ‘I can definitely do this.’ My goal was to get back to the 2023 team, because it was taken away from me after the injury. Now, the work is not done.”